Application of classroom good teaching practices to an online faculty ...

Country PaperApplication of classroom good teaching practices to anonline faculty development programme in IndiaRashmi Vyas, Anshu, Hem Lata, William Burdick, Tejinder SinghIntroductionOnline learning is a new concept fordeveloping countries. Although distanceeducation in India dates back to as early asthe 1960s (Sharma, 2001), until this day mostof it is print-based, rather than web-based(Kanjilal, 1998). Initially, lack of technologyposed a major hurdle for online learning inIndia. Today, although technology in India hasdeveloped in leaps and bounds and there areover 9 million internet subscribers (TelecomRegulatory Authority of India, n.d.), onlinelearning is still not very popular in medicaleducation in India. Some of the barriers toonline learning are concerns that the quality ofeducation may be compromised in an onlinelearning format. This is a potential threat inweb-based learning, because we may tooeasily lose sight of the goal: learning (Conway,2003).Even with the revolution in informationtechnology, online learning remains arelatively new concept in India. There havebeen no formal courses and no formalevaluations for this mode of learning. Thesituation is akin to what was faced by printbaseddistance learning a few years ago. Oneway to build credibility of this learning mode isto replicate the good practices of conventionalclass room based teaching.To ensure that quality is retained in onlinelearning, principles that have been identifiedfor traditional classroom teaching need tobe incorporated into the online learningenvironment.CMCL- FAIMER Regional Institute, Ludhiana, IndiaCorresponding author:Tejinder Singh,Director, CMCL-FAIMER Regional Institute,Christian Medical College,Ludhiana, India.Email: cmcl.faimer@gmail.comA number of educational fundamentals havebeen listed in literature; and of particularinterest are the seven principles thatcharacterizes good practice in undergraduateeducation (Chickering & Gamson, 1991).These seven principles have stood the shorttest of time that has passed since they werecompiled. Developed primarily for conventionalundergraduate education, these principles canbe extrapolated to online learning.The Christian Medical College Ludhiana-Foundation for Advancement of InternationalMedical Education and Research (CMCL-FAIMER) Regional Institute (CMCL-FRI) hasbeen conducting faculty developmentprogrammes in medical education since 2003(FAIMER Home Page, n.d.). In this paper, weuse the example of the CMCL-FRI onlinefaculty development programme to describethe use of classroom good teaching practicesin an online learning programme.Where does our online learning model stand,when viewed in the context of varioustheoretical concepts underlying onlineeducation? We first review the theoreticalconcepts of the good teaching practices andthen will look at the ‘good practices’ visible inour model.Chickering and Gamson’s good teachingpracticesChickering and Gamson’s good teachingpractices are as follows:Principle 1: Encourage contact betweenstudent and facultyTeaching in any environment is much morethan simply dispensing information. It shouldinduce the students to analyze, synthesize andexercise critical judgment. This requires a highdegree of interactivity between the teacherand the student (Weiss, 2000). Some methodsto improve student-faculty contact in onlinecourses include encouraging students tocontact faculty; sharing values, attitudes andexperiences with students and encouraging14South‐East Asian Journal of Medical EducationVol. 4 no.2, 2010

students also to do so (Graham et al., 2000;Nelson, 2000). Communication policies needto be clear and issues which need to beaddressed through private emails should beclarified. If teachers do not hear from students,they should be contacted to see if there is aproblem and personal interaction may besought if required.Principle 2: Encourage cooperationamongst studentsCooperative learning promotes positiveinterdependence, face to face interaction,personal responsibility, collaborative skills andgroup processing (Johnson et al., 1990).Some of the suggested methods to encouragestudents to work collaboratively in onlinecourses include designing collaborative groupwork, providing a number of milestones andgood examples, making participation indiscussions mandatory, providing ‘weaving’comments when needed, and making surethat students know that you are ‘present’ andavailable for help (Conway, 2003).Principle 3: Encourage active learningActive learning can better be viewed as asituation, where the ‘students are doing thingsand thinking about things they are doing’(Bonwell & Eison, 1991). Some of the methodssuggested in the literature to encourage activelearning include making students constructdeep explanations, justifications and reasons,developing question-response-clarificationcycles, challenging students to developreasoned responses, and making studentspresent their work to the rest of the class(Graham et al., 2000; Hacker & Niederhauser,2000).Principle 4: Give prompt feedbackStudents need to constantly monitor theirunderstanding in order to make meaningfulprogress. Without an explicit understanding oftheir progress, students become anxious andmay lose their path (Conway, 2003). Electronicmedia allows instant and timely feedback.However, there is a need to make feedbacklearner-centric rather than teacher-centric.Principle 5: Emphasize time on taskIf we view learning as encoding of knowledgeand skills, then the information to be encodedhas to be first attended to and processed byworking memory, before it can become a partof long term memory (Cooper, 1998). How istime on task emphasized in online situations?Suggested methods include providing specificdeadlines, providing intermediate milestones,emphasizing regular work and sound selfpacing, using asynchronous communication toreduce stress on time, and making resourceseasily accessible (Graham et al., 2000). In ourdiscussion, the overall task was broken downinto smaller ones, each with specificdeadlines.Principle 6: Communicate highexpectationsIn general, if teachers set high, but attainablegoals, these are generally met by the students.Goals should be high enough to make thestudents stretch, but low enough for them toattain. Literature also suggests that studentsprefer difficult courses, where they have towork hard (Cashlin, 1988; Cashlin & Slawson,1977). Literature suggests the followingmethods to communicate high expectations inonline courses: modeling appropriateinteraction, requiring students to becomeactive learners, publically calling attention togood performance, and basing evaluations onquality rather than on quantity of posts(Graham et al., 2000; Weiss 2000).Principle 7: Respect diverse talents andways of learningThere have been a number of reports onlearning styles and their implications forinstructional design. However, as Coffield etal. (2004) in a review of the availableevidence on learning styles aptly state,‘learning styles are not as much concernedwith matching instruction for individual studentbut providing a variety of methods in thelearning basket’. In online forums, Graham etal. (2000) suggest the following methods torespect diverse ways of learning: encouragingstudents to express diverse view points,consider possible time-zone differences,limiting the use of contextual language, idiomsand colloquialism.Let us now take an in-depth look at theprocess followed in our online learning model.The CMCL-FRI Online Learning MethodAn online learning activity was planned for theparticipants (known as the “Fellows”) of theFRI using the listserv on the ECFMG server.The participants included 15 Fellows and 10faculty members. Fellows were included onthe listserv using either their existing email IDsor a new dedicated web-based email ID (sincethere is a large volume of data inflow, weencouraged them to use Gmail or any otheremail with large storage space). Any mailaddressed to the listserv was sent to the mailboxes of all the Fellows. Similarly, any replySouth‐East Asian Journal of Medical EducationVol. 4 no.2, 201015

was also forwarded to all the Fellows. Thisoffers some distinct advantages - Fellows donot have to specially log in to see the activityas everything is delivered to their mail boxesand all discussions are in public domain.Fellows and faculty, however, have the optionof sending private emails if required. Toprevent duplication, the server rejects mailswith similar texts. The methodology ofselecting topics for online discussion and thetime schedule have already been described indetail in a previous paper (Anshu et al., 2008).To illustrate the process, a month’s onlineactivity on the topic “Helping low achievers” isdiscussed as an example.During the entire month, a total of 114academic mails and 19 resources wereexchanged related to the topic of the month’sdiscussion on ‘Helping Low Achievers’. Elevenof the 15 Fellows and 5 out of the 10 facultymembers participated in the online discussion.The topic was discussed under three heads:(a) how to identify low achievers (b) thecauses of low achievement and (c) how tohelp low achievers.There was consistently good participation bythe Fellows on all the days of the month.However, issues such as ‘policies for lowachievers’ and ‘possible interventions to helpthem’ generated more posts than others.Fellows posted their own reflections, sharedtheir own experiences and posted learningresources in the form of articles or web links.The summary of the online discussion can beviewed from the relevant URL athttp://cmcl.faimer.googlepages.com/resources.The “good teaching practices” visible in ourmodel are:• Fellows engage in asynchronous threadeddiscussions, which provide time to reflectand think before posting a response. Theycan participate at their convenience interms of time and place.• Students decide on the topics to bediscussed within the broad objectives ofthe course.• Fellows were contacted by text messagesor telephone when they were silent on thelistserv.• Peer coaching gets a pre-eminent place.• Fellows learn the skills of moderating adiscussion.• Faculty usually plays the role of a ‘guideon the side’ rather than taking overdiscussions. This is in sharp contrast totraditional faculty role in India whereteaching is didactic.• Fellows share ideas, concepts andresources, and thus learn together. Thistends to promote collaborative learning.• A record of discussions is available forlater review.• Discussions begin with introduction andidentification of learning issues. The topicis divided into small chunks. End of thediscussion summary is provided andposted on the site for reference.• Large amount of resource material, linksand publications are shared by Fellows.• Fellows demonstrate social, cognitive andteaching presence. Even thougheverybody is not equally active, we believethat these ‘lurkers’ do benefit fromoverhearing.• The posts go to the regular email boxes ofthe Fellows - there is no need to speciallylog in to a site to follow the discussion.Even though someone may not respond,he is certainly reading the discussion.• There are tangible end points in the formof periodic and month end summaries.• Group activities promote acquisition ofnew skills (e.g. website designing), whichwere not part of the intended learningoutcomes.• The listserv promotes a community oflearners, where one can seek help,guidance and network, not necessarilyrestricted to the topic of the month but ona range of academic and sometimespersonal matters.• There is ample opportunity for the Fellowsto demonstrate their social, cognitive andteaching presence.Certain issues which we plan to improve theprocess are as follows.From the next online sessions, we will beginthe discussions by asking Fellows to write theirlearning objectives for that month. These willbe sent to the moderating faculty and willserve as the beginning of an e-folio. At the endof the month, Fellows will again write a 300-word summary, reflecting on what they learnt,how it relates to their existing knowledge and16South‐East Asian Journal of Medical EducationVol. 4 no.2, 2010

how they plan to use this knowledge. A modeltemplate will be provided for this.We have tried to judge our model vis-à-visgood classroom teaching practices. Ourcontention is that learners require supportirrespective of the type of learning. Since theChickering and Gamson model has withstoodthe test of time, it is a good idea to extrapolatethe practices to online discussions as well.AcknowledgementsHem Lata and MadanLal moderated thesessions, while Rita Sood and Rashmi Vyasprovided the faculty support. Other facultymembers included Tejinder Singh, WilliamBurdick, Stewart Mennin, Janet Grant and B VAdkoli.ReferencesAnshu, Bansal, P.K., Mennin, S., Burdick, W.P. &Singh, T. (2008) Online faculty development formedical educators: experience of a SouthAsian programme [online], Education forHealth, 21, 3, p. 175, available at:http://educationforhealth.net/publishedarticles/article_print_175.pdf [accessed 1 February,2009].Bonwell, C.C. & Eison, J.A. (1991) Active learning:creating excitement in the classroom.Washington DC: ASHE-ERIC HigherEducation, Report no 1.Cashlin, W.E. (1988) Student ratings of teaching: Asummary of the research IDEA Paper No. 20.Manhattan: Center for Faculty Evaluation andDevelopment, Kansas State University.Cashlin, W.E., & Slawson, H.M. (1977). Descriptionof data base, 1976–77. IDEA Technical ReportNo. 2. Manhattan: Center for FacultyEvaluation and Development, Kansas StateUniversity.Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (eds) (1991) Newdirections for teaching and learning: applyingthe seven principles for good practice inundergraduate education, Jossey Bass Inc.,San Fransisco.Coffield, F., Ecclestone, K., Moseley, D. et al.(2004) Should we be using learning styles:what research has to say to practice? Learningand Skill Development Agency, London.Conway, E.D. (2003) Teaching strategies fordistance education: implementation of sevenprinciples for good learning in online education[online] available at: http://spacegrant.nmsu.edu/NMSU/2003/conway.pdf [accessed 1February, 2009].Cooper, G. (1998) Research into Cognitive LoadTheory and Instructional Design at UNSW.University of New South Wales Australia[online] available at: http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/education/CLT_NET_Aug_97.html[accessed 10 October, 2007].Foundation for Advancement of InternationalMedical Education and Research [online]available at: www.faimer.org [accessed 1February, 2008]Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Craner, J., Lim, B., &Duffy, T. M. (2000) Teaching in a web baseddistance learning environment: an evaluationsummary based on four courses [online] CRLTTechnical Report No. 13-00, available at:http://crlt.indiana.edu/publications/crlt00-13.pdf[accessed 1 February, 2009].Hacker, D.J., & Niederhauser, D.S. (2000)Promoting deep and durable learning in theonline classroom in: Weiss, R.E., Knowlton,D.S. & Speck, B.W. (eds.) New directions forteaching and learning: Principles of effectiveteaching in the online classroom, 84, pp. 53–64, Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco.Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T. & Smith, K. A. (1991)Cooperative learning, report 4, GeorgeWashington University, Washington DC.Kanjilal, U. (1998) Migrating to the electroniclearning environment: prospects for LISdistance learners in India [online] available at:http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/019-123e.htm[accessed 1 February, 2009].Nelson, C.E. (2000) Must faculty teach in ways thatmake them easily dispensable? The NationalTeaching and Learning Forum, 9, 6, pp. 4–5.Sharma, R.C. (2001) Technology for teachertraining through distance education in India[online] available at: http://vcisrael.macam.ac.il/site/eng /files/E5A018/files/isrealconf.doc[accessed 1 February, 2009].Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, AnnualReport 2006-07, available at:http://www.trai.gov.in/annualreport/AReport2006-07English.pdf [accessed 1 February, 2009].Weiss, R.E. (2000) Humanizing the onlineclassroom, in: Weiss, R.S., Knowlton, D.S. &Speck, B.W. (eds) New directions for teachingand learning: Principles of effective teaching inonline classrooms, pp. 47-52. San Francisco:Jossey Bass, Inc.South‐East Asian Journal of Medical EducationVol. 4 no.2, 201017