Posts Tagged ‘asynchronous discussions’
January 18 - How Many Faculty Discussion Posts Each Week? A Simply Delicious Answer
By: Cheryl Hayek, EdD in Online Education
One of the most frequently asked questions from veteran and novice online faculty alike is, “How many weekly discussion posts should I contribute?” The reality is that there is an intricate balancing act to achieve the coveted “guide on the side” role in discussion forum facilitation.
June 2 - Creating Effective Responses to Student Discussion Postings
By: Errol Craig Sull in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
An integral part of nearly all online classes is the threaded discussion—it is where students interact on a nearly daily basis, posting their thoughts and information on main discussion topics, your postings, and the postings of other students. While you have measured control over the content, length, and tone of student postings, you have full control over your own.
April 25 - Creating a Sense of Time in Online Courses
By: Todd Conaway in Online Education
One of the most useful elements of online courses is that they’re available anytime. But along with the timelessness, there is also an absence of time in many activities and pieces of content in the course that can that can lead to feelings of disconnectedness. How closely do we connect actual time to our student’s online experiences?
March 23 - Improve Feedback with Audio and Video Commentary
By: John Orlando, PhD in Teaching with Technology
While online discussion is generally deeper and more active than face-to-face discussion, even online discussions can eventually become a drudgery. Nobody likes reading long blocks of text online, yet discussion in an online classroom is text based.
February 18 - Tips for More Active Asynchronous Discussions All Semester Long
By: Rob Kelly in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
During a recent seminar, presenters Kay Dennis of Park University and Jeffery Alejandro of East Carolina University, offered the following tips on using online discussions to maintain student motivation: Be explicit and optimistic about expectations for course participation. “I tell students upfront, — ‘I want you to sign in at last three times a week
February 10 - Pump up Your Online Discussions with VoiceThread
By: Mary Bart in Asynchronous Learning and Trends, Teaching with Technology
At its best, the discussion board can be the heart and soul of the online classroom. But it’s not always easy getting students to make the type of contributions you expect. The comments can be rather flat, not very insightful, and more often than not, it feels like some students just fill the minimum number of posts stipulated in your syllabus.
November 11 - Making Online Discussion Boards Work for Skills-Based Courses
By: Rob Kelly in Online Education
If you teach a skills-based course and wonder how online discussion can enhance the learning experience, consider Roger Gee’s approach to the use of online discussions in his introduction to accounting course.
September 28 - Online Teaching Challenge: Creating an Emotional Connection to Learning, part 1
By: Rob Kelly in Online Education
Learning research indicates that people learn better in the presence of some emotional connection—to the content or to other people. Creating this emotional connection is particularly challenging in the online classroom, where most communication is asynchronous and lacks many of the emotional cues of the face-to-face environment. Nevertheless, it is possible to do, with a learner-centered approach to teaching and a mastery of the technology that supports it, says Rick Van Sant, associate professor of education at Ferris State University.
June 1 - How to Jumpstart Online Discussions
By: Jim Guinee, PhD in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
Online discussions are sometimes difficult to get going, and often the students (at least at first) seem to respond too superficially, punctuated by an occasional treatise by an overeager student. Here’s how I jumpstart discussions in my family relations online course.
May 12 - Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement
By: John Orlando, PhD in Asynchronous Learning and Trends, Teaching with Technology
Online educators have long known that asynchronous discussion is deeper than face-to-face discussion due to the increased thought time and the “democratization” of the classroom. But one major disadvantage of traditional online discussion is that it is separate from the lecture.
