9.4 Practices to Communicate to Students

Students need to own their learning experience and as an instructor you should teach and guide them in how to succeed in an online course. It is a different learning experience for them and they may not realize that until well into the course when it may be too late. So, communicate these suggestions and best practices at the start of the course and then repeat a few times during the first third of the term:

9.4.1 Sample Announcements

Below are some samples of announcements. The key is to be specific. Undergraduate students generally need more reminders. For full term courses a weekly announcements with occasional reminders

9.4.1.1 Week 13 At-a-Glance

Good Morning Everyone,

This week we will take a look at strategies for evaluating models and various approaches for improving model performance. In particular, we will look at AUC and the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) technique, hold-out evaluation, k-fold cross-validation, and ensembles, among a few other techniques. We will revisit several of the data mining and machine learning techniques as part of this week.

Here’s what you need to do this (abbreviated) week:

  • Review and complete the lessons for Unit 10 on the course website
  • Join the live recitation on Wednesday
  • Complete Review Exam 3 if you haven’t yet done so
  • Complete TRACE as soon as it’s open
  • Start working on the term project but you’ll have all of next week too

As always, come see me or the TAs during office hours either in person or online – just book a slot in my calendar. This week is a holiday week; the University is on recess from Wednesday through Sunday, so plan your work accordingly. We will not be available for questions or appointments during recess.

Next week is all about the project. Remember that you must get a 70% on the project to pass the course and create a video plus provide peer feedback! Once the project is complete there’s a final exam very similar to the review exams you have done throughout the term. So, use this week to catch up on all of the outstanding work and get a strong jump on the project – remember that your other classes will also have work due before the end of the term.

Best, Prof. S

9.4.1.2 May 06 / Total Time: 2.25 hrs

  • (10 min) | read announcements, catch up on Teams, view due dates on upcoming work
  • (15 min) | attend topic overview from 11:30am - 11:45pm ET via Teams (Recitation Channel) or watch the recorded session at a later time
  • (65 min) | work through required lessons on Information Modeling, Ontologies, and UML
  • (15 min) | get together with your group in the assigned Teams channel from 1:00pm - 1:15pm or another time that works for everyone (schedule this yourselves)
  • (30 min) | work individually on Assignment 3 and complete by 05/06 11:59pm ET

9.4.1.3 Pre-Course Announcement

This section of DA5030 is an online class. That means that all lessons will be done through pre-recorded lectures and explanations, and supplemented with carefully curated content from other sources. That way, you can learn at your own pace and when it fits your schedule.

In addition, to aid learning and to build peer connections, we will meet once per week online to do code walks and cover key topics as selected by the students – those recitation sessions are recorded if you cannot attend live.

We also rely on peer group discussions for learning. Most weeks you will be presented with practice problems that will help you apply the material learned that week and to learn programming in R. The practice problems are “formative” which means they are there to help you learn and therefore they are not graded; after all, you likely haven’t mastered the material yet. You are expected to discuss your code with an assigned peer group – that discussion will be graded (a kind of “participation grade”, if you will). Take this seriously (obviously because it’s graded) as it really helps your learning.

Learning doesn’t just come from listening to an instructor. It occurs in many other ways: exploring, trying to solve a problem, reading, listening to a lecture, working with peers, seeing work done by a peer, reading other people’s code, and so forth.

If there are other ways you think that I can improve your learning, please let us know.

9.4.2 Online Presence & Pedagogy

In an online course it is more difficult to establish a presence and a relationship with your students. It requires effort. Here are some tips that can help establish your online presence and ensure your student’s success in an online course:

  • Check in daily with your students. Post a short summary of the day on your discussion board or perhaps even a short video message.
  • Always post a message when your office hours start and when they end – that way students know that you are there.
  • Tell your students to add a fixed time slot into their calendar that is at least 60 minutes and during that time avoid all interruptions and work on the course. The key is to work on the course daily.
  • Tell your students to do all work on time even if there is a late submission deadline.
  • Remind them daily that you are here to help and ask your student to seek help as soon as they get stuck for more than 30 minutes.
  • Provide them with a process on how to seek help: start by posting a message on the Q&A board, then go to TA office hours, followed by making an appointment with a TA. Only if it’s a deeper problem should they come to you. Remind them that you have a TA staff to help with problems.
  • Encourage students to try to resolve the problem yourself first because that’s how we learn but the instructor and teaching assistants are here to help so they don’t waste their time.
  • Remind students to actively participate in the discussion board and to use their fellow students as resources.
  • Ask student to form local study groups or create peer groups of students (randomly assign names rather than alphabetic).
  • As an instructor, meet one or twice per term with each peer/study group or, if the class is mall enough, one-on-one with every student – get to know your students. This is particularly important early in the course.
  • During live recitations or live meetings, ask students to turn on their cameras; even just for a few minutes in the beginning of class. Always turn on your camera to create a virtual presence (be sure to mind your environment, background clutter, and ambient sound). Note that some students may not feel comfortable turning on their camera for religious or other reasons, so do make it optional.
  • Tell your students to not just read code or listen to code being explained but to type it in themselves, duplicate it, modify it, play with it, explore.
  • Realize that students will find programming frustrating at first so keep encouraging them. Avoid “learned helplessness” by not providing answers to questions right away but by showing them how or where to find the solution.
  • Share videos of yourself solving a problem – along with how you think through the problem – use the “think-aloud” method.
  • Always let students know to come to office hours and engage with you, the TAs, and their peers.
  • Remind your students that learning doesn’t just come from listening to an instructor. It occurs in many other ways: exploring, trying to solve a problem, reading, listening to a lecture, working with peers, seeing work done by a peer, reading other people’s code, teaching peers, among others.