We asked an international student to describe their experience in their favorite online course. Other posts in this series include Student Voices: What Makes an Effective Online Course and Student Voices: Reflections of a Visually Impaired Student.
How did the instructor’s methods of communication help you to succeed in this course?
As an international student who moved to the U.S. to receive a quality education despite the high tuition rate, there were times when some of the online instructors only communicated with the class to preface and wrap-up the course. However, the instructor for my favorite course was different—she communicated with the class as a group and individually when needed. She communicated with us with the perfect balance of frequency and depth! In discussion forums, she created a friendly learning atmosphere that invited us to non-hesitantly share our experience based on our cultural backgrounds. If there were times when either myself or other international students struggled to delineate the details of our cultural experience, the instructor jumped in to make our educational experience meaningful.
Example: When the international students, including myself, had a hard time explaining certain concepts based on our cultural views, the instructor jumped in and created more discussion questions to deepen the conversation engagement among the all of us. Often, when only a very minority of students are international students, it gets harder to explain our thoughts succinctly to where everyone can understand. The instructor seemed fully aware of the possibility of this happening and showed connections to the international students’ cultural experience/examples with meaningful questions (which helped others engage in the new cultural perspective).
She also provided examples of her cultural experiences abroad (she was working in Italy while teaching the online course) with the concepts we learned to promote multiculturalism with the discussion topics.
In addition, when giving us grammatical feedback on our papers, the instructor was attentive to detail, constructive but also gentle. For example, she would comment “I see what you’re saying. But the organization is a little confusing. Could you find another way to express it?” or “In American-English, we rarely use this term. I would recommend ______ J”. Rather than jumping to our international background as the reason for our grammatical error, the instructor treated us equally and helped me, as an international student, to learn from my errors.
From the international student perspective, it felt like the instructor cared about the emotional and financial investment involved in participating in the course and considered my presence as a valuable member of the university.
Did the course include group work? Did you find this beneficial? Why or why not?
Yes, we were asked to self-select into a group of three and prepare course reading supplemental slides and engaging activities for the week for the rest of the class to participate in. Each group took a turn facilitating learning and facilitated that week’s discussion forum. This was very exciting group work for an online course, as we were encouraged to be as creative as possible with activities and materials. However, it is important to note that I worked with teammates with whom I already had positive group-work energy. They always asked my cultural knowledge to provide greater insight into creating culturally creative activities online. If I had to work with, for instance, peers who were not as flexible with culturally responsive activities, I would have had a bad experience with this group activity.
Example of an engaging quiz created by a student team.
Tell me more about student-facilitated discussions.
To add on to the response above, our group had a wonderful experience facilitating because our main task as facilitators was to deliver educational but fun activities. We found ways to incorporate elements of adult learning theories (i.e. andragogy), student motivation, and interactive activities. Our group used YouTube videos (TEDTalk, Vlogger commentary, and so on), news articles (The New York Times, Psychology Today, and other relevant sources), a concept map building (Lucidchart), engaging assessments on Google, and Google Docs for whole-class activities.
One of my favorite discussions was when I chose Korean Vlogger commentary to discuss Western & Eastern Philosophy of consumerism. This allowed us to have an academic, as well as a non-formal discussion.
What were the most helpful elements of the way the course was structured?
Instructor communication: The Instructor joined the discussions as a “student member” as well. Only when it was necessary, she jumped in to mediate any misunderstandings between peers. She also wrapped up the week via email summarizing what we discussed in the forums and what she learned from us. She sent us reminder emails for assignments, which helped us to stay motivated and engaged with the course.
Structured schedule: The instructor assigned us to partake in the student-facilitated discussions from Wednesday-Saturday and to read our course readings from Sunday-Tuesday. Facilitators were not allowed to upload the discussion activities until Tuesday evening. This structure helped everyone stay on top of the online learning experience.
This seemed like quite a forum-heavy course – what did you think of this approach?
While it was a forum-heavy course, it wasn’t only “text.” Some weeks we were asked to scan our concept map (hand-drawn) and to upload it on the forum; some days we had to share music videos, poems, or articles responding to the activity topic. It was not as text-heavy or rigid in terms of academic writing. As an international student, this helped me very much because it allowed me to “breathe” a little from academic English writing. Having to write academically requires a lot of time and effort for me. If I had to do this all the time (like other online courses I took), I would not have enjoyed the learning experience at all.
What is the most important thing for instructors designing online courses to keep in mind?
Through this course, I realized how much of a critical role presence and communication play in student learning outcome for online courses. I hope instructors designing online courses truly acknowledge the importance of their presence (via LMS or email). Especially when it comes to courses with many international students enrolled, I believe it is important for the instructor to not jump to “you should go to the writing center” but show sensitivity and consideration in recommending resources. International students can easily lose confidence if they do not know the rationale behind the instructors’ recommendations and feedback!