Has the rapid expansion of online education put your institution on a collision course with faculty incentive policies? Although more and more faculty are teaching online, few colleges and universities are proactively addressing faculty workload, promotion, and tenure policies to more accurately reflect the differences between teaching online and teaching face-to-face.
In yesterday's post, it was argued that perhaps student evaluations were not, in Martha Stewart’s famous phrase, “a good thing,” given doubts about the qualifications of students to judge instructors,…
These student evaluations are so much a part of our system and have become so routine for our students and faculty that I have seldom questioned their value or necessity. But are they really (as Martha Stewart might say) “a good thing?” […]
When teachers think the best way to improve their teaching is by developing their content knowledge, they end up with sophisticated levels of knowledge, but they have only simplistic instructional methods to convey that material.
For some educators, student learning assessment is a little like exercise. Yes, we know it’s important, we feel better when we do it, and we can even see the results of our efforts, but it sure is a hassle to get started. [...]
Good online course design begins with a clear understanding of specific learning outcomes and ways to engage students, while creating activities that allow students to take some control of their learning. It also requires a little extra effort upfront to minimize two of the most common frustrations of online learning.
Although faculty would like to think optimistically, most know that when it comes to student learning and how much content students take with them from a course, even one in their major, reality dashes optimism.
In asynchronous discussion forums, participants usually come from diverse backgrounds, including gender and culture, and the textual cues they post online are usually reflections of their own diversity. How you handle equity and diversity issues can be a key to online course retention.
Effective classroom management is much more than simply administering corrective measures when a student misbehaves; it's about developing proactive ways to prevent problems from occurring in the first place while creating a positive learning environment.
Teaching first-semester students has its own special challenges. The students all start out optimistic, but soon, many start making poor decisions such as skipping class, not doing the reading, not participating or even paying attention, and missing small and not-so-small assignments. [...]