The following activities are based on traditional F2F activities but modified to fit the online environment. It is not our intent to present a comprehensive list of activities but to prompt thought about how F2F activities can be used, with modification, in distance education.

Individual and Group Project Activity

F2F instructors often use individual projects to extend learning across time and to increase complexity. Many projects have multiple elements and require students to apply content in ways that are different from providing answers on an examination. Group projects, whether housed within one F2F session or extended over time, require students to communicate and collaborate, while dealing with various levels of complexity (dependent upon the instructions provided for the assignment). Individual and group assignments can increase interaction, require higher levels of thought, and require students to think about content differently in the F2F classroom. An important distinction is that the instructor sees the students on a regular basis and can intervene or provide guidance on an "as needed" basis. The instructor can also address incomplete or misunderstood instructions or expectations on an impromptu basis.

Distance educators can do similar projects but more planning is required on some projects. A traditional F2F project is to have students develop a presentation and deliver the presentation to the class. In a distance course, this might be an attachment on the discussion board with the developer responsible for answering questions about the content from fellow students. The tools available through Blackboard allow students to upload presentations with supporting documents and notes for review by the class. Linking the notes and supporting documents to a question and answer session through the discussion board or virtual classroom replicates much of the interaction in a F2F course, using text as the medium. Many instructors include some type of peer critique in this process. A valuable way to do this is to require peer review and require the original author to accommodate this feedback into the final product, to be submitted for a final grade to you.

Webquests and other activities requiring students to investigate and research web-based sources is another project that can increase active learning. Assignments can be as simple as locating and reviewing specific websites or as complicated as webquests. Bernie Dodge, the creator of the webquest, actively maintains a website devoted to webquests at: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/

Webquests can be developed as individual project or group assignments so take care to identify exactly what outcomes you want to see from the project and develop accordingly.

Role Play Activity

Role playing is a useful strategy to help students understand real-world applications of concepts. Role playing allows students to practice in a supportive environment before application outside the classroom. In the F2F world, instructors often assign roles during a class session and provide some additional information to define the role and the position the role would take on an issue. This may be delivered orally or in written form. To successfully transition role playing to the online classroom, a bit more planning may be required.

To plan for a role play, your first step is to consider the set up. You, as instructor, will develop a written vignette or scenario for students to respond to or solve. As the online instructor, you have a great amount of flexibility with how the actual role play is completed. Three examples are presented below but in no way outline all of the ways that role-play activities can be integrated into the online classroom.

Discussion Board - The set up is presented to small groups within the discussion board. Groups assign roles and use the discussion board to have a hypothetical conversation on the topic.

• Assignment - Students are assigned or select groups to discuss the topic. Groups communicate by defined methods to create a single script of the role play to return to the instructor

• Assignment - After discussing the case, you are to write a one-page essay from the point of view of X - defend your position.

   

Case Study – The Set Up

Mr. Brown is in his first year of employment with a large software company. During a routine monitoring of his company expense account, company auditors notice a regular pattern of inappropriate charges. Mr. Brown's supervisor notifies him that the charges are inappropriate and that he must return the funds to the company. Mr. Brown claims that he never submitted those charges and that it is not his signature on the expense forms. He refuses to return the money and threatens to sue on the grounds that the monitoring of the account created a hostile workplace environment. He has retained an attorney.

Students should discuss the situation by taking the following roles:

Mr. Brown

Mr. Brown's supervisor

Mr. Brown's attorney

Auditor who noticed the inappropriate expenses

Company's attorney

One way to think about role playing is to think of it as case-based or problem-based teaching with assigned roles to promote interaction and cooperation. Case studies or problems can be presented without requiring interaction from the students. Actively involving students as players in the drama requires participation, interaction, and cooperation.

Jigsaw Activity

Jigsaw activities are borrowed from F2F cooperative learning techniques. In this approach, different individuals in a group seek out specific information to be shared with the original group. In the F2F world, you usually assign an overall research topic to the class, divide students into groups, have the groups assign students to predefined subtopics, and then group all students researching a particular subtopic into a secondary group to collaboratively research the subtopic. Once the secondary group reaches consensus about the best response to the subtopic, this group disbands and individuals move to their original group to share information on their subtopic.

Using a discussion board, you could assign students to groups researching or investigating the same problem. The groups would assign tasks to group members (structure from the instructor facilitates this process) and then individuals with specific tasks could meet as groups in the discussion board (create these secondary group locations before the activity). The secondary groups investigate and share information until they believe they have a good response to their portion of the assignment. Individuals then go back to the original group's location on the discussion board to post their information.

Think/ Pair/ Share Activity

Students are paired with a classmate to summarize what they have learned, to answer a question, or to consider application of a class concept in the real world. The intent is to engage individuals, pairs, and the entire class. To set this up, allow some time for personal reflection on the topic. After reflection, pairs are to collaborate to come up with a common response. These common responses are posted to the discussion board.

It is important to note that we have presented only a few of the ways that active F2F activities can be used in the distance classroom. Our belief is that online instructors are only limited by their creativity and time to adequately plan for such activities.