More than half of the 1,000-plus readers who completed the survey rated unprepared students as either “very problematic” (32.9%) or “extremely problematic” (22.8%); with another fourth (25.2%) saying the issue of unprepared students was “moderately problematic.”

Meanwhile, more than one-third of readers rated student motivation as “moderately problematic” (36.5%); with just over one-fourth (25.4%) saying “very problematic” and 11.6% calling it “extremely problematic.”

The issues of unprepared students and student motivation far outpaced the nine other potential challenges listed in the survey question which asked: What are some of your biggest day-to-day challenges? Coming in at number three was technology distractions, which nearly half of the readers said was either “moderately problematic” (28.4%) or “very problematic” (18.2%). All the remaining issues, which included student incivility, faculty incivility, class size too big, helicopter parents, classroom safety, and limited resources, were rated much lower.

Other results from the survey:

• In terms of article topics, the five areas of interest that scored the highest were: learner-centered teaching, teaching with technology, course design, assessment and grading, and assignment strategies.
• 60.5% of readers identified themselves as professor/instructor, 10.3% as dean/administrator, and 10.7% as other.
• 28.1% of readers have worked in higher education for more than 20 years, 22.1% for 6-10 years, 18.4% fewer than 10 years, and 18.3% for 11-15 years.
• 29.2% of readers work at a four-year public institution, 26.9% at a two-year public institution, and 26.3% at a four-year private institution.
• 61.8% of readers teach or manage at least one online or blended course.

Thank for everyone who took the time to complete the survey. We take all of the insight and feedback received very seriously and will use it to continue to improve Faculty Focus throughout the coming year.

“I have a lot of content to cover, so there’s really no time to address multiculturalism.”

Diversity, once largely centered on race and ethnicity, has evolved over the years to include a broad range of personal attributes, experiences, and backgrounds, each interlocking to create one’s social identity.

For example, Texas A&M University defines diversity as “The inclusion, welcome, and support of individuals from all groups, encompassing the various characteristics of persons in our community. The characteristics can include, but are not limited to: age, background, citizenship, disability, education, ethnicity, family status, gender, gender identity/expression, geographical location, language, military experience, political views, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and work experience.”

When viewed through this lens, it becomes easier to see the importance of teaching inclusively, regardless of discipline or ethnic makeup of your course. But what exactly makes a course multicultural?

In the recent online seminar, Four Strategies to Engage the Multicultural Classroom, Texas A&M’s Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity, Dr. Christine A. Stanley, and Dr. Matthew L. Ouellett, Associate Director of the Center for Teaching & Faculty Development at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, outlined a framework for multicultural course design. As outlined below, the four conceptual areas — instructors, students, teaching methods and content — are all inextricably linked, while integrating into the larger campus climate and culture.

1. Who are you? Spend some time examining your own experiences, values, assumptions and stereotypes. How have you come to understand your complex social identities? Which aspects are most salient for you in the classroom?
2. Who are your students? Get to know your students, and just as important, give them opportunities to get to know each other. The more students have invested in helping to create a positive classroom environment, the more likely they are to take risks, share their viewpoints, and hear each other out even if they may disagree, Ouellett said.
3. What are your pedagogical choices? Create a more student-centered teaching model that engages students. “What we need to do is shift the dynamics so we’re less about demonstrating our expertise and more about getting students to build their own ability to construct knowledge,” Ouellett said.
4. What are your content choices? Understand that the principles of an inclusive course apply across all disciplines. Model inclusive behavior by ensuring diverse perspectives, and use examples and illustrations that reflect the diversity that may be in your classroom, Stanley said.

Managing Difficult Conversations
One of the biggest challenges to embracing a multicultural course design is being able to effectively manage potentially polarizing topics where emotions can run high and old stereotypes are exposed. It’s a given that, at some point, a student will say something inflammatory that completely catches everyone off guard and it’s important to have what Ouellett calls “pedagogical parachutes” for those times when you just don’t know how to respond. Examples include: Can you tell me more? How did you come to believe this? Are there other perspectives on this topic?

During the more intense situations, you may want to give students a chance to collect their thoughts and respond to writing prompts, such as How do you feel at this moment? You also could break students into small groups with the discussion prompt: What do we need from each other to continue?

“It’s important to recognize, too, that as instructors we’ve all been there and there is nothing wrong with coming back the next class period and admitting ‘Hey, we were having this discussion last time and I don’t think I handled it particularly well. Let’s talk about it some more,’” Stanley said. “I think that goes a long way with students.”

“One of the issues with service learning and civic engagement is they are such great programs and everyone is excited about doing something good for the community and doing something good for the students — and of course that’s true — but sometimes we sort of lull ourselves into this feeling that ‘If I’m doing good, how can I possibly get into trouble? Who would sue us?’” said Rob Jenkins, an associate professor at Georgia Perimeter College. “That kind of thinking can be problematic because there are a number of areas in civic engagement and service learning where you can open yourself up to liability.”

Consider the following scenarios outlined in the recent online seminar Managing Legal Risks of Service Learning and Civic Engagement:

• A student is robbed and assaulted in the parking lot of the agency where she had been assigned by the institution for an internship. Is the institution liable?
• Malpractice claims arise involving accounting and law students who volunteer at tax and legal aid clinics. Is the institution liable?
• While at her internship, a student with epilepsy has a seizure. Is the institution liable?

These scenarios, based on actual situations, underscore the importance of understanding potential risks that can occur when institutions send their students out into the community. Rather than thinking “What are the chances …” you should be thinking “What if …” What if there’s a car accident on the way to the site? What if a student inadvertently damages the community partner’s property? What if the community partner serves vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly, people with disabilities, or victims of domestic violence? What special precautions and training should be in place then?

Although it’s impossible to eliminate risk entirely, assessing risk and having controls and procedures in place to mitigate risk is critical. This includes thorough training for students and faculty, regular site visits, adequate supervision, and frequent communication with your community partners.

“You have to keep in mind, these students are not professionals so you need to be clear in your expectations,” said Deborah Gonzalez, an attorney with experience running a civic engagement program. “Prepare the students in terms of how to dress and how to behave. That they should only park in lighted areas; that they should avoid one-on-one situations where they’re isolated from everybody else. And also go over just a few things of what to do if something goes wrong, such as making sure they have the name and number of an emergency contact.”

In the online seminar Ten Ways to Improve Blended Course Design, Ike Shibley, associate professor of chemistry at Penn State – Berks, explained how to successfully transform a traditional course into a blended course, and dispelled a number of teaching myths along the way.

“This is not the only way to approach [blended design] but I am going to suggest that you want to still use the face-to-face time as the central focus of the online time, and look at how you can get students prepared for face-to-face time and how you can help the students after they’ve been in class,” Shibley said. “So you start with the face-to-face and then think about using the online component for the other times the students interact with the material. In order to do that, you need to throw away all preconceived notions and start from scratch.”

One of the keys Shibley talked about was to use the ADDIE process to guide the design of your blended course. Here’s a brief summary of how to use ADDIE, which stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation.

Analysis:

• Review prior course evaluations for guidance on where students struggle.
• Identify the most difficult concepts for students and focus on those.

Design:

• Create detailed learning objectives. Use strong action verbs and avoid terms like “know,” “understand,” and “learn.”
• Divide course into F2F and online components.
• Match learning objectives with technology.

Development

• Start early – at least a semester, preferably a year, in advance.
• Create an ideal course then start with the most important elements in the next step.
• Create a shell with the intention of refining and improving over several semesters.

Implementation

• Start with a smaller course if possible (summer is a good time).
• Launch the entire course once completely designed rather than piecemeal.

Evaluation

• Assessment is critical for course improvement and accreditation.
• Leverage technology to collect data (think about this in the design stage).
• Utilize evaluation data to ‘close the loop’ to improve the course for next time.

In addition to using ADDIE to guide design, Shibley explained how to divide your course content in a way that creates opportunities for learning before class, during class and after class; how to assess student learning; and how to use technology to support learning. While the before-class activities typically introduce students to the content and include low-stakes grading, in-class activities tend to focus on higher-order thinking, collaboration and high-stakes grading. After-class activities then provide opportunities for working with the content, higher-order thinking, and grading in the mid-to-high-stakes range.

Watch a brief clip from the seminar:

Learn more about Ten Ways to Improve Blended Course Design »

The Department of Education’s state authorization regulation (commonly referred to as 600.9) says, in part:

• Institutions must be authorized to conduct business in a state and may not be exempt from this requirement on the basis of accreditation or years in operation.
• Institutions that offer education through distance education to students in a state in which they are not physically located, must meet that state’s requirements.
• Therefore, all institutions must be licensed in any state where they do business, as defined by that state’s specific licensing regulations.

While certain elements of the regulations were overturned in July 2011, most notably the requirement enforcing the Title IV loss of federal funds for failure to comply, they were only overturned on procedural grounds as the Department did not take appropriate steps to allow commentary on the state authorization requirements, said Bruce Chaloux, PhD, executive director and CEO of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C).

The department appealed this ruling and the legal process is moving forward, with briefs shared and oral arguments expected later this month. While a date for a final decision is not known, one is expected in the second half of 2012. Chaloux, however, suggests that institutions shouldn’t wait for the outcome. He noted that while the court decision removed the possible Title IV penalty, it did not change any existing requirements for institutions to seek authorization from states in which they are enrolling students and offering instruction.

“I think a key point here is this: Whether the Department wins or doesn’t win the lawsuit, many tracking this situation believe we’re going to have these regulations,” Chaloux said. “So my advice to institutions, a stance shared by most who we have been working with on 600.9, has been and continues to be that you should assume that these requirements, likely in the same form or shape they have come out before, will become effective in the future.”

In part one of a two-part seminar series titled State Authorization: Strategies for Online Providers, Chaloux, an active participant in several regional and national efforts to help institutions respond to the renewed focus on state authorization, provided an overview of many of the emerging legal issues. He also outlined the onerous challenges facing institutions who must try to navigate the patchwork quilt of state authorization requirements in each state it operates – challenges that are compounded given that the definitions of “operating” or “physical presence” vary greatly from state to state and may include issues related to server location, marketing efforts, proctors, and adjuncts.

It’s because of this complexity, and the cost incurred by institutions who must make sense of it all, that Chaloux and others are working with the President’s Forum/Council of State Governments to develop a national interstate reciprocal agreement. Using the analogy of a driver’s license, which is issued by one’s home state but recognized by all states as proof that you’re authorized to operate a motor vehicle, Chaloux said getting states to participate in a reciprocal compact could create a more financially efficient model for states and institutions alike, while ensuring a higher level of consumer protection in terms of quality programming.

“Essentially, this would flip the existing process of an institution having to deal with 49 [other] states, Washington, D.C. plus territories to secure approval for institutions with a national footprint. It would place the impetus on your home state to take certain actions to certify you as being a legitimate provider,” he said. “But I do want to point out that there are some very significant challenges, one of those being to get 50 disparate states that all have their own idea about how this ought to be done onto the same page. So, while I’m extremely optimistic that this has some real potential, I don’t want to oversell it by saying that we think it’s going to be easy.”

Participants in the two-part seminar series will receive a draft of the proposed Compact when it is finalized and it will be discussed in greater detail during seminar two, to be scheduled later this year once a decision has been made on the Department of Education’s appeal. If you missed the first seminar, you can get a copy of the recording on CD. You’ll also get live access to part two once it’s available.

For all of these reasons and more, today’s student body is a highly diverse group with many different learning challenges, often manifesting in problems with notetaking and listening comprehension. All of this creates what Keith Bain calls an “accessibility imperative.” And although there are many legal obligations that institutions must satisfy with regards to accessibility, Bain says recording and transcribing lectures can improve retention and success for all types of students.

In the recent online seminar Tools and Techniques for Improving Course Accessibility, Bain, the international manager of the Liberated Learning Consortium and an adjunct professor at St. Mary’s University, explained the value of digitizing, captioning, and transcribing course material, why you should do it and how.

At the most basic level, Bain said, an instructor could record a presentation with little more than a good lavalier mic or headset and a digital recorder. A more intermediate approach could include using audio recording software like Audacity, PowerPoint narration, or tools such as mp3DirectCut or Power Sound Editor. If the institution has invested in lecture capture systems such as Camtasia Relay, Mediasite, Tegrity Campus, Echo 360 or Panopto, there are even more options and much less work since the recording and synchronization are all automated.

Once the presentation is digitized, the next step is to transcribe it, Bain said, noting that this is often the most difficult aspect of offering students truly accessible course media. Some of the tools Bain recommends for converting speech to text include Dragon Naturally Speaking, Media Access Generator (MAGpie), CapScribe, and InqScribe.

YouTube also offers a captioning feature that Bain called “promising” and there are a few research prototypes with speech recognition based transcription, including an IBM Research’s Hosted Transcription Service and Synote.

During the seminar Bain also shared results of a case study that measured the performance of students who used multimedia notes (recorded lectures with real-time captioning and transcription) against those who used traditional notes. The students who studied using multimedia notes scored better on quizzes and exams.

“Accessibility is not optional but rather a critical success factor,” he said. “At the very simplest level, record your next lecture. At the minimum you can create an auditory based learning object that will greatly enhance learning opportunities for many of your students. I found that a lot of students will listen to these newly created podcasts.”

The Teaching Professor and Magna Publications are seeking nominations for the Maryellen Weimer Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning Award. Now in its fourth year, the award recognizes outstanding scholarly contributions that advance college-level teaching and learning practices. Author(s) of the winning article will be recognized at the 2012 Teaching Professor Conference, June 1-3, 2012 in Washington D.C. and awarded a $1,000 stipend.

If you value scholarship, please take a few minutes and nominate your favorite article for this award. A complete list of criteria and submission procedures can be found here »

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, January 15, 2012!

From common problems, such as class disruptions, disrespect, and cheating, to more serious, potentially dangerous behaviors, instructors may face a myriad of unwelcome behaviors in their classroom. How they respond is important, but even more critical are the proactive steps instructors can take to prevent these behaviors from occurring in the first place. Or, if they cannot prevent the problems completely, at least recognize the early signs and respond appropriately before the situation spins out of control.

During the recent 90-minute seminar, Managing Student Discipline Issues Legally and Effectively, Rob Jenkins, associate professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, and attorney Deborah Gonzalez shared strategies for maintaining appropriate discipline without alienating students or compromising the course. They also explained the legal issues around disciplinary hearings, including differences between public and private institutions with regards to student rights and due process.

One of the key tools for preventing disruptive student behavior is the syllabus. Used properly, the syllabus—and how you present it on that first day of class—can go a long way in setting the tone for your course, Jenkins said.

Before crafting your syllabus, you’ll first want to familiarize yourself with your institution’s student code of conduct. Then, Jenkins recommends asking yourself a few questions:

• How do I expect students to behave?
• What will or won’t I tolerate?
• What compromises or “concessions to reality” am I willing to make?

As you write your syllabus, it’s important to set clear expectations for learner behavior and responsibilities, as well as workload, learning outcomes, deadlines, grading, late assignments and assessment. Then, as you go over the syllabus with students, you’ll want to clarify specific points that are particularly important to you so as to avoid any misunderstandings down the road. Jenkins likes to use this time to explain why he has certain rules and often shares past experiences to illustrate his point.

“One of the things that I’ve learned in 26 years of teaching is that there are steps faculty can take very early on that will head off a lot of these problem to begin with,” said Jenkins. “I think sometimes we create rules because things annoy us and not because they actually disrupt the class. You have to decide, what’s your level of tolerance? Are you really going to try and ban smart phones in your class? Is that even feasible? It’s important not to have rules that you can’t enforce.”

On Monday we counted down from number 11 to 6. Today’s post reveals the top five most popular articles, starting with number 5.

5. Five Common Pitfalls of Online Course Design
Much of what passes for an “online course” these days could more accurately be described as the electronic version of class hand-outs. These courses usually consist of a course description, a syllabus, lecture notes, reading lists, and assignment checklists. In other words, whatever materials a student might have viewed on paper in the past are now read onscreen, and whatever presentations a student might have watched in the classroom are now observed on their screen. Continue reading »

4. Questioning Skills to Engage Students
The right questions enable the teacher to more accurately evaluate if the students are truly attentive and if they understand the material. In addition, open-ended questions motivate students to share their ideas, thereby allowing active, collaborative learning to take place. This illustrates the need to be able to ask the right sort of questions to engage students. Continue reading »

3. Giving Students More Effective Feedback
Do you pass back exams, a set of papers or grades on some other student project and offer generic comments on what the class did and didn’t do well on the assignment? Most of us do, and for good reasons. The feedback gives students the chance to compare their work with that done by the rest of class, which can build more accurate self-assessment skills. But do students listen attentively as you provide this feedback? Continue reading »

2. What Students Want: Characteristics of Effective Teachers from the Students’ Perspective
Researchers asked their students what characteristics they think are essential for effective teaching. Analyzing and combining reasonably synonymous characteristics, researchers then isolated the top nine for online and for face-to-face students. Can you guess the number one trait? Continue reading »

1. What Does Your Syllabus Say About You and Your Course?
Syllabi can convey messages that build rapport between the teacher and students, and they can help create community among students. I know courses need policies, students need guidelines, and some students take advantage of teachers, but I wonder if we don’t err on the side of being too defensive in our syllabi. Continue reading »

Today’s post lists articles 6-11, starting with number 11.

11. Practical Ideas for Improving Student Participation
At a recent workshop, I asked participants to identify the one thing about student participation they would most like to change in their classrooms. From a variety of items mentioned, we decided to focus on three. They are listed below along with a range of solutions suggested by the group. Continue reading »

10. Failure is an Option: Helping Students Learn from Mistakes
Failure is one of the best teachers, but instead of using failure as a valuable teaching tool, education discourages it as, well, a sign of failure. Since each assignment is graded based on its proximity to success, and the final grade is determined by the aggregate of each individual grade, failure is carried with the student throughout the course. The result is that students become failure-adverse, demoralized by failure, and focused more on the grade than the education. Continue reading »

9. Do’s and Don’ts for Promoting Academic Integrity
The numbers on student cheating are alarming and do require a serious response, but have you ever turned the numbers upside down? For example, if 38 percent admit to plagiarizing, that means 62 percent aren’t plagiarizing and those students expect you to do something about the 38 percent. Continue reading »

8. Professors Use Twitter to Increase Student Engagement and Grades
Keeping college students off social media sites and focused on the course material is a daily challenge for many of today’s college faculty. But what if you could harness the power of today’s technologies and students’ proclivity toward social networking to enhance the learning experience rather than distract from it? That’s the intention of a number of forward-thinking professors. Continue reading »

7. Great Expectations: Helping Students Take Responsibility for Learning
Sometimes I think we lose sight of students’ capabilities. Of course, they like to be spoon fed, or at least many of them do. It is easier that way … for them and for us. But they need to learn how to feed themselves and they aren’t going to learn that unless we put a plate of food in front of them and give them a spoon. Continue reading »

6. Revisiting Extra Credit Policies
The question of giving students an extra chance is, like most pedagogical issues, less cut and dried than it might first seem. If the second chance is designed so that it represents a robust learning opportunity, if its completion means that a student who hasn’t mastered the material finally does and if learning is our ultimate goal, then complete opposition to second chances or extra credit seems less defensible. Continue reading »

For the top five articles of the year, see part two of this article »

The winning author(s) will be recognized at the 2012 Teaching Professor Conference, June 1-3 in Washington, D.C. and will receive a $1,000 stipend. For more information, visit www.teachingprofessor.com/award.

To be considered, the scholarly writing must be at least 1,500 words in length and have been published in 2010 or later in a discipline-specific or cross-disciplinary pedagogical periodical, or a general higher education publication. The piece may address any topic related to college-level teaching and learning, and be written in a variety of formats including:

• A research report (quantitative or qualitative);
• an article that describes development and/or implementation of a new teaching strategy or assignment;
• an article that offers advice based on research, experience, or both; or
• an inspirational essay or article that takes a position with respect to an aspect of instruction or a teaching and learning issue.

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2012. Articles may be submitted by readers or the authors themselves.

A panel of published authors, editors, and faculty familiar with pedagogical literature will review the nominations. A complete list of criteria and submission guidelines can be found at: www.teachingprofessor.com/award.

In many ways, technology can help pave the way for both faculty and students, but only if the instructor “is adept at creating a course that capitalizes on the pedagogical benefits that technology facilitates in helping students meet the desired learning outcomes for the course,” said Ike Shibley, associate professor of chemistry at Penn State – Berks. In other words, technology for the sake of technology is never good.

In the recent online seminar Learner-Centered Technology: Aligning Tools with Learning Goals, Shibley provided a roadmap for matching technological tools to course learning outcomes. Grounded in the five core principles of learner-centered teaching, Shibley explained specific ways technology can be used to get students to interact with course content in an engaging and productive fashion.

Here are some of the ways technology can help satisfy the goals of a learner-centered classroom:

1. Shift the balance of power toward the learner: Interactive online assignments can help facilitate the transfer of power and give students opportunities to practice mastering the material at their own pace. The technologies that support these activities could include wikis, online quizzes, blogs and discussion boards.

2. Use content to organize activities: Students appreciate a structured, logical flow to their courses, and how you organize your assignments and activities can go a long way in minimizing confusion. The technologies that support how you organize and communicate course materials and expectations could include an online syllabus, the learning management system, and email notifications of important due dates.

3. Think of teaching as facilitating learning: Teaching with technology enables the instructor to create learning experiences that complement each other whether the students are working on an assignment online or meeting in a face-to-face environment. The technologies that support this goal include online homework, clickers and surveys.

4. Responsibility for learning rests with the learner: Learner-centered teaching means creating assignments that allow students to practice building connections with the material, and evaluate their learning. The technologies that can be used to help students take ownership of their learning include blogs, wikis, online quizzes, and VoiceThread.

5. Evaluation provides a way to foster learning: Shibley likes to use a lot of low-stakes grading opportunities, and he gives students multiple attempts to pass online quizzes. There are numerous technologies that can help students track their progress, including online quiz banks and online platforms that enable collaboration and peer review.

Although he admits that integrating technology takes a fair amount of upfront time in terms of getting past the learning curve and choosing the correct technology to support each learning objective, Shibley says the payoff is a more engaged classroom and improved student learning.

“Technology does do a better job of keeping students on task,” he said. “If it’s well designed and it’s not busy work, students will spend more time on task and the assumption then, which I think has been borne out and will continue to be borne out in studies of how technology can be used in an pedagogically efficacious manner, time on task will correlate with more learning and higher test scores.”

Interestingly, while last year’s annual survey revealed the largest ever year-to-year increase in online enrollment since the study began eight years ago, this year Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011 reports the second lowest growth rate. Yet the 10% growth rate for online enrollments still far exceeds the 2% growth in the overall higher education student population.

“The rate of growth in online enrollments is ten times that of the rate in all higher education,” said study co-author I. Elaine Allen, Co-Director of the Babson Survey Research Group and Professor of Statistics & Entrepreneurship at Babson College. “While growth rates have declined somewhat from previous years, we see no evidence that a dramatic slowdown in online enrollments is on the horizon.”

“There is a wide variety in rate of growth of online enrollments among different colleges and universities, and also among different programs within the same institution. For example, fully online health sciences programs show higher growth than online programs in other disciplines.”

Key findings in the ninth annual report include:

• Over 6.1 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2010 term, an increase of 560,000 students over the previous year.
• Thirty-one percent of higher education students now take at least one course online.
• Reported year-to-year enrollment changes for fully online programs by discipline show that most are growing.
• Academic leaders believe that the level of student satisfaction is equivalent for online and face-to-face courses.
• 65% of higher education institutions now say that online learning is a critical part of their long-term strategy.
• There continues to be a consistent minority of academic leaders concerned that the quality of online instruction is not equal to courses delivered face-to-face.

Based on responses from over 2,500 academic leaders, the complete survey report, “Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011″ is available at http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/going_distance_2011.

An infographic of the report:

“That’s one of the major pitfalls we see, but you really shouldn’t do that,” said Veronica Diaz, PhD associate director of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. “You really want to integrate those two components so we encourage people to take the time to redesign the entire course. In other words, break the whole thing down and reassemble it in the blended mode.”

In the recent online seminar Best Practices for Designing Successful Blended Courses, Diaz outlined a model for blended learning course design. The first step, she says, is to “modularize your course.” The modular approach creates a more organized structure, which benefits students, and makes it easier for the instructor to update and maintain.

The process of modularization begins with mapping a course that you want to design or redesign into a blended format to ensure alignment across course objectives, activities, technology used, feedback mechanisms, assessments, and other key components. In the case of a face-to-face course that’s being redesigned into a blended course that often means looking at what the instructor and student each currently do to support or meet those objectives, and then consider the different ways of getting students more actively involved in their learning.

Diaz noted that, unlike in most face-to-face courses, blended courses often have a better balance between what the instructor does to support learning objectives and what the student is asked to do in terms of interacting with the course content.

“A lot of faculty express that they often get some pushback from students, because in the face-to-face course, there’s a tendency for the instructor to do a lot more of the delivery and interaction with the content,” she said. “In a blended course, students are going to spend a fair amount of time out of class, and you want to make sure that they’re involved in the learning, probably in a much deeper and more active way than they were in the past.”

Another part of the redesign process is to identify and prepare for potential “student crisis points” – issues that may interfere with the learning experience. Crisis points include issues related to technology, a complex concept, or waning motivation. By being aware of possible roadblocks to learning, and informing students of them as well, you can often minimize the disruption.

Faculty expectations for study time by field corresponded closely to what students reported, but there were exceptions. Social sciences faculty, for example, expected four more hours per week than the average social sciences senior reported.

These findings, released by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), raise questions about areas where a mismatch may exist between the work asked of students and what they believe necessary to succeed, and also whether faculty expectations for study time may need to be recalibrated.

The survey also documents a variety of student approaches to studying and learning. Taking careful notes during class was widespread, but only two out of three students frequently reviewed their notes after class. Only half said they frequently outlined major topics and ideas from course materials or discussed effective study strategies with faculty or students. All of the effective learning strategies were positively related to other measures of student engagement such as academic challenge and active and collaborative learning.

“Our findings suggest that college and university faculty and academic leaders need to reflect on their expectations for academic work, particularly by discipline. They can also do more to help students become effective learners by explicitly teaching study skills and strategies,” Alexander C. McCormick, NSSE director and associate professor of education at Indiana University, said in a statement.

The report, Fostering Student Engagement Campuswide—Annual Results 2011, details results from a 2011 survey of 416,000 first-year students and seniors attending 673 U.S. colleges and universities. The report’s theme illustrates the value of connecting student engagement results to specific campus programs and units to encourage greater collaboration to improve the quality of the undergraduate experience.

NSSE’s annual survey provides diagnostic, comparative information about the prevalence of effective educational practices at participating colleges and universities. Other noteworthy findings from the 2011 survey and its companion surveys, the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), include:

• About one in five entering students expected paying for college to be “very difficult,” and those who expected financial difficulty also anticipated more trouble learning course material, managing time, and interacting with faculty. These students also placed a higher value on the importance of getting help with school work and campus support services.
• A large majority of students (88% of first-years and 86% of seniors) frequently took careful notes during class. However, only two-thirds of all students frequently reviewed their notes after class.
• Only seven out of ten students frequently sought help when they did not understand course material.
• The majority of seniors (83%) discussed career plans with a faculty member or advisor, and 75% perceived substantial gains in work-related knowledge and skills.
• About half of seniors participated in an internship, practicum, field experience, or clinical assignment. Participation rates differed by discipline, from a high of 71% for education majors to a low of 43% for business majors.
• First-generation college students (neither parent has a bachelor’s degree) spent significantly less time preparing for class than students with at least one college-educated parent, yet they were more likely to use a variety of learning strategies, including taking careful notes during class, connecting learning to things they already know, and identifying key information from readings.

NSSE’s Annual Results 2011 is sponsored by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and can can be downloaded from the NSSE Website.

If nothing else, they’re one of the most studied generations. And while it’s important we don’t stereotype an entire generation of individuals, the large body of research on those born between 1981 and 1999 (or there about) has provided us with unique insights into their learning preferences, behaviors and attitudes.

Christy Price, EdD, a psychology professor at Dalton State College, became interested in Millennial learners when she noticed a gap between students’ expectation for success and the effort they put forth in the classroom (Price, 2009). Price then conducted a qualitative analysis of narratives provided by more than a hundred Millennial learners to get a more accurate picture of what makes them tick.

In the recent online seminar Five Strategies to Engage Today’s Students, Price shared some of what she’s learned regarding the characteristics of Millennials’ ideal learning environments, their preferences regarding assignments and assessment, and the characteristics of their ideal professor. She then outlined the instructional implications of her findings with these five R’s for engaging Millennial students:

1. Research-based methods: Research suggests Millennials prefer a variety of active learning methods. When they are not interested in something, their attention quickly shifts elsewhere. Interestingly, many of the components of their ideal learning environment – less lecture, use of multimedia, collaborating with peers – are some of the same techniques research has shown to be effective, Price said.
2. Relevance: Millennials have grown up being able to Google anything they want to know, therefore they do not typically value information for information’s sake. As a result, the professor’s role is shifting from disseminating information to helping students apply the information. One of the greatest challenges for teachers is to connect course content to the current culture and make learning outcomes and activities relevant, Price said.
3. Rationale: Unlike Boomers who were raised in a more authoritarian manner in which they more readily accept the chain of command, Millennials were raised in a non-authoritarian manner and are more likely to comply with course policies when teachers provide them with a rationale for specific policies and assignments.
4. Relaxed: Millennials prefer a less formal learning environment in which they can informally interact with the professor and one another. In interviews with students, the term “laid back” was used repeatedly.
5. Rapport: Millennials are extremely relational. They are more central to their parents’ lives than previous generations and are used to having the adults in their lives show great interest in them. They appreciate it when professors show that same interest, and they seem to be more willing to pursue learning outcomes when instructors connect with them on a personal level.

For many faculty, particularly those who teach large classes, rapport is the most difficult of the five R’s, Price said.

“The idea here is student learning outcomes, and getting students to achieve learning outcomes is a persuasive endeavor as much as we might hate that,” she said. “Students are going to be more likely to work toward achieving their learning outcomes if they have a positive rapport with us… You don’t have to be their best friend. You just have to be perceived as being on their side.”

References:
Price, C. (2009). Why Don’t My Students Think I’m Groovy? The Teaching Professor, 23 (1), 7.

Price, C. Five Strategies to Engage Today’s Students. Magna Online Seminar. 1 Nov. 2011.

The topic is extra credit and, as the authors of study on extra credit practices concluded in an issue of Teaching of Psychology, “few topics among academics precipitate as much acrimonious debate as offering extra credit in college courses.” (240) They wondered “why such a seemingly minor matter triggers such vehement reactions.”

In a special 30-minute online seminar Extra Credit: An Undeserved Gift or a Second Chance to Learn?, Maryellen Weimer, PhD, editor of The Teaching Professor newsletter and professor emerita at Penn State Berks, outlined some of the research that’s been conducted on extra credit practices, and shared numerous innovative extra credit assignment strategies being used by faculty who teach in a variety of disciplines. The seminar also included four brief video clips from instructors sharing their favorite extra credit assignment.

“As I always say about these seemingly simple and straightforward instructional policies and practices,” said Weimer, “they seem straightforward at first but once you start considering them, you see there are a lot of interesting assumptions about learning, about students and about motivation, and it’s good to revisit some of these larger beliefs that drive the decisions that we make.”

According to Weimer, some instructors oppose extra credit because they believe that:

• It reinforces students’ beliefs that they don’t have to work hard because whatever they miss they can make up with extra credit.
• Students who ask for extra credit tend to be those who aren’t working very hard — or those who hope they won’t have to work hard — because some easy extra credit options will be available to them.
• Time spent on extra credit means less time spent on regular assignments.
• Extra credit (especially if it’s easy) lowers academic standards.
• It’s inherently unfair to students who work hard and get it done right the first time.
• It means more work for already busy teachers.

On the flip side, Weimer said, those instructors who give extra credit do so because they feel:

• It reduces student anxiety and builds confidence.
• If learning is the goal and students haven’t learned important content, extra credit offers a second chance to master the material.
• Not all students “get it” the first time.
• Students are motivated to do it, so why not capitalize on this motivation by creating a robust learning opportunity.

“One of the things we often say is that when you have learned something people don’t usually ask you how long it took you to learn it or how many times you had to try it before you got it,” said Weimer. “Looking at examples of what other teachers are doing is probably the best way for you to decide whether extra credit is an undeserved gift or a second chance for learning.”

Reference: Norcross, J.C. , Dooley, H.S. and Stevenson, J.F. (1993). Faculty use and justification of extra credit: No middle ground? Teaching of Psychology, Vol. 20, No. 4: 240-242.

According to a new report released today by the Syllabus Institute, on average instructors spend more than 24 hours creating a new course syllabus. The average instructor also spends 6.5 hours updating their syllabus for a new semester and nearly 3.5 hours maintaining their syllabus throughout a semester.

“Where Does the Budget Go? Uncovering the Hidden Costs of Managing Syllabi” reflects data gathered from a cross section of students, instructors, technical administrators, and academic administrators from over 50 different United States academic institutions in higher education. Of the 2,633 contacted by email and phone, 155 participants completed the survey.

Despite the small sample size, the findings may cause some institutions to examine their own syllabi management processes, pinpoint areas of improvement, and develop a strategy to streamline the processes and cost of managing syllabi across their institution.

Some of the findings reported by the Syllabus Institute include:

• A large 4-year school can spend up to $1.5M managing syllabi using current technologies and processes for creating, collecting, printing, distributing, and evaluating syllabi.
• The average institution spends $272,674 per academic year managing syllabi.
• Technical administrators report dedicating upwards of 40 hours per semester, and as many as 10 administrators within their department to manage and maintain syllabi.
• Academic administrators on average spend over 29 hours per semester managing syllabi.
• The average length of a syllabus is 7.4 pages. Additionally, 50% of the instructors surveyed print an estimated 673 pages of syllabi per semester.
• Approximately 56% of students want a hard copy of course syllabi, while 44% would prefer to view syllabi online.
• Forty-eight percent of instructors report that their syllabi was created within the past year, while 7% report that they have been using the same syllabus for more than 15 semesters.
• Fifty-six percent of instructors reported that they were student advisors. Of these, 61% think that course syllabi being available to students before registering for courses would improve student performance.

“The process of managing syllabi is shared by many and affects every department’s workflow and budget,” said Jennifer Connally, principle researcher of ‘Where Does the Budget Go?’” “By investigating and analyzing how each process is navigated, we have started to uncover areas where improvement can be made, which allows schools to identify areas where immediate action can be taken, and more importantly free up resources.”

To learn more about the Syllabus Institute, visit: www.syllabusinstitute.org. A PDF of the full report, “Where Does the Budget Go?” is available here.

During the recent online seminar Selecting and Using Technologies in Online & Blended Courses, Tony Bates, an elearning and distance education planning and management consultant, offered some insights on what to consider when making technology decisions.

Bates, author of Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning, recommends the SECTIONS model, which examines a variety of factors for determining the most appropriate technology to bring into a classroom. Some of the larger questions you need to ask are, “How will this technology benefit the students? Does it make learning more accessible for the students? Does it increase their flexibility? What kind of students are you reaching—or, more importantly, could you reach who you’re not reaching already—with this technology?,” Bates said.

The SECTIONS decision-making model
Students – What are the demographics of the students in your course? Do they work? Do they live on or near campus? What is their preferred learning style? Are they motivated learners?

Ease of use; portability – There’s nothing more frustrating than technology that doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, so whatever technologies you choose, they must be easy to use, easy to maintain and reliable. Training should be available for anyone who needs it.

Costs – The costs involved could be fixed or variable, and go beyond the actual cost of the product to include instructor time, instructional support, media production, and maintenance.

Teaching – What is your teaching style? Some technologies lend themselves more to didactic or direct teaching; others to student participation. What are the intended learning outcomes? How will students be assessed?

Interaction – What technologies will engage and motivate your students? What technologies will enhance interaction between you and your students, between students, and between the students and the course material?

Organization – Does the institution support the use of learning technologies? Can you and your students get help if you need it? If you try to do something different will you be rewarded or punished?

Novelty – New technologies are a double-edged sword, Bates said. Because they are new, they might attract positive attention and support. However, new technologies also carry more risk because they’re largely untested, and may never reach broad adoption or maturation.

Speed and Security – Security and privacy issues are becoming increasingly important. Is the technology secure or can it be ‘hacked’? Is student information protected? Is the data stored on a secure server and is it backed up in case of an emergency?

“The key is, whatever model you choose, think about the technology choice before designing the course,” said Bates. “Too often instructors get halfway through the course and then start making decisions about the technology when that should have been thought about at the beginning so that it can be properly integrated.”

OpenClass integrates with Google Apps for Education™ and is in the Google Apps Marketplace™, Google’s online storefront for Google Apps™ products and services. With single sign-on and a unified navigation bar, instructors and students can launch OpenClass from within Google Apps or access their Google applications from OpenClass.

“Now, educators and students are able to communicate and collaborate in new ways across institutions and around the globe—providing a richer, more personal and more connected learning experience. At no cost,” said Matt Leavy, CEO of Pearson eCollege.

There are no hardware, licensing or hosting costs, thus enabling widespread adoption of new learning approaches that encourage interaction within the classroom and beyond.

“We’re excited to have OpenClass in the Google Apps Marketplace,” said Obadiah Greenberg, Google’s Business Development Manager for Education. “OpenClass is tightly integrated with Google Apps for Education, our free suite of communication and collaboration applications. Through the Google Apps Marketplace, schools will have access to OpenClass. We are happy to offer this complementary learning management system to the millions of students, faculty and staff already using Google Apps.”

Pearson, working closely with its design partners, will rapidly advance the capabilities of OpenClass to leverage the rich data and social foundations of the platform and the ability to release new functionality frequently. Design partners include Abilene Christian University, Arizona State University, Central Piedmont Community College, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, Monash University, Kentucky Community & Technical College System, Rice University, the University of Wisconsin Extension, and Columbia University. Many of these institutions are already teaching courses on OpenClass this fall.

For more information, visit http://www.joinopenclass.com, or stop by the Pearson booth at Educause this week for a personalized demonstration.