Course Design

Incorporating Diversity-related Materials into the Curriculum

Incorporating material that addresses diversity issues in classes has positive effects on a number of learning outcomes. The success of efforts to make curricula more diverse depends to a large degree on faculty willingness to incorporate these materials because control of the curriculum remains in faculty hands—both collectively, in terms of course and program approval processes, and individually, in terms of daily decisions about what to teach.

Rob Kelly April 17, 2009

Why Do Students Take Your Course?

If you ask students what they want to get out of a course, most give the same answer: an A (never mind if learning accompanies

Maryellen Weimer, PhD March 19, 2009

Usability Issues That Impact Online Learning

Despite the benefits of online education, there are inevitable frustrations as well. The tools online learners need to use take time to master and don’t

Patti Shank PhD CPT March 5, 2009

Strategies for Increasing Student Learning and Performance

When it comes to course design, is the goal to help your students understand concepts, enable future retrieval of concepts, or enable future retrieval of concepts and apply them in real-world situations? To create more effective learning environments, and minimize forgetting, some faculty are turning to Situation-based Learning Design (SBLD), which aligns learning context with performance context.

Mary Bart February 11, 2009

Concept Mapping Improves Student Learning

Donna Saulsberry was in a bind. As an associate professor of computer and information technology at Doña Ana Community College, one of her jobs is to prepare her networking students for the Microsoft® Certified Systems Engineer certification test. Having survived a Microsoft certification boot camp herself, she began instructing her students in much the same way as she was taught: lecture, practice, and multiple choice tests.

Mary Bart February 2, 2009

Transformative Learning: Q&A with Patricia Cranton

Transformative learning—learning that changes what students know, how much they know, and what they are able to do with that knowledge—can occur inside and outside the classroom and need not be restricted to any particular discipline.

Rob Kelly January 19, 2009

Five Things College Professors Can Learn from K-12 Educators

Unlike their college-level counterparts, those who teach at the K-12 level spend a significant portion of their education studying the “how” of teaching. What they learn can be invaluable to college professors who enter classrooms with vast content knowledge but little (or no) background in teaching and learning. As those who teach these teachers, we’d like to showcase five teaching strategies college professors can learn from those who teach younger students. […]

Sara E. Quay November 5, 2008

Nine Tips for Creating a Hybrid Course

Most instructors supplement their face-to-face courses with some online learning materials such as online syllabi, handouts, PowerPoint slides, and course-related Web links. All of these can add to the learning experience, but they are merely a start to making full use of the learning potential of the online learning environment in either a hybrid or totally online course. Although there is no standard definition of a hybrid course, one characteristic that makes a course a hybrid is the use of the Web for interaction rather than merely as a means of posting materials, says LaTonya Motley, instructional technology specialist at El Camino Community College in California.

Rob Kelly October 29, 2008

How to Assist Faculty with an Online Course Template

How do you get the best out of your online faculty? Don’t make them re-invent the wheel each time they create an online course. Let them do what they’re best at. Free them from administrative details. Do their work for them. Give them a course template.

Renee Cicchino October 13, 2008

The Power of Putting the Students at the Center of Learning

As an instructor at a career-focused university, I thought I had experienced it all: great classes and bad classes, classes that ran smoothly and those that required firm management, classes that were a breeze and those that challenged my patience. Despite these experiences, I was unprepared for what became my best class, the one that most changed my outlook on teaching…

Henry Johnson Jr September 30, 2008

Course Design

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