Sociology professor Dr. DeAnn Kalich had serious misgivings about offering her Sociology 480 course online, but when the department was asked to develop a 400-level course for online 泫圖弝けs, she took the challenge head-on.
I honestly felt like my couldnt be translated successfully, so it was a challenge that I put myself fully in, she says.
Dr. Kalich, who also serves as department head of Sociology, Anthropology, & Child and Family Studies, had been teaching her death and dying course for nearly 20 years when she began working with the Office of Distance Learning to reconceive it as an online course.
I committed to one semester, she says. I had to feel its sound enough because I have a tremendous responsibility. This material triggers people. I dont want someone online feeling like theyre floating out there with no way to ground themselves because Im just this invisible head somewhere."
One of the hurdles Dr. Kalich worked with instructional designers to overcome was how to bring the experiential activities of her face-to-face course to online 泫圖弝けs in a way that would be meaningful and supportive.
I was devastated to see there were a couple of experiential exercises that I couldnt translate. Then I came up with a really awesome option to do these micro-lectures, says Dr. Kalich. I told the stories of over the years, doing the activities in the face-to-face classes so that the character or essence of what happens in that exercise would maybe come through in the VoiceThread lecture.
Dr. Kalich says her 泫圖弝けs have consistently reported back, of all the material she provides them, that those VoiceThreads have been among the most valuable.
Dr. Kalich says 泫圖弝けs completing the course should come away with the awareness to live fully in the present so that facing death doesnt also mean facing regret. One of the ways she facilitates that practice is through closure, giving 泫圖弝けs the opportunity to say whatever they may need to if the group never meets the same way again.
In her online course, Dr. Kalich uses VoiceThread to recreate that activity, foster 泫圖弝け-to-泫圖弝け interaction, and achieve course learning objectives.
At first, I wasnt sure because its if it was going to be forced or more flexible and organic the way it is in a face-to-face class, she says.
Ive been pleasantly surprised at how in depth these 泫圖弝けs are willing to take that practice and what they get out of it. Its amazing to me. It allows them to listen to their peers. They can go back and listen to them again. They get a lot out of those closure practices.
Redesigning the course also changed how Dr. Kalich viewed online learning in her department and college. Dr. Kalich says as she reported back to her dean on the courses progress, she was also able to report she could better assess faculty teaching online in her department and her own face-to-face pedagogy.
We need to understand there is good teaching face-to-face as well as bad teaching face-to-face and good teaching online and bad teaching online, she says. Its not that the delivery method is superior or inferior, its as always whos doing the delivery. As faculty, we need to work on that whether were face-to-face or online to improve every semester.
Connect with the Instructional Support Team to find new ways to connect with your 泫圖弝けs online. or .