Obaid Final Project

FINAL PROJECT COMMUNICATION
SKILLS
BY MAM ANILA
OBAIDULLAH MANSOOR 006

MUHAMMAD ARQAM 023
ZOHAIB TAHIR 041
Syed Arsalan Mukkaram 044
HOW DID ONLINE CLASSES HELP STUDENTS IMPROVE THEIR
COMMUNICATION SKILLS?
1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This Report has been successful due to the assistance and cooperation of so many
personalities. First, I thank the almighty Allah, whose wisdom, ability and divine
provision has enabled me to complete the said Report. May his name be glorified
forever. Special thanks go to my supervisors! Ma’am Anila Yasmeen and my
Group-mate, Obaidullah Mansoor, Muhammad Arqam and Zohaib Tahir for all the
support, guidance, encouragement and important ideas which have made this Report
have the value it is worth. Another vote of thanks goes to all my course-mates and
friends who through teamwork supported me academically, socially, spiritually. My
parents and sister whose financial support, cooperation and love keeps me moving
amidst all rough and smooth worlds. Special thanks also go to all members of staff
and students of Superior University whose cooperation and input enabled me to get
the information that has made this Report have the value its worth. Particularly, my
sincere appreciation goes to again Ma’am Anila, whose support in the Report in the
form of special key notes was invaluable. Many people deserve to be
acknowledged, but I only ask the almighty Allah to bless them wherever they are.
May Allah bless you!
2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Using different methods to communicate with your online students can aid in their
retention in your class. Personalizing your communications can help foster a sense
of community in your class and help avoid the sense of isolation that some online
students experience. It’s important to know your audience so that you are able to
effectively communicate with your students to get your message across. Planning
your communication strategy in advance will help you be prepared to efficiently
communicate with your students in a timely and relevant manner. A student must
have to know when and how you communicate with your students helps foster a
sense of community in your online classes, which helps them feel connected to you
and their colleagues.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Acknowledgement .............................................................................................................. 1
2 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................ 2
3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4
3.1 Co-operation in online classes .................................................................................... 5
4 Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 8
5 Importance of Good Communication in Virtual School ..................................................... 9
5.1 What’s Going Wrong with Online Classes? ............................................................... 10
5.1.1 Students and their experiences with online classes .......................................... 10
6 Discussion and his result .................................................................................................. 12
7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 17
8 Recommendations ............................................................................................................ 18
9 Appendices ....................................................................................................................... 19
10 References .................................................................................................................... 20
3 INTRODUCTION
In today's society, online courses are widely used in colleges providing easy access
to course materials, classroom discussions, and feedback to instructors. The course
materials and activities may be accessed from any computer, whether it is from the
University or from the comfort of your own home. I've taken two online courses
since I've been in college and have benefited from those classes.
While effectively communicating with the students in your online classes aids in the
retention of your students, as educators, we should want to do more than just retain
our students. We should provide them with a sense of community while enrolled in
online classes to avoid the sense of isolation that some online students experience.
The goal of online communications is the same as the goal in face-to-face
communications: to bond; to share information; to be heard, and to be understood.
Fostering a sense of community in online classes will make the learning experience
more meaningful for online students and help them stay connected during the life of
the course. Learning Management Systems (LMS) have built-in tools to assist in
communicating with your online
students, but there are also many
other technology tools to help
you bridge the gap between you
and your online students. This
chapter will explore several
tools and methods that can be
used to enhance your
communications with your online students. Education has ventured out of the class
room and into the virtual world. This change in educational venue has also seen the
way that students are encouraged to learn develop. With the evolution of education,
has come the growing interest in online degrees. The way that students participate
with others while undertaking these online degrees, is Co-operatively over the
internet.
“Online learning is rapidly becoming one of the most cost-effective ways to

educate the world's rapidly expanding workforce.”
- Jack Messman, former CEO at Novell, Cambridge Technology Partners, Unionacific

Resources, Somerset House Corp.
“You can’t teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them
where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.”
- Seymour Paper, MIT Mathematician, educator, and Computer scientist.
“The students of the future will demand the learning support that is appropriate for their
situation or context. Nothing more, nothing less. And they want it at the moment the need
arises. Not sooner, not later. Mobile devices will be a key technology for providing that
learning support.”
- Dr. Marcus Specht, Professor of Advanced Learning Technologies, Open University of

Netherlands.
“In times where small instructor-led classrooms tend to be the exception, electronic learning
solutions can offer more Co-operation and interaction with experts and peers, as well as a
higher success rate than the live alternative.”
- Keith Bachman, Corporate eLearning Executive, W.R. Hambrecht and Assoc.
3.1 CO-OPERATION IN ONLINE CLASSES

Co-operation is a key to achieving goals. Because it allows students to build on
knowledge they already possess, by interacting with other students. It is a way to
receive feedback from their peers and educator in a less formal way than within the
classroom. Although there are negatives to Co-operation, according to the research
conducted, the positives outweigh the negatives. Students learn how to interact in a
professional manner within their learning groups and they build on their social and
management skills.
Co-operative learning can be defined as an instructional method in which students

work together in small groups towards a common goal. Co-operative learning is
defined as a structured form of group work where students pursue common goals
but are assessed individually. Co-operative learning can be encompassed within the
definition of Co-operative learning. Co-operation implemented in the early years of
learning builds a foundation for success, both at school and in life. It can provide a
positive attitude towards school and learning. Co-operation also teaches students
how other people think and build a set of skills that will be useful throughout their
school years and into their careers. Co-operative learning reduces the gap between
students, it has been found to provide significant support to students who are slow
learners. Through Co-operation, students are interacting with others from different
backgrounds and learning abilities. The diversity that students are faced with is of
particular benefit to their learning. Co-operation provides students with the
opportunity to verbalize their thoughts and to analyses other peoples’ ideas. These
thoughts facilitate understanding through cognitive restructuring on ‘those who
teach learn the most’. Group members not only capitalize on the interaction between
themselves and their peers but they learn how to problem solve by participating in
the group’s collective thoughts.
Students find that when receiving feedback from their peers throughout their
educational journey, that their learning experience is enriched. They feel as though
they have a better knowledge of the information that has been presented to them and
that their retention levels of new subject matter are greater. Co-operation represents
an interaction where students are given more power over their learning than
traditional methods. It is a method, in which students are their own time keepers.
Students are able to invest as much time as they feel is necessary to achieve their
goals. A common way of teaching students to work Co-operatively is to assign them
to groups to work through a problem. Groups have a greater potential to solve
complex problems in challenging contexts, they bring more knowledge, skill and
experience to the work than any individual could. When working in small groups,
there are various methods that can be utilized to help establish a sense of
community and interaction between students. These include; case studies, role-
playing, debates and threaded discussions.
For groups to be successful, the students must have a set plan of action. They need
to allocate tasks to individual group members, and know that the task will be
completed. A specific skill set should be utilized by the students to ensure that they
are benefitting from the group sessions. Students will need to show that they are
able to be open, have good leadership (able to follow instructions as well as give
them), be inquisitive (ask for clarification from other group members regarding
information provided by them) and show that they have good judgement.
With the development of social media and other online mediums, it has been
increasingly easier for educators to set Co-operative tasks for students. Online
mediums such as Blackboard™, Adobe Connect and Co-operate are integral parts
of educator-controlled Co-operation. Weekly tasks are posted to blackboard for
completion by the students. The activities ask for members of the group to actively
participate in posting the answers to the said activity, and to provide feedback on a
post, or to ask a question of fellow students.
4 METHODOLOGY
In formal education system there is a curriculum that needs to be learnt
by learners. The techniques of learning or teaching this content is the method.
Some examples of method are lectures, inquiry-based learning, project-based
learning, and problem-based learning. These different methods carry some
inherent advantages and disadvantages. For example, most educators use
lecturing because it is practical time wise. However, since lecturing is
instructor-centered and it is usually carried one-way, it becomes boring for
learners and create motivational problems.
Over the years the method of teaching became more important than the
content in education, because the diffusion of communication and network
technologies made a vast amount of different content readily available to many
people. As an example, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the
most prestigious universities in the USA, announced in 2002 that it would make its
entire curriculum freely available on the internet over the next ten years. In this
way, the MIT showed that it was their method of teaching, and not the content that
was important in their education.
Tradition formal education is based upon a paradigm generally called
“Knowledge reproduction model.” The method used in this model are verbal
lecture, printed handouts, drill and practice sessions, structured classroom
activities, and office hours. In this model, students are seen as passive
learners. The purpose of teaching is to transfer static body of knowledge from
sources, like instructor and books, to learners. On the other side, the research
findings claim that all kinds of learning are promoted when the methods of
teaching favor active learning. For example, after a literature review on this
issue, Merrill (2002) identified that learning is promoted when learners are
engaged in solving real-world problems, when new knowledge is
demonstrated to the learner, when new knowledge is applied by the learner.
Computer mediated communication and online learning in general support

this kind of active learning. According to Imel (1997) the most important
distinguishing characteristics of WBI is the emphasis on instruction and not just on
information delivery. For this reason, WBI should be design ed by basing it upon
the cognitive-based theories of learning, where learners purposefully interact with
the environment, solve real-world problems, practice the knowledge, and thus
become an active learner.
5 IMPORTANCE OF GOOD COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL SCHOOL

Just because you may be taking your classes from home by yourself, you will need
to be able to communicate with several people including teachers, Achieve staff,
and other students. Let’s begin by discussing communication with your teachers.
One of the most important aspects of online school is good, clear communication
between students and teachers.
It is important to understand that you can never ask too many questions. In a
traditional classroom, teachers are able to see students’ expressions and visibly see
if a student is struggling or does not understand something. In an online class, it is
partially a student’s responsibility to keep their teachers in the loop about how they
are doing.
5.1 WHAT’S GOING WRONG WITH ONLINE CLASSES?

5.1.1 Students and their experiences with online classes
As someone who puts a lot of time and energy into making online courses in the
hope students will actually experience all that content, those numbers are
depressing. We’ve been blessed with an internet chock full of resources,
information, and knowledge on anything we could possibly want to learn.
As we know that with the current situation of COVID-19 90% of worlds countries
are going through lockdown situation. Due to which the whole world is facing lot of
challenges and within those challenges one of the biggest challenges is online
studying. Today we are going to meet some of our fellow students to know their
opinions or perceptions about virtual studying (online study).
So, let's meet our first fellow student,
5.1.1.1 Interview 1
Hi, my name is Farhan Ali and I'm a student of Fine Art (5th Semester) at
National College of Art. Lahore. As per my opinion with the current
COVID-19 situation we must have to move from physical studying
towards online studying to ensure the safety of our beloved peoples and in
the same time maintaining the social distancing.
Therefore, no doubt that online studying is becoming one of the key

strategic way to cascade knowledge and educate the youth. But as per my
experience the online classes are not suitable for my field and the field of
Doctors, Mechanical Engineering and the other physical field etc., because
in my field major part of studies are practical and hand zone, and some
theory based online lectures. In short, I just want to say that online classes
are more helpful for those students whom are related to studying in
schools, colleges and their major subjects are BS (Math, Economics, etc.),
BA (English, Urdu, etc.). But these virtual classes are not helpful for
Doctors, Engineering, etc.
5.1.1.2 Interview 2
My online learning experience has been different than what I’m used to. I love that I
get to work from the comfort of my home; however, I would rather be in a physical
classroom doing my work because
it gives me the opportunity to ask
questions when needed, and in my
own opinion, it is much more
effective than online learning.
Compared to learning in a
physical classroom online classes
seem more difficult because you
don’t get the hands-on learning
like you do in a physical classroom. In the future, I’d choose a physical classroom
over online any day. The reason being, it’s easier for me to understand the lesson
plans and put my new knowledge into effect.
5.1.1.3 Interview 3
My online learning experience as a student is kind of stressful; I’m not really used
to technology. I am learning how to use technology, especially because I need to do
my homework somehow. I did like how we can be at home, though, to bond with
my family. What I don’t like is the piles of homework due on the same day. I have a
teacher that makes us do our homework and makes us turn it in by 6:30 p.m. on that
same day. This experience compares to my experience as a student in a physical
classroom because of the workload. In the future, I would sometimes want online
learning and sometimes do my education at school, even though it may be loud to
concentrate sometimes. I would like to do some online learning so I can bond more
with my family. I would just hope I didn’t get as much work as I do now. I want to
be able to have a clear mind without worrying that I have so much homework to do.
5.1.1.4 Interview 4
My online experience is disturbing. Ever since we had no school and stayed home
due to quarantine, I have been more busy than usual. I don’t really like online
school because it makes me procrastinate to do my work last minute. On the other
hand, at school, I finished all my assignments on time without feeling lazy. The
only thing I like about online classes is that they have helped me learn how to be
independent, manage family time and school work. I am not as concerned about my
grade as much because it can’t drop lower. I don’t really like how some of my
teachers are giving us more assignments now than in the past. Also, I don’t
understand how to do a lot of classwork because I forgot or it’s difficult to
understand without anyone’s help. Being physically in a classroom.
6 DISCUSSION AND HIS RESULT
Question 1
Yes No Maybe
According to above the pie graph and it’s a survey of 28 students, there are 44.4%
for Yes people, 27.8% for No people and 27.8% for Maybe People. This question is
from the Appendices Section (Pg#26).
Question 2
Yes No Maybe
Question 3
Yes No Maybe
Question 4
Yes No Maybe
According to above the pie graph and it’s a survey of 28 students, there are 50% for
Yes people, 16.7% for No people and 33.3% for Maybe People. This question is
Question 5
Yes No Maybe
Question 6
Yes No Maybe
Question 7
17%
33%
50%
Yes No Maybe
for Yes people, 50% for No people and 16.7% for Maybe People. This question is
Question 8
Yes No Maybe
Question 9
Yes No Maybe
Question 10
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree
According to above the pie graph and it’s a survey of 28 students, there are 2% for
Strongly Disagree people, 10.5% for Disagree people, 31.6% for Neutral people,
40.1% for Agree people and 15.8% for Strongly Agree People. This question is
7 CONCLUSION
To communicate effectively with your students online you need to think outside the
text box. Not all people like to interact using the same methods, so you have to be
prepared to use different types of channels to communicate. The goal of online
communication is the same as that of face-to-face communication: building links;
share information; be heard and be understood.
8 RECOMMENDATIONS
The conversation in an online environment requires a little more thought and
planning than the one that occurs in the classroom, due mainly to the absence of
body language.
Developing timely, relevant and useful communication for your students is not
always a simple task.
Here are some basic guidelines to help you achieve good results:
Remember, less is More: Try to use as few words as possible. Online students are
bombarded with information that consists mostly of text, so the last thing they want
is to read yet another long message.
Be clear: Your message should be concise and clear, leaving no room for varying
interpretations. If you want your students to know that the deadline for a test has
been extended, for example, your message should speak only about that.
Be polite: Reread your text to make sure it sounds the way you want it to sound.
Check the tone of the communication and check for clarity and completeness in the
text. You want your messages to be professional and enjoyable, and for your
students to know that you receive their questions well.
Provide feedback: As your students are learning from a distance, it is important

that they receive consistent feedback on their progress in online classes. If a student
asks a question about a task, it is interesting that you first offer a personal answer to
that question, and then if you feel the question is important to the rest of the class,
introduce it to everyone.
Ask for Opinion: Ask your students what they think adds another personal touch to
your communication, which helps them to create a bond. People like to give their
personal opinion, make them feel important and part of something, at the same time,
this feedback is of great value to help improve the content of your course in the
future.
Another detail to think about: Do your students need to have the information now?
If the answer is yes, you should ensure that the method used to send this message is
one that reaches everyone immediately, such as a text message via SMS or
WhatsApp.
You should also post an ad in your online classes to serve as a permanent record of
what specific information has been given.
Also, to get attention, use capital letters in bold and include “IMPORTANT” in the
subject line or title of the notification.
The ways that instructors communicate in their online classes should reflect the
diversity of their students.
There are many tools available to help increase the effectiveness of your
communication and connection with students.
9 APPENDICES
• Are students trying to participate in online class questions and
answering?
• Are students feel comfortable asking a question or queries in
online system?
• Are the students provided with proper facilities during online
classes?
• Do students try to give their online viva without losing
confidence?
• Is there any gap or lack of understanding between teacher and
students during online class?
• Does the teacher want structured answers from the student?
• Do the teacher keep in mind the ability of the learner while asking
questions online?
• Do online classes affect your lifestyle than offline campus
classes?
• Do students respond properly in online classes?
• Do teachers not give their best in online classes?
The link of the google form in which I have got an opinion from some fellow
mates, my relatives.
https://docs.google.com/forms/u/3/d/13LR6023i_N7T2Fb6KvNDMnFdvAHWxRe
S4peBWoKY-fc/edit#question=323450502&field=880710758
10 REFERENCES
• Barb, S. A., & Plücker, J. A. (2002). Smart people or smart contexts?
Cognition, ability, and talent development in an age of situated approaches
to knowing and learning.
Educational Psychologist, 37(3), 165-182.
• https://www.designingdigitally.com/blog/2015/03/10-fascinating-online-
learning-
quotes#:~:text=%E2%80%9COnline%20learning%20is%20rapidly%20b
ecoming,everything%20they%20need%20to%20know.
• https://www.universalclass.com/i/course/report-writing.htm
• https://davidwees.com/content/online-learning-recommendations/

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FINAL PROJECT COMMUNICATION

OBAIDULLAH MANSOOR 006

“Online learning is rapidly becoming one of the most cost-effective ways to

- Jack Messman, former CEO at Novell, Cambridge Technology Partners, Unionacific

- Seymour Paper, MIT Mathematician, educator, and Computer scientist.

- Dr. Marcus Specht, Professor of Advanced Learning Technologies, Open University of

- Keith Bachman, Corporate eLearning Executive, W.R. Hambrecht and Assoc.

3.1 CO-OPERATION IN ONLINE CLASSES

Co-operative learning can be defined as an instructional method in which students

Computer mediated communication and online learning in general support

5 IMPORTANCE OF GOOD COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL SCHOOL

5.1 WHAT’S GOING WRONG WITH ONLINE CLASSES?

So, let's meet our first fellow student,

Therefore, no doubt that online studying is becoming one of the key

6 DISCUSSION AND HIS RESULT

Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

Provide feedback: As your students are learning from a distance, it is important

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