Tips for Planning, Discussing, and Facilitating



Tips for Facilitating the Course

Tips for Managing Procrastination
Tips for Managing Information Overload
Tips for Troubleshooting Technical Difficulties
Tips for Using the Communication Software
Tips for Best Use of Technology

Partial-Online Course Notes	Denotes tips for partial-online course only
Online Course Notes	Denotes tips for online course only
Face-to-Face Course Notes	Denotes tips for face-to-face course only
ACT Course Notes	Denotes tips for ACT course only

Sequence of LInC Lessons - This will link you to a separate page of tips arranged by lesson.

Tips for Facilitating the Course:

Tips for Managing Procrastination
- Have students reflect early and often on their progress, questions, and accomplishments.
- Have participants present/share their current work with others every few weeks.
- Break the assignments into smaller chunks with sequential due dates. Intermediate milestones and products are a must. This is even more important in an online class than a face-to-face class. You are setting your participants up for trouble if they have only one due date at the end of the course.
- Have participants create their own work plan (as a project-team) with due dates for when they will complete each project component. Have the facilitator review the work plan and offer guidance if it is too ambitious or leaves too much until the end. Once the work plan is approved, the facilitator should complete rubrics for each component based on the due date listed in the plan. Participants may request a second scoring after revision, but the first scoring will count for some portion of the grade.
- E-mail often to ask about the participants progress. Be available to help.
- The more you can get mail and conversation going back and forth, the better chance you will get the buy-in and maintain their engagement.
- Start an assignment in the discussion; then they can finish up on their own.
- Establish a late penalty.
- Establish office hours. Have participants work during office hours so that if they get stuck they can get help.
- Make participants aware of how troublesome procrastination can be.
- Encourage participants to establish regular blocks of work time, both alone or with their team.
Tips for Managing Information Overload
- Deal with information in smaller chunks.
- Establish office hours to answer questions and concerns.
- Use the weekly chats to address the information overload concerns.
Tips for Troubleshooting Technical Difficulties
- Most questions participants have asked are already addressed in the LInC materials. Try to get participants to discover the wealth of information on these pages. Don't be afraid to direct them to the pages to get their own answers.
- Check to make sure the participants have the needed software and correct versions. For example, do they have Shockwave plug-ins installed?
- Make sure that all of the communication tools are functioning for participants.
  - Example: Has everyone successfully subscribed to the listserv?
  - Has everyone posted successfully to the electronic discussion board?
  - Has everyone successfully participated in a real-time discussion?
- Check participants' first few links and graphics. Correct any misunderstanding early so that problems don't snowball.
- Check participants' folders periodically for bad file names and suffixes. Make sure they understand and follow naming guidelines.
Tips for Using the Communication Software
- Use the electronic bulletin board for short assignments and reflection.
- Use the listserv to make announcements or for sending clarifications to the class.
- Use the chat when interactive discussion is needed.
- Use the chat to help participants with technical problems.
- Use the chat to hold office hours.
- Use the chat for facilitator planning sessions.
Tips for Best Use of Technology
- Provide sites to find experts for two-way communication.
- Provide sites to find schools on the Web.

Planning the Partial-Online Course:

Think about your four face-to-face meetings carefully so that you can use them in the most productive manner. You will need to decide when you will schedule these important sessions. We recommend you use the first face-to-face meeting to create a need for the participants to learn engaged learning and to be sure they have a common definition of engaged learning. We recommend you use Lessons 1 and 2 for this purpose. In addition, be sure to discuss and practice the communication tools used in the class.

For the second face-to-face meeting you may wish to divide the focus of this day between engaged learning and tech support. We recommend you start the day fine-tuning proposals and beginning to draft scenarios. During the second half of the day you can give a brief tutorial on PageMill and answer other tech concerns.

On the third face-to-face meeting ask the participants to bring their scenario to class to share and receive feedback from the group. The staff development assignment and information can be presented. In the second part of this day, teams can work on their projects while the facilitators provide independent and small group support.

On the fourth day of face-to-face meetings, individual teams present their projects and discuss their staff development plans. Next, complete the course evaluation.

Participants will share their projects on the last face-to-face session. It may also be a good idea to have participants share the work they have completed so far on the second and third sessions. These sharing deadlines really help the participants to avoid procrastination. They also benefit from seeing the products of the other participants and hearing how and why they created what they are sharing.

Since there is so much to accomplish you may wish to have the first and second face-to-face sessions back to back. If you choose to do this, we strongly suggest you add another face-to-face session when participants begin Web page development.

You will only have a few days face-to-face with the participants. Use this time to bond the participants so they will be comfortable communicating with one another throughout the course.

Determine which synchronous or asynchronous software you will be using for communication. Check to make certain it is working.

To promote participant independence, you may wish NOT to meet face-to-face for the first session. Face-to-Face sessions by their nature are more instructor-directed or run. This sometimes causes the participants to become dependent on the facilitator to set the pace of working.

Planning the Online Course:

People drop out on online courses because they don't feel part of the group. They put off assignments and fall too far behind and can't catch up. It is important to communicate often with participants to keep them linked to the group. Keep track of the times participants visit the server and complete assignments to determine who needs encouragement and communication. Having the participants present and share with each other often can also help.

Your site should facilitate computer work, small group discussion, and large group discussion.

As participants arrive, ask them to sign in and list their e-mail address.

Determine which synchronous or asynchronous software you will be using for communication. Check to make certain it is working.

Planning the Face-to-Face Course:

We suggest still using electronic communications tools even if your course is face-to- face. These tools can be used for office hours and for reflections between course meetings.

Be sure you start class on time, allow time for breaks and lunch, tell participants where the washrooms are, and other nuts and bolts issues relevant to your site.

Your site should facilitate computer work, small group discussion, and large group discussion.

As participants arrive, ask them to sign in and list their e-mail address.

Determined which synchronous or asynchronous software you will be using for communication. Check to make certain it is working.

Establish rules for participants' use of your server. (Uploading and downloading files, e-mail, participants' portfolios, etc.)

Participants may think that LInC is a technology class, but it isn't.

Your site should facilitate computer work, small group discussion, and large group discussion.

Participants will come with individual issues and questions concerning software and hardware. Do not let this disrupt the flow of the class. Address those issues at break time.

Have a pad of chart paper strategically placed on an easel in the room. Participants can then write pressing questions to be addressed as they fit into the course content.

Planning the Act Course:

The unique aspect of the LInC ACT course for participants is the experience of actually teaching an engaged learning project with their students. Participants learn the most from this experience when they do regular reflections, and share their experiences with others. Each participant will have a slightly different schedule, but getting as many participants implementing their projects at the same time will maximize the discourse between participants.

Remember that during the follow up portion of the class you may need to initiate the conversations. In this case no news is not good news, it propably means they have not started. Contact the participants regularly to keep the communications channel open.

Email participants a few weeks in advance of their project start date, make sure they have kept their plans in motion. Getting participants to start the project on time may be the biggest challenge. Follow up is all about the implementing of the project, participants really need to start and finish on time.

Select the time frame for when participants will implement their projects. Share this information with participants early and often. They need to commit to this time frame or they will not be able to participate in the discussions which make up the critical mass of the follow-up class.

Participants need to select a project that they can implement during the second portion of the ACT class. They may need to shift some portion of their curriculum around to accommodate the implementation time frame. Some change is inevitable but counsel them to limit the number of changes as this will complicate the experience.

Pay attention to the pacing of the summer week long class, having participants complete unfinished work before the school year starts should not be considered an option.

Read participants journals regularly and respond to them. Keeping a journal is part of the reflection process so it is important to get participants to journal regularly. Teachers are busy people and they may be resistive to giving up this time. Your reading and responding will encourage them to do this valuable activity.

Working in teams make sure that teams reco,gnize that each participant will be expected to fulfill class requirements. Co-authoring projects is fully acceptable, but journaling, reflections and postings need to be done by each participant.

Encouraging participants to submit there assignments on time makes the scoring and posting of their scores much easier. Make it clear to participants that if they do submit assignments late it is their responsibility to notify their instructor when their the assignment has been posted.