CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Giulia Forsythe on Flickr
Reflect upon the importance of utilizing a synchronous session to “create a true classroom culture” online. How does integrating synchronous learning sessions within the online environment assist in developing a learning community for students? Discuss this question at length in your blog.
For the online teacher, the synchronous session is where the ‘teaching’
comes. It is where we share our enthusiasm for our subject matter. Often there
are times I did not care about a subject, but learned to love it because of the
teacher’s enthusiasm and love expressed in the classroom. Using synchronous
sessions can be more than delivering power points to a class. Teachers should
use these sessions to help bring one-on-one in real time interaction between
teacher- student and student-student.
This real time interaction can go a long way in helping to create a
collaborative community. Putting interactive components, like questions, songs,
quizzes, games will help students with engagement, practice-using concepts, and bring students together into a
community. When students feel as though they are a part of a community, they
will often feel more motivated to be successful in their class.
Synchronous sessions are not mandatory in GaVS. There are times
I encourage participation by offering extra credit, doing a quick review trying
to get attendance up– but I get that the time might not be best for everyone.
But as surveys have found, students who do attend the sessions have found them
useful. The same is true for students who have listened to them afterwards. So
even if I am often speaking to myself, asking, and answering the questions – at
least students are utilizing the resource.
I wonder:
·
Perhaps the next semester I will take a poll as to what
date and time is better for a majority of students to attend – maybe that would
get more participation?
·
If in the GaVS survey we can ask if students attended or
listened to sessions and how useful were they?
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