Abstract
Flower Darby and James Lang’s Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes is a teaching resource for new online instructors seeking an overview of current best practices for online courses. Small Teaching Online confronts the distinct challenges of engaging and motivating students in an online space. While many of the foundational concepts will be familiar to readers of Lang’s (2016) iteration of Small Teaching for in-person classrooms, readers of Small Teaching Online will gain some valuable nuggets to improve their online teaching. Lang’s original “small teaching” concept is revamped here; when instructors integrate even small, evidence-based changes to a course, it pays off in better learning outcomes for students. Attrition rates for online classes are 10 percent to 20 percent higher than in-person classes, with some estimates much higher (Bawa 2016; Patterson and McFadden 2009). Small Teaching Online addresses the barriers faced by online students and offers strategies for instructors to overcome them.
Darby and Lang write to instructors experienced in in-person classrooms who desire to translate that experience into online teaching. The structure of the book addresses the gaps in translating an in-person course into the online environment. Most instructors have limited experience as online learners and fail to address an online course’s isolating tendency. Through empathetic and intentional course design, Darby and Lang are optimistic that online learning can bring joy to both instructors and learners. By connecting online in a human way, Darby and Lang aver that the instructor might find online teaching as energizing and impactful as the in-person course.
The book is separated into three parts to address three challenges in the online learning environment. Part one, “Designing for Learning,” focuses on intentional course design. Part two, titled “Teaching Humans,” instructs how to build community in a typically isolating online space. Part three, “Motivating Online Students (and Instructors),” seeks to buoy motivation and improve learning outcomes.
The first three chapters of the book deal with the nuts and bolts of intentional design. Chapter one, aptly titled “Surfacing Backward Design,” discusses how to make course goals more transparent for students. Learning objectives can anchor students to the “big picture” of the course (p. 3). For example, in a sociology course, I might consider a big picture question to be “What are the consequences of categorical inequality for life chances?” or “How is the natural environment socially constructed?” Learning objectives outline the skills that students will acquire or accomplish by the completion of your course (Atkinson and Lowney 2016). When instructors link learning objectives with big picture questions that puzzle or motivate students, they value the course content and ultimately learn better.
Darby and Lang suggest that students might even co-create one of the learning outcomes for the course, which increases the students’ investment from the outset. Instructors that use their learning goals as a foundation and build to activities and assessments create logical pathways for students to answer the big questions of the course. This backwards design concept is used in face-to-face courses, but the communication of these objectives to online students can get lost if not resurfaced regularly in course content. Online students are masters of efficiency, which means the course must incentivize interaction with all resources, including course goals. Integrating learning objectives allows students (and instructor) to keep the what, how, and why at the surface of every assignment. When instructors are clear about the purpose of assignments, they share their expert justification and own value of the task. If students value the assignment, they are more motivated to complete it.
Chapter two, “Guiding Learning through Engagement,” discusses ways to design scaffolding into a course to help students master content in increments. Scaffolding lets students master skills in a low-stakes environment with feedback and space to improve skills. For example, students writing a large research project might submit the project in segments for feedback throughout the term. Each segment is revised by integrating instructor feedback and is incorporated into the final project. Another way to scaffold learning in an online space is by using a conditional release function on the learning management system (LMS). The idea is that students need to demonstrate mastery of a skill or concept before moving forward to access new content; for example, students having to score full marks on a vocabulary test before being able to access the next discussion assignment. This approach is particularly helpful to maintain the engagement of students who are still learning to be “self-sufficient learners” and who most benefit from a “guided learning experience” (p. 45).
Chapter three, “Using Media and Technology Tools,” advocates for a restrained approach to incorporating technology into online courses. For the innovators among us, the excitement of a new instructional tool and the potential in the classroom can distract us from the how, what, and why of the tool and the role it serves in achieving our learning objectives. Darby and Lang encourage eager technology adopters to ask, “does the technology solve a problem” and “does it advance a learning goal?” (p. 69). We should not be magpies to the shiny and new, cluttering courses and overburdening students with new technology if it does not affirm these two questions.
Some elements of course design introduced in the first three chapters, like backwards design or scaffolding, do not seem like they would fit under the purview of the incremental changes of “small teaching.” But Darby and Lang assure readers that busy instructors can start by applying one strategy to a single assignment or unit and scale up over time.
The middle part of the book, “Teaching Humans,” tackles the challenge of building community and increasing student engagement in an online environment. When instructors create an online community, they create opportunities where robust online dialogue can occur between instructors and students and, even more challenging, between students themselves.
In chapter four, “Building Community,” Darby and Lang explain how empathetic instruction creates a more engaging experience for the online learner. In the opening of the book, Darby and Lang narrate a scene of an eager student encountering an abandoned classroom to demonstrate how students in an online course can feel neglected and disengage with the course. By creating opportunities to connect with students, you can translate a caring affect to the online space (p. 97). For example, at the beginning of the course, the instructor might embed a quick introductory video clip, becoming more visible to the students. Posting announcements (either video or written) on the LMS homepage, participating in student discussions, providing access to instructor-moderated discussion board, and giving timely feedback for assignments can make an instructor more visible, appear more empathetic, and motivate students. In chapter five, “Giving Feedback,” Darby and Lang focus on the importance of instructor feedback in maintaining students’ engagement. Focused and timely feedback can reduce the grading burden and offer structure and guidance for student success. Darby and Lang advocate online rubrics and summative feedback. Other types of outreach for students include personalized emails, class-wide announcements, short videos, a video conference call, or phone conversation.
Chapter six, “Fostering Student Persistence and Success,” emphasizes the importance of structured learning environments to improve student learning outcomes. Instructors can make clear the expectations of the course and the level of commitment needed from students. Once students are clear in the steps to success, perhaps even co-creating goals in the course, they can decide if they are willing to put forth the effort from the course outset. Designing courses with scaffolding can build confidence through small successes and maintain forward momentum for students. Darby and Lang maintain that students must do the work to achieve the learning outcomes in classes, but good structure can benefit all students, particularly those students who have high risk of attrition.
In the third and final part of the book, “Motivating Online Students (and Instructors),” Darby and Lang offer tactics to combat online students’ tendency toward low motivation and disengagement. Mechanisms that build community and trust in a face-to-face environment are not as apparent in an online environment. Online instructors need creative solutions to connect with and motivate students.
In chapter seven, “Creating Autonomy,” Darby and Lang explain why instructors should seek the optimal balance between course structure and student agency. Students who feel a sense of control in the course are more likely to engage in autonomous learning. Darby and Lang recommend letting students annotate or co-create the syllabus and have flexibility in selecting topics for assignments, projects, and discussion groups. When students take ownership of their learning, they add their own intrinsic motivation to learn.
Increasing student agency does not mean diminishing academic standards. Darby and Lang discuss a tactic called “SPECs grading,” a model of grading that puts the onus of performance on the students and lessens the grading burden on the instructor. Nilson (2015) developed SPECs grading from a professional engineering model. When engineers are contracted to design a product, a standard of specifications or “specs” are negotiated in a contract with the customer. If the newly engineered product does not meet the minimum specifications, it is not accepted by the customer. In applying this SPECs model to assignments, students must meet a defined base standard (minimum specifications) to receive full credit. It’s an “all or nothing” approach, and if students do not meet the minimum standard, they receive a zero. SPECs grading could be useful when used selectively to maintain a base level of student performance. For instructors, SPECs grading can reduce cognitive burden of attempting to decipher between A– and B+ grade for routine student contributions, such as weekly discussion posts.
Chapter eight, “Creating Connections,” discusses the concept of creating value of content for students by making the content relevant to their own experiences. Linking of course material to big questions can help all students fit in the relevance of new information. Darby and Lang describe how concept maps can help students fit in new content to the overall scope of the course and into interests and goals in their own lives.
The final substantive chapter, “Developing as an Online Instructor,” proposes strategies for online instructors to sustain vitality in their teaching. Building community with other scholars interested in teaching and learning is also important to avoid burnout and engage empathetically with students. Online teaching is still in its infancy relative to in-person instruction, and there is much discussion, research, and sharing of strategies yet to be done. Seeking exemplars and professional networks in online teaching can give us more opportunities to incrementally improve our courses and keep the teaching stoke alive.
Small Teaching Online reads like a highly engaging annotated bibliography of teaching research within the last five years, punctuated with narratives drawn from Darby’s varied teaching experience over her career. It follows the same structure as Lang’s Small Teaching, with clear chapter headings that lead readers through introduction, theories, models, and a recap of main principles. Each chapter is framed with narratives of teaching scenarios that instructors at the college level will find relatable.
This book is not written by sociologists; Darby and Lang are both scholars of English. While written for a general audience, the online strategies would be of use in any sociology course. To complement with a sociological perspective, Small Teaching Online would pair well with Kozimor-King and Chin’s (2018) book Learning from Each Other: Refining the Practice of Teaching in Higher Education. In particular, Hunt’s (2018) chapter, “Pedagogical Techniques for Creating a Community of Inquiry in Online Learning Environments,” and Messineo’s (2018) chapter, “(Re-)Creating Your Course: Backward Design and Assessment,” would work well with this book. Readers interested in a richer explanation of the underlying learner-centered philosophy would enjoy the discussion in Maryellen Weimer’s (2013) book, Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice.
The audience of Small Teaching Online is “instructors who have experience with face-to-face teaching and are now being asked to develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach online” (p. xxvii). With this audience in mind, almost all the discussion of the book comes from translating in-person tactics into an online environment. The main shortcoming of this translation approach is that it doesn’t emphasize the innovations that the online environment might offer above and beyond the in-person classroom and is understandably limited by the infancy of research of online courses.
Readers looking for a combination of good teaching practice and intentional design will find it in Small Teaching Online. Readers looking for more innovative solutions should use this book as a reference to explore other specific resources. It’s delightful to read, if occasionally redundant to Lang’s 2016 iteration, but worth the review to find new golden nugget strategies like SPECs grading. It would be of use to many graduate teaching seminars or faculty transitioning to teaching online. For more advanced instructors, the book has useful references and is full of relatable and illuminating narratives.