CURRENT ARTICLE • July 6th

The Flipped Classroom: Strategies to Overcome Student Resistance and Increase Student Engagement [Transcript]

The flipped classroom model encourages students to complete preliminary work prior to class so they are prepared to engage in higher-level learning experiences during class. But what happens when students don’t do the preclass work and aren’t prepared to participate?

This can be one of the most frustrating aspects of the flipped classroom model, and you may consider abandoning the approach completely. But there are strategies you can use to address these challenges and increase students’ motivation to come to class prepared and ready to engage.

Dr. Barbi Honeycutt, founder of FLIP It Consulting and an expert on the flipped classroom, provides strategies you can use to create a successful flipped learning experience for you and your students.

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Developing Online Instructor Presence

By: Stephanie Delaney, PhD

What is instructor presence? It’s the way that instructors present themselves to the students in the online classroom. It also involves simply being present to students through the regular posting of course materials, discussion posts, and announcements.

Instructor presence increases student retention because students are more likely to stay in class if they feel their instructor cares about them. By being present, the instructor can pull students together, encouraging cooperation and collaboration. Additionally, if things start to go off the rails and a student begins to have problems, an instructor who is present can address those problems immediately.

How does one establish instructor presence in an online class? First, determine your teaching persona. Next, determine which elements to share with the class. Last, create a strategy for regularly expressing those aspects of your persona to your class.

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July 5

Four Things to Do on the First Day of Class

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

First impressions are important and you can make favorable ones on the first day of class by doing things just a bit out of the ordinary. Here are some ideas.

If it’s a course where students don’t think they know anything about the content, start by dissecting course title. For each keyword, ask student to report (or write down) the first word or phrase that comes to mind. Make a collection of these on the computer or white board. Accept all associations. Then use the collection to provide an overview of the course, pointing out (where it’s appropriate) that students aren’t as clueless about the content as they may think they are. It’s also a useful way to establish a common foundation, the place on which you can start building the course structure.

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July 3

How Can I Avoid Communication “Misfires” with Students?

By: Magna Publications

Learn communication techniques to help you navigate difficult situations with students—such as missed assignments, poor attendance, or late work—while keeping their motivation strong and their attitude about your class positive.

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June 30

How Students Perceive Feedback

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

The following conceptions of feedback were offered by a group of students studying to become physical therapists. They were asked to recall a situation during their time in higher education when they felt they’d experienced feedback. Then they were asked a series of questions about the experience and about feedback more generally: “What is feedback? How would you describe it? How do you go about getting it? How do you use it?” (p. 924) The goal of the study was to investigate students’ conceptions of feedback. Student conceptions involve underlying personal beliefs, views, and ideas, unlike student perceptions, which explore how the feedback is understood. Analysis of transcripts from the interviews reveal four conceptions of feedback held by this student group

June 28

Contradictions in How We Think about Teaching

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

I like how blogging lets us stir up ideas, watch them simmer, and taste the results.

I’ll start this mix of ideas with Amy Mulnix’s insight that teachers approach learning about teaching much like students approach learning course content. Examples: students think ability matters more than effort and teachers think teaching is a gift that is given more than a skill that can and should be developed; students want easy answers and teachers want techniques that work right the first time; and both share the fear of failure. Is this a comparison from which we might learn something?

June 26

Synchronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students

By: Marie Norman, PhD

There’s a widely circulated YouTube video you may have seen called “A Conference Call in Real Life.” To spoof the strange, stilted dynamics of conference calls, it replicates them in a face-to-face setting. Participants stiffly announce their names at the door of a meeting room, are suddenly interrupted by bizarre background noises, and find themselves inexplicably locked out of a room they were just in.

If you haven’t watched it, do. You’ll recognize the familiar awkwardness of virtual meetings, where the rhythm of conversational interaction is thrown wildly askew by technological hiccups and the absence of visual cues.

Virtual space is not always easy.

Yet, virtual meetings are increasingly common, not only for geographically distributed work teams, but also for online courses.

June 23

Ten Online Teaching Tips You May Not Have Heard

By: Noura Badawi, EdD

At a time when online institutions are in fierce competition for students and accreditation agencies are taking a critical look at online course quality, it is becoming increasingly important for online instructors to ensure that they are exceeding their institution’s expectations.

Students are also expecting more from their online courses. And while most of us know the importance of addressing students by name in the discussion board and offering students substantive feedback on assignments, there many more things we can do.

June 21

Teaching Students Specific Skills

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

Preparing for a keynote at a polytechnic institute got me thinking about those readers who teach students how to do something, not something abstract like thinking, but how to execute some observable skill, such as starting an IV, writing code, or wiring a circuit. Teaching skills, much like teaching in general, shares certain similarities that are relevant across a variety of degree programs. It’s good to review these and use them to take stock of how we can better help students learn specific skills.

June 20

Mid-Career Faculty: How to Stay Engaged, Fulfilled, and Productive

By: Mary Bart

Faculty careers are often divided into three phases: the beginning, the middle, and the end. Yet despite the fact that it is the longest segment of one’s career, there is surprisingly little attention given to mid-career faculty. It seems we…

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