Post Session Reflection Part 1- The Webinar

I had decided to run a Webinar and as an extension to the information shared during the session it was supported by asynchronous discussion. There must have been a reason for taking this approach? Well I have to agree with Campbell (2004) that the reason for my approach is that online learning /interventions influence meta-cognitive as well as reflective and collaborative learning. Reflecting upon this statement I thought about how this would be evident during my sessions and the following helped achieve this:

• Pre-session priming
• Suggestive questioning
• Interaction during the session
•  Asynchronous discussion post session

I really believe that online learning allows us to go beyond planned subject learning to recognize the value of the unplanned and the self-directedness of the learner to maximize incidental learning and improve performance (Campbell, 2004)

My decision to incorporate the above into my instructional design also influenced the role that I as the online instructor took on board. There are 4 roles:

• Pedagogical
• Social 
• Managerial 
• Technical

My pedagogical role had me creating content for knowledge transfer, my social role creating a friendly environment conducive to online learning. My managerial role had me thinking about the logistics of the online session. How long would the session be? What should it be announced? What information should be announced? What were the objectives of my webinar and final my technical role, nothing new to me had me testing the online environment selected for the session, deciding which tools to use during the session and consider the set-up during the session, which I blogged about in a previous post. 

It’s all about delivery and whilst designing the slide deck I had a specific goal pinned to each of the slides, becoming a checklist during the design process. My session would be dotted with questions and I had to think about how I was going to respond to questions, edit them and reply to the responses. I also had to think about how I would influence the group’s behavior during the session, as well as the simple task of ensuring the group could join the session and to motivate them to interact.   According to Coppola et al., 2002 these tasks, which you can label as cognitive, affective and managerial task create an environment for success online.  

There are other tasks important to successful online facilitation a view also shared by (Anderson et al., 2001). I certainly believe that I was able to make a contribution to the following 4 task: 

• Facilitating discourse, which means regularly reading and commenting on student posting
• Establishing and maintaining the discourse that creates and sustains social presence
• Encouraging, acknowledging, or reinforcing student contributions; setting the climate for learning
• Supporting and encouraging student responses; drawing in less active participants; and assessing the efficacy of the process

My following post will look at more detail as to why I decided to use incorporate an asynchronous discussion into my instructional design. 

Resources

• Anderson et al., (2001) Anderson, T. (2001). The hidden curriculum in distance education: An updated view. Change, 33(6), 28-35.
• Campbell, L. (2004). What does the “e” stand for? (Report). Melbourne: Department of Science and Mathematics Education. The University of Melbourne.
• Coppola et al., (2002) -Coppola, N.W., Hiltz, S.R., & Rotter, N. (2002). Becoming a Virtual Professor: Pedagogical Roles and ALN. Journal of MIS, 18 (4), 169-190.