Review: Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes

Part One: Course Design

Key Question: How do you improve student engagement on an online platform?

Key Idea(s):

• Have a clear set of purposes and expectations of students when presenting a class activity.
• Regularly host in-class discussions or online discussion forums for students to voice their thoughts and opinions.
• Take advantage of digital tools* to book student engagement, such as:
  • Online videos
  • Audios
  • Images

*Sourcing for online media can be hard, and at times can present barriers for students when accessing your materials. In such a case, you can try creating your original tools and resources, and try to better understand the online system to lower any challenges your students may face.

Part Two: Teaching Humans

Key Question: How do you “deliberately design” a course for better student understanding, social interactions, and support?

Key Idea(s):

• Building a community comes with three core areas, where subpar execution can hinder online AND in-person class interactions:
  • Cognitive presence
  • Social presence
  • Teaching presence
• Feedback is crucial for student learning! Try to better structure your grading systems and office hours.
  • Commenting does not always have to be in the form of written words. Rather, you could use video or audio, which have proved themselves to be rather effective.

Part Three: Student Success

Key Question: How do you foster student success, for both off and online classes?

Key Idea(s):

• Take note of emails from your students that come in early on in the semester! Typically, they will voice important concerns and are directly asking you for your help.
• Use modules and mastery quizzes for at-risk students to push them to learn a given concept themselves.
• Scaffold assignments can help smoothen out the transition from easier to more difficult concepts.

Part Four: Motivation (Students AND Instructors)

Key Question: How do you motivate both students and instructors for online classes?

Key Idea(s):
There are three main methods:

• Creating autonomy
• Making connections
• Developing as an online instructor

Creating autonomy:

• You can have students self-enroll in scaffolded groups depending on the student’s interests.
• You can implement specifications grading, where students understand there is a basic criterion they must meet to receive a good grade that can assist students in providing quality work.
• Taking student suggestions on how to design the syllabus will also give students some autonomy about what and how they will learn.

Making connections, between new and old knowledge:

• Try activating students’ prior knowledge by using different media types!
• Embed concept maps so students can visualize their understanding of new knowledge, and the gap between what they already know.

Developing as an instructor, and inspiring oneself:

• Try increasing your viewpoint on what it is like to be a student of an online class!
  • You could try taking online courses yourself, see what went well and what should change, and reflect upon your course.
  • Alternatively, you can seek out exemplar courses and search for support resources or help from relevant departments.
  • There are also rubrics instructors could use to see whether or not one’s course is of high quality.

If you need any tips about transferring your classroom online, this is the book for you! Darby and Lang will show you that you do not need to change everything from scratch, but rather tweak your classroom here and there to better fit the online sphere. In essence, Small Teaching Online focuses on helping instructors navigate online teaching through three main themes:

• Brief teaching and learning activities
• Small course design modifications
• Minor adjustments in communications with online students
  

Overall, the book thoroughly challenges the common limitations presented by traditional classrooms and visualizes how online classes can be beneficial in overcoming these. It particularly emphasizes the necessary features of a functional classroom that can easily be neglected, such as properly motivating students as well as the instructor. One of the best features of all, the book contains not only the author's anecdotes but also details of how one could act similarly by directing the reader to easily accessible, common school resources.

• What are some challenges you’ve seen in your in-person classrooms? How can online videos address those challenges?

• How often have you typically utilized other forms of new media when teaching in general?

• What are some skills that you have or need to improve on if you were to implement some of the suggestions from the book?

• What were some notable student reflections that detailed some of the limitations of your class? What have you tried to overcome it, and what were your student’s reactions?

Lang, J. M., & Darby, F. (2019). Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes. Jossey Bass Inc.