Conversations with Colleagues: Dr. Marie Waung on Teaching Online

By: Ilir Miteza, Associate Provost for Graduate, Global, and Digital Education 

In this blog we plan to feature a few conversations with colleagues revolving around teaching, learning, and academic success. Last week I sat with my CASL colleague Dr. Marie Waung, a professor of industrial & organizational psychology, to discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching online. I hope you’ll agree that her take is interesting, informative, and … funny!

1. Do you use a different paradigm when you teach online, or do you think of your course as a virtual classroom, taught in the same way as a traditional course? 

I approach my face-to-face and online courses in a similar manner, emphasizing student engagement, and instructor organization and flexibility. I view technology as a tool that can increase the accessibility of my courses; however, the courses themselves are driven by content and student engagement. In any online interaction there is a danger of forgetting that there is a human being at the other end. To combat this I set up small interactions to build rapport. For example, I have an online discussion during the first week of class where I respond personally to each student's post - usually we talk about topics unrelated to the course, such as what they are binge watching, to which Hogwarts house they belong, their pets and siblings, unusual hobbies, National Parks visited, favorite childhood books. I also send each student a personal email through Canvas after each of the three exams outlining their performance on the exam, how they did compared to the rest of the class, and what they might do to improve their performance. 

2. How long did it take you to say 'I've got this! I know what it takes to teach a great online course!"? What was that journey like? 

I started teaching online in 1998 as part of the U of M - Dearborn/UAW-Ford program(₁). The course was taught synchronously with video feed being sent to multiple Ford plants from my classroom. Over the years online teaching has evolved tremendously. Rapid advances in video technology, learning platforms, and pedagogical best practices make it difficult to say "I've got this." More accurately I can say, "I've got this for now." I appreciate that online teaching requires me to keep current with teaching and technology innovations. In addition, the skills that I have developed teaching online have helped to enhance my face-to-face courses.

3. Have you learned something about students teaching online that wasn’t obvious to you before? 

Over the years I have noticed the impact of online courses on accessibility. Compared to my face-to-face courses, my online courses serve more students with disabilities, those with young children, those without access to regular transportation, and those with unpredictable or inflexible work schedules, as well as more students of color. Almost every semester I have a student in the course who is about to give birth. The running joke with my classes is that we would like to help choose the baby's name. (So far, no "takers", but I do wish that I'd kept track of all of the babies born within my online courses.)

4. What was your proudest moment as a teacher in an online course? 

I really enjoy seeing my online students on campus, especially when they greet me enthusiastically and talk to me about the course material.  Once a student told me that her gerbil loved my (unfortunately high-pitched) voice, so that as a treat she would play my online lectures at double speed, causing her gerbil to jump on its wheel and run very fast. Perhaps, that was not my proudest moment, but it was a memorable one.

5. Do you have a list of “dos and don'ts” when teaching online? 

I don't have a list of rules about online teaching. However, I remind myself that: 1) I should not make myself crazy trying to achieve perfection; and 2) gradual, persistent change will take me far. Although large, splashy teaching innovations are appealing, they can be time-consuming to implement. I try to remember that much can be achieved through small, thoughtful changes, that are manageable even during extra busy semesters.  In general, I try to move continuously toward improvement, but I don't stress about taking time to get there. 

6. As a psychologist teaching online, what have you discovered about learning (how people learn) that confirms or refutes what you have seen in your own professional literature? 

I've incorporated a number of psychology learning principles into my courses.

• Mass versus Spaced Practice. One of the biggest challenges for students in online courses is time management. It is easy to let an online course slide when life gets busy and then cram right before an exam. However, research indicates that learning is more effective when practice is spaced over time, rather than completed all at once. I often remind students to schedule time to work on the course each week. I also divide  longer assignments into shorter chunks with due dates spaced apart.
  
• Performance Feedback. Feedback is important because it allows for an adjustment of learning strategy and/or effort. It is difficult to meet one's goals without performance feedback to mark progress. I strive to grade student work quickly to provide feedback as soon as possible, allowing  students time to adjust their effort or learning strategy. 
  
• Organization. I try to set up my courses so that they run like clockwork with very predictable due dates. This reduces the chance of  students forgetting to complete assignments/discussions. Also, material is organized by week using Canvas pages to allow students to see at a glance what needs to be completed on any given week.
  
• Examples/Humor. Relating material to what a student already knows by using examples can help new knowledge become integrated into existing knowledge or schema. Humor can help to make material more salient, which can improve memory of that material. I try to use examples and humor as much as possible.
  
• Comprehension Checks.  Providing comprehension checks and short practice quizzes is a strategy that I have found to be effective. These give students practice recalling information and applying it, which has been found to  enhance memory for the material. 

(₁) About the UAW-Ford program - In the 1990s UAW-Ford provided union members with access to classes from U of M - Dearborn as a benefit.  Workers in the plant who registered for a course could go to a designated classroom at the plant and watch lectures and participate synchronously in our classes. (I remember having classes in Dearborn and Louisville plants and maybe one other place, and I had multiple cameras and microphones that I switched to and from when a student at a plant asked a question.) My Psychology in the Workplace course was a good fit for this program so it was one of the courses added to the list the union members could choose from. A very small number of Ford employees were interested and they seemed to lose interest over time. I think they liked the idea of taking college courses more than actually taking them. Although I do remember having a few who were incredible students. Unfortunately, I have no electronic or paper records of this. In the 19990s most everything was on paper, and I think that most files were stored on floppy disks.

Students as Partners: What Students Tell Us About Learning
Ilir Miteza

This year our campus adopted some ambitious goals. Chief among them was raising our 6-year graduation rate from 54% to 70%. Let that sink in: less than 300 four-year colleges and universities out of more than 3000 nationwide are able to pull that off! In other words, we are striving to be in the top 10% of higher education institutions nationwide.

All of us at UM-Dearborn - faculty or staff - understand what’s at stake: lost time and investment, unpaid loans, dashed dreams and injured self-confidence for our students who don’t cross the finish line. Nationally, the students who can least afford a fresh start are more likely to drop out. As other universities, we spend much time and resources with those who end up dropping out, and much more to recruit and support their replacements.

Much work is done daily by the faculty, advisors, and others involved with academic success systems, to ensure our students succeed. The campus is leveraging technology, redesigning gateway courses, removing barriers, and brainstorming healthy practices in instruction and learning. Although literature and best practices can guide us, we should also listen to our students!

A student panel during Digital Education Day in March 2019 shared some insightful ideas about teaching in online courses, which I think apply equally well to most traditional courses. What did they have to say? To begin with, a long list of what they would like to see more in our classes. We heard suggestions for better ways of learning, and ideas for better course management practices.

They told us they want more avenues to learn on their own, such as team projects, essays on topics they care about, ways to engage with a variety of content, including audio-visual. Thoughtfully, they added that they see great value in active faculty guiding them, even in autonomous work.

Ideas for better course management practices included predictable weekly routines (applies more to online courses), study guides and outlines, re-doable practice assignments, and challenging homework assignments helpful for exam preparation and learning. 

What about ... um ... their pet peeves? Brace for impact! There was no lost love for “legwork” or “busywork” assignments devoid of meaning or value, focused on rote memorization, or regurgitation. There were no fans of multiple choice quizzes in the panel, either. The same goes for lessons or assignments that are too open-ended or vague. We heard “please be concrete, specific, transparent!” They did like group work, but not the kind that does not engage anyone or that is not framed with good shared accountability practices and rules.

Furthermore, the student panelists made a plea to some faculty who assign an uneven course load throughout the term. The rest of life is on set schedules: classes, work, meals, sleep, and so on. Uneven coursework distribution throws off their rhythm and makes it hard to plan and keep up. Unsurprisingly, they tipped their hat to faculty who are timely in responding to emails and calls, with a constant and engaged presence in their courses. 

I left the room thinking that much of what I had heard was quite consistent with what we see in the student success literature.  We want students to work with a variety of learning methods, including quantitative, logical, historical, analytic, all the way to creative. The meaningful assignments they are clamoring for can take them beyond the questions with known answers. They want to explore, be able to journey all the way to the unknown and unknowable. Our students know there are limits to a front-loaded knowledge model of learning; they want to know how and when to leverage facts and theories, and how to make contextual sense of them. They want to build readiness and confidence for a “messy” real world.

If we are to design better learning experiences and graduate more students on time, is listening to them enough? What do you think is possible with students as partners?