Nila Veerabathina

Synchronous Learning in an Asynchronous Environment for Orientation, Intervention, Interaction, and Student Retention

Nilakshi Veerabathina, PhD

Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Physics, College of Science, UT Arlington

As a part of the Spring 2016 PLC project, I have designed and hosted live synchronous webinars in my online ASTR1345, an introductory Astronomy course for non-science majors. In my presentation, I will describe the goals, implementation, and delivering of these webinars and the future plan.

Dr. Nilakshi Veerabathina received a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Naini Tal, India in 2003. She has been teaching at UTA for more than ten years. Dr. Veerabathina won the Faculty Service Learning Award in 2011 and was Service Learning Faculty Fellow at in 2011. She is a recipient of the UT System’s prestigious Board of Regents’ Outstanding Teaching award in 2012. She received Faculty Advisor of the Year award in 2013. She has been an active member of PLC for four years.

Peggy Semingson

Nila

I learned more about your online astronomy course! It’s interesting the difference in enrollment from f2f and online! The on-campus class is huge!

I am glad you could try out Collaborate with your online course.

Your goal of increasing social interaction was good. I have found it challenging to get them to interact with each other. Love the “Where are you located map”. I like how it had two maps. I need to do that—both DFW and also the United States (our Master’s program is nationwide in terms of students).

Reiterating the tips for online learning is great. Someone told me redundancy is good for online learners.

I have found students like tutorial like sessions where you walk them through a technique or something, in your case, the Stellarium software.

Love the refection quotes/comments! They really benefitted from your support. It seems to lower their anxiety.

Question: What are ways you think you might increase participation for future semesters?

Great work! 

-Peggy
Cindy

I loved that you walked them through the software - i can see that being really helpful for students, and the reflections supported that. I’d love to hear more about how using Doodle in future classes goes!
Pawel

Your presentation helped me better understand how to organize and conduct webinars. They can be a valuable tool when done as nicely as your are. They also make the course even more interesting and, as you demonstrated, increase participation and improve student learning outcomes. That might be my next project in my online classes!
Regina Urban

Dr. Veerabathina,

This sounds like a very smart and student-friendly approach to helping your asynchronous students understand important information in your course. I really like the way you attempted to increase your sense of community within the group using a map. I would like to incorporate that into my collaborate sessions in my online courses. I love the phrase “intervention session” because these are key issues that influence the students’ performance in the first third of of the course. I can imagine that they really appreciate the specific coaching on the Stellarium and the use of the projector to measure (and that they can view it again and again as needed). Thanks for sharing your students’ reflections. ~ Regina
Kiva Harper

This was very helpful. I loved the orientation webinar. I noticed you didn’t do it the first day but instead did it during the first week. I find that students want all of the info the first day. Did you experience any challenges or student anxiety not doing it on day 1?
Karabi

Nila - I really like the way you designed the 3 webinars - very clear topics, and very relevant to what students are dealing with at that point of the semester. I am planning to have such a design for my Fall 16 online courses - which clearly outlines the expectation of each seminar. My first 2 sessions were about the syllabus and assignments. I agree, getting students to participate in these sessions is a big challenge. I offered sessions every week, and also had different timings to increase participation, and also provided credit for attendance, yet a handful of them didn’t bother to attend any. Maybe that’s the reality of online/ distance ed students’ lives 🙂 Great job with the clear webinars. Thank you.
- Jiyoon Yoon
  
  I agree with Karabi~ Great job in introducing at the beginning with the webinars~ I love to use these for my students~
  Thank you for sharing~
Denise Cauble

I do like your introduction very much. I can see using the finger chats in the larger classes! It is great to be able to see how several ideas can be rolled into one course.
Kim Breuer

Nila, as always I have found many ideas here that I would like to use, especially your orientation!