As I move further into my Action Research project, I am starting to find myself thinking about my course more and more from an action research perspective. In doing so, I’m finding myself being more reflective about the actions that I take within the course and how that may be affecting the outcome. For last weeks content, I noticed myself working very fast to get the students through the content. I noticed how much I assistance I was having to offer the students and it was becoming apparent that the content by itself might not be explicit for my students in the online version of the course.
Because of this, I wanted to add in an option for students to be able to meet me face-to-face. I state in almost every email that I’m available and that students just need to reach out. I offer office hours and even private Google Hangouts, yet students have yet to take me up on my offer. And it sort of make sense… They’ve never met me before, they don’t know where my office is, and they aren’t exactly sure what they can and can’t ask me. Inferring this made me think I might take a strategy where I come to their turf. The Gaylord College has a couple different computer labs so I decided to hold “open lab hours” where I would spend the entire afternoon working remotely in the computer lab. Students could work on their homework there and then ask me questions as necessary. It gave them something do and talk about. It would also feel more like a social activity which I’m trying to embed more into the online course format. I then decided, assuming students showed up, that I would also survey the students. Why are you taking this class versus the face-to-face? How do you like the Open Lab Hours? Do they feel valuable? Would you come to more of them if they were regular?
As I mentioned in my last post, I set up an appointment system through Google Calendar (Thanks Pepperdine for the GAFE account!). I sent an email to all of my students with link. One thing I decided to do in efforts to have more data gathering opportunities was to stop using the universities LMS for an email system and move to Mailchimp, which is free and allows me to get analytics on the emails such as open rates and click rates. A dashboard example for this email looks like this:
The dashboard above is actually from the second email I sent that contained the link. 80% of the students opened the email and 20% (which is a whole 3 students) clicked the link that led to the appointment system. Including the first email, the link had 5 total clicks and 4 unique clicks. One of the five actually made an appointment (but unfortunately caught the flu and couldn’t make it). Two others who clicked it did indeed show. And the third person, who didn’t click the link, showed as well. Two of the students came together and had a very clear objective to get help on their work. I could tell very quickly that they felt disoriented with what was being asked of them and needed direct assistance. The third was a more interesting case. This student just wanted the opportunity to meet me. She felt completely comfortable with the material but wanted to make a face connection with her instructor. We talked about the class and what my expectations were, but we also had a very personal conversation about her work life. You see she’s is/was a bartender at a local burger joint in town that had actually burned down that morning around 4am. She was effectively out of a job though they did offer her shifts at other locations. In this sense, I felt that the open office hours accomplished exactly what I was trying to do. They humanized the online course. It wasn’t working through content but it was making relationships with each other. It was a quick reminder that students have full lives and very real life situations. And for her, it was a way to feel more comfortable about her educational experience.
This, of course, isn’t to discount the students who simply needed help. They were very pleased with the opportunity as well. In fact they had actually beat me to the lab. I helped them get started which felt like only 10 minutes. With this short amount of effort, they were able to quickly get through the assignment and left with a feeling of relief. I had them fill out my survey and then I asked them some informal questions such is why they were in my class. I said, “Was it because the face-to-face section was full?” And their answer surprised me a bit. No, that wasn’t it at all. They actually liked online classes. It was that simple. This helped me confirm the whole point of building the class in the first place and this was data I already had, so why it surprised me is beyond me. But part of me wants to feel like students will always want to choose the face-to-face if its available and that doesn’t seem to be true. They also asked if I would be doing this more often, so I followed up with would they come if I held them regularly. Both students seemed to really appreciate this idea and said they definitely would. I think part of it is that encourage and structure to help them finish the work.
After gathering that feedback, I’m certain I’ll be holding open lab hours a few more times this semester. I think it gives an added layer of comfortability and accountability for the students and I think the students appreciate it even if they have yet to take advantage of it.