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Teaching ITV Best Practices

Your approach to teaching over Interactive Television can and should be the same as in your regular classroom. The goals and the students in an ITV class are the same as in your traditional classroom. There are advantages to teaching on ITV and ways to enhance how materials are presented to your students when you are using ITV. This is a list of some of the ideas, techniques and common practices that work for successful ITV instructors.


Organization
Most instructors have an organized process for the subject matter they plan to present: syllabus, list of student responsibilities, test schedule etc. In Interactive Television, the more of these types of materials you can have prepared early, the better. There are a number of distribution and delivery methods available to you.

Course management Systems: A course management system is a Web-based instructional classroom. Minnesota West Community and Technical College uses Desire to Learn (D2L). This course management system allows you to use as many features as you would like for managing your classroom. Instructors may post materials to the Web site, communicate with individual or multiple students, maintain a course grade book, collect student assignments, post student assignments and much more. To learn how you can support your ITV class with a course management account, contact your supervisor. They will put you in contact with the campus trainer nearest your location.

Courier: Minnesota West also has available an internal mail service or courier. Check with your home campus for specific pickup and drop-off times for your location. Students may use the courier to receive hardcopy information from you and also return completed assignment to you.

File attachment: There may be times when you need to make a last minute assignment adjustments. In those cases, electronic copies of assignments can be sent as attachments to the appropriate campus support person. If you would like to take advantage of electronic delivery of assignments on a regular basis, please contact the appropriate IT support persons at each campus for specific requirements. This will insure timely delivery of all documents.

US Mail :  If you do not access the campus, the U.S. Mail is a viable alternative.


Student Inclusion
 The most difficult aspect for most instructors is not having all of your students in the room with you. Instructors are encouraged to develop eye contact and conversations with off campus students through the system. Since the system is always on just treat your off-site students as the student in the back row. In the beginning, you may have to speak up to get their attention but a dialog can be very affective in drawing them into class. The instructor’s camera, located in the rear of each room, is also an effective tool for drawing students into the virtual classroom. By looking into the instructor camera, you have the sense that you are looking at them.

It is also useful to remind students to identify themselves when addressing you from an off site location. Seat assignments are used by some faculty. When a student addresses you or the class they should be reminded to identify themselves and their location. This includes those students in your local classroom.

When using the visual presenter or computer-generated materials, be sure to switch to the instructor's camera occasionally or activate the “instructor” mode at your location. Students like to be reminded that you are more than just a voice.


Patience
 The technical support people at all the sites work as hard as they can to make the system as trouble free as possible. Unfortunately, because of the distance between sites, there will be times when problems occur. Most of your students understand and adjust to the situation. Please do the same. The support person at your site will work with the other campus technicians to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. There will be times when nothing can be done so as in your traditional classroom, a backup plan that includes using D2L or a site-based activity is recommended.


Discipline
There should be no reason to worry about discipline in a college class. To minimize the possibility of these types of problems, make it clear to the class what kinds of behavior will be tolerated. Some instructors insist on a seating chart for the remote sites and require all students to be within the view of the camera at all times. If you feel you have a situation, please discuss it with the Campus Administrator at the problem campus and ask that steps be taken to rectify the situation. In Distance Education, teamwork is the key to success.

Some instructors find it helpful to travel to the off-sites they serve during the semester. The distance sites enjoy meeting the instructor face to face and the local students begin to understand what the distance sites have to deal with.


Logistics

In the abstract, Interactive Television is a wonderful teaching tool. For Instructors it can be a logistical nightmare. This section attempts to discuss a number of procedures we have developed to deal with those problems.

Testing
One of the most uncomfortable areas for instructors using ITV is that they are not in the room when students are being tested. It causes many instructors some anxious moments. These are some of the options available to you.

  • Change your testing to more of a “take home” test or an open book type test.
  • D2L has a testing feature that allows you to set up tests that are accessible through the campus or a student’s Internet connection. The software allows for random question selection so no two tests are exactly the same, timed testing -students have access at a specific time, for a specific time, auto grading- the tests are graded for you and the results sent to the student. There are many helpful features in the system.
  • Test Proctor - A test proctor will be provided for instructors who feel it is necessary. Faculty who would like to take advantage of a test proctor MUST supply to the campus Administrators with a test schedule for the entire semester. Staff schedules are adjusted for these requests.
  • LARC testing - Testing can also be completed in the LARC location at each campus. These must be arranged with the LARC coordinator but do provide a monitored testing setting.


Books
The Minnesota West bookstore has developed an online form that all faculty must use to order their textbooks. It provides the most up to date information to students and the bookstore.


Homework
D2L: The most effective method for out of classroom assignments is to use the features available through D2L. Students are introduced to D2L at student orientation. In addition, there is Free non-credit course, Introduction to Online Learning available.

Email/File attachments: Minnesota West Community and Technical College students and instructors are provided a Minnesota West email account. Assignments can be delivered to you via this technology. If you accept assignments as electronic attachments, we recommend that you place course assignments in a specified folder within the email system and delete the folder or the contents at the end of each course.


FAX Machines
Fax machines are available in each of the ITV rooms at Minnesota West and have been pre-programmed to dial each classroom. This is an alternative means of communicating with your students at the other Minnesota West sites. Fax machines should have a limited appeal for instructors since student will not have access to a copier or any way to duplicate the information. The quality of the material is generally poor and the FAX machines tend to be the “weakest link” in ITV.


Odds and Ends
Organization can’t be stressed enough. Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on someone else’s part – this is a team effort.

  • Prepare handouts for students whenever large amounts of material are being covered and have them delivered to the campus or posted in D2L in advance.
  • Address your materials properly. Minnesota West hosts 25-30 classes each semester across the college. ALWAYS identify the class, the room, the time and yourself whenever communicating with the campus support people.
  • Over heads : paper copies of transparencies work best, the plastic reflects and is difficult for other sites to read.
  • A horizontal format with sans serif 24 point letters works the best for presentation of written material.
  • Create a presentation using Power Point or on the “Web”. ITV classrooms are equipped with computers and Internet access. It allows you to use the vast technology resources available to you for classroom lectures. Don’t be afraid to use them or to ask what is available at your specific campus.
  • White paper or colored paper will work when handwriting your material. You should use a medium point pen and leave a border around copy.

 

 

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