Enhancing Leadership Education Through Online Learning: Best Practices for Leadership Educators

• In Event: Explorations of Online Leadership Learning

Short Description

Presenters will share some best practices and strategies for teaching leadership in online courses. Addressing challenges and advantages of teaching online, they will discuss the success of their online learners and provide examples for practitioners who hope to enhance their own online strategies.

Detailed Abstract

In an era where virtual reality and global accessibility have become part of our everyday lives, the movement of education toward less traditional, brick-and-mortar classrooms comes as little surprise to most. However, the large failure of MOOCs along with perceptions of online learning as little more than students ‘just pushing buttons,’ have left educators and college administrators alike with great skepticism (Miller, 2014). Yet, research suggests blended and fully online platforms allow for optimum quality of educational opportunities in terms of replicating and/or enhancing traditional face-to-face learning. Unlike MOOCs which generally enroll hundreds or even thousands of students and involve limited facilitation by an instructor, fully online courses have the potential to more closely resemble traditional classrooms in terms of size and interaction with the instructor (Miller, 2014). Beyond this, many students find the flexibility of online learning a major draw as it provides the opportunity to work at their convenience; virtually anytime, anywhere (Quillen, 2015). Furthermore, as universities turn their focus toward economic concerns and the need for increasing student success rates, the push toward online learning is likely to intensify (Miller. 2014). Based on an advanced leadership theories course, “Dynamics of Effective Leadership in Organizations,” the authors will present some of their best practices and strategies for teaching leadership online to help support faculty in making the transition toward enhancement of online learning.

According to Michelle Miller (2014), author of “Minds Online,” one of the greatest challenges in academia is the rapid decrease in student time spent on learning activities. The development of online courses allows for an advantage in addressing this by structuring assignments which prioritize student effort (Miller, 2014). Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) further support this claim citing the accessibility of online learning as an opportunity to engage in learning activities at the student’s convenience, a feature which is not provided by traditional face-to-face courses. The challenge then, is to fully engage students in the online learning experience. One approach for doing this, is to simply ask learners to respond in ways that demonstrate critical thinking and/or personal reflection (Miller, 2014). In our course, experiential learning opportunities like simulations and individual experiments followed by reflection were highly effective in accomplishing this. For example, we asked students to employ an experiment in which they developed clear, measurable goals using a particular leadership theory to attempt to motivationally influence someone they saw on a daily or almost daily basis. After the experiment was completed, students reflected on the overall success of their attempts and discussed the outcomes of each goal. While the individual results varied greatly, several students cited this experiment as one of the most memorable and impactful activities from the semester.

One important part of traditional classrooms which is often missing from the online environment is making students feel connected (Miller, 2014). Based on Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,” this is accomplished through interaction with the instructor and collaboration between students. While this can be trickier to achieve in a fully online course, it is possible. One approach we used was to create student work groups. Within these groups, students took turns being the weekly assignment leader. This served several key functions within the construct of our leadership course. First and foremost, it created an opportunity for students to practice their individualized approach to leadership and also allowed those in the followership roles to experience different types of leadership as demonstrated by their peers. Group assignments provided opportunities for collaboration and connection with other students in the class. Beyond this, we worked to create connection through non-mandatory live meetings in which students met with the instructor synchronously (via Zoom or Adobe Connect) to discuss relevant course topics and/or ask questions. We also created an opportunity at the beginning of the semester for students to meet with their instructor one-on-one (via FaceTime or Skype) which helped encourage students to connect with their instructor throughout the semester.

Another excellent practice to engage online learners is the provision of “frequent, rapid, informative feedback” (Miller, 2014). While providing high-quality and meaningful feedback can be a daunting task, especially online, there are many ways to improve the instructor’s burden. Some strategies we have implemented include the provision of peer feedback on various assignments. This was particularly effective for group assignments in which students individually assessed the performance of other groups. Additionally, we created weekly reading quizzes which were relatively low in point value and automatically graded (using Blackboard). We also designed several low-threat assignments throughout the semester with clear and simple grading rubrics to assist in quick, effective grading (e.g., No credit, partial credit, or full credit). The provision of these smaller assignments throughout the semester provided opportunities for scaffolding the development of skills and helped to empower students by providing them with a sense of control and autonomy (Miller, 2014). For larger assignments, we provided more complex grading rubrics which further served to communicate clear expectations, and by spreading these assignments out, the instructor was able to provide high-quality, individualized feedback to students.

Using these approaches and others, we found the students in our online course to have a high rate of completion and advanced understanding of the material covered. Beyond this, students reported having developed applicable workplace skills in terms of real leadership practice and the ability to effectively collaborate with others using virtual technology. Students also improved communication and interpersonal skills, and developed good time-management practices. Overall, replication of this course within the online environment appeared to be successful in matching or even enhancing the quality of the highly rated face-to-face version of the course. We hope that by sharing some of our strategies, other practitioners will find greater ease in moving toward the use of online learning forums, whether in blended or fully online learning environments.

Participants

• Tiffani Luethke, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• L.J. Mcelravy, University Of Nebraska - Lincoln