21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion, Part 1
*This is a five-part series. Five Online Discussion Ideas to Apply Learning Discussion forums. Love them or hate them, they are an essential component of online learning. They give introverted…
Building an Immersive and Engaging Virtual Tour Experience
Field trips and plant tours are outside classroom activities that promote active learning and demonstrate real world operations. As described by Seifan, Dada, and Berenjian (2019), these value-added experiences encourage…
How to Structure Your Online Class for Inclusion: Two Principles for Fostering Engagement, Part 2
Principle #1: Build community to foster engagement online A sense of community fosters a sense of belongingness and is critical to student engagement. Building a sense of community is a…
How to Structure Your Online Class for Inclusion, Part 1
A bunch of black boxes on a video call. An empty discussion board. A student who hasn’t submitted any work all term. These might all be signs that students aren’t…
Meet Them Where They Are: Furthering Your Own Cultural Humility and Responsive Teaching
Hispanic | Latinx community college students, especially those attending Hispanic Serving Institutions, deserve to see themselves in their course content. Improving the process of online course design, including the implementation…
Going All in on OER
From consideration to commitment Last spring, I joined a campus mentoring cohort that paid a generous stipend to consider the possibility of integrating open educational resources (OER) into all of…
Survive or Thrive: Evolving with Online Learning and Growing a Healthy Mindset for Our Students
Change is hard! As educators, COVID-19 ruthlessly hurled us into a world of online learning with little or no experience. My embarrassing initial reaction: “I guess we’ll use Skype!” Truth…
The Benefits of In-House Peer Tutoring
Many colleges and universities strive to provide educational opportunities to their communities by adopting open enrollment policies. As a result, courses, especially in STEM, have students with varying degrees of…
Academic Leadership: How to Establish a Leadership Development Program and Community
Have you been contemplating where your career path will take you next or how you can impact your institution’s success in your current leadership role? The following articles, reports, seminars,…
Engaging Students Online: Strategies to Enhance Your Classroom Community with Google Drawings, Google Slides, and Google Docs
Whether we are teaching online, face-to-face, or somewhere in between, student engagement should always remain at the forefront of our planning and practice, as keeping students active in the learning…