Here I sit in my new, make-shift home office moving my face-to-face courses online with a view of my backyard. For the last few days I have contemplated many…
When the Tide Goes Out: Identifying and Supporting Struggling Students in Online Courses
March 30, 2020 Marie A. Revak, PhD
Students in online courses start with the best intentions—keeping up with the readings and assignments, engaging in discussion, and learning from their instructor’s feedback and comments. Once an online…
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As schools across the nation announce they are switching to online instruction in an attempt to slow the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic, teachers everywhere are scrambling to convert their…
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In Online Education, Philosophy of Teaching
Leading Our Classes Through Times of Crisis with Engagement and PEACE
March 25, 2020 Donald A. Saucier, PhD, and Tucker L. Jones, MS
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has caused a fast and radical shift across colleges and universities to remote and online teaching models. As such, our face-to-face courses have been taken…
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As universities rush to get all their courses online quickly, there’s a high probability of error but also a lot you can do to succeed. Problems may occur due…
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Five Ways to Promote Student Autonomy in Online Discussions
March 16, 2020 Cassandra Sardo and Justin York, PhD
“Write an initial post and then reply to two of your classmates.” These are the standard requirements for students participating in online course discussions. Discussions in an online course…
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In Effective Classroom Management, Online Education
Designing for Accessibility: How to Front-Load Your Digital Content with UDL Principles
March 4, 2020 Caran Howard, PhD
Accessibility is a big deal. We include statements about accessibility in our syllabi and on our institutional websites. We also need to ensure that we comply with the Rehabilitation…
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Promoting Online Learners’ Social-Emotional Growth: A Montessori Perspective
March 2, 2020 Catherine R. Barber, PhD
When I first began creating and teaching online higher education courses, I searched scholarly journals, instructional design resources, and quality standards for insights and guidance. Although I followed best…
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The ubiquity of online meeting software has made it increasingly easy for professors to include live online class sessions to both brick-and-mortar and online courses. I have learned in…
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A Discussion About Online Discussion
February 3, 2020 Amanda Page and Miriam Abbott
When it comes to facilitating online classroom engagement, discussion boards are a great go-to. They’re practically omnipresent; a tool used in every virtual classroom in every college curriculum. Ideally,…
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Organic Online Discussions: Saving Time and Increasing Engagement
January 27, 2020 Beth René Roepnack, PhD
I used to dread online discussions as much as many students do. However, after implementing a simple change, I was as eager to join my online discussions as I…
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October 21, 2019, was a golden day for those interested in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Somehow, across a variety of teaching and learning platforms, several educators…
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In Blended and Flipped Learning, Online Education
Engaged Gazes: Principles that Online and Flipped Teaching Can Learn From Themed Museum Exhibits
December 11, 2019 Kevin Yee
Online instructors have known for some time that the primary work of creating an online course consists of “curation,” which is usually understood to be a matter of selecting…
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Don’t I Know You from Somewhere? This whole thing started when I played two video games, one after the other, that I imagine almost no one plays in sequence.…
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How to Keep from Going MIA in Your Online Course
October 11, 2019 Steve Dwinnells, PhD
As an adjunct professor and one who works daily with faculty in helping them understand online education, I have noticed and heard of increasing numbers of professors going missing…
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Online learning is becoming more prevalent in colleges and universities. When I arrived in higher education, I could not imagine how online classes would work since the connection to…
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Supporting Underprepared Students in the Online Classroom
September 25, 2019 Lisa Borrero, PhD, and Amanda Jayne Miller, PhD
Engaging students through a computer screen requires a unique approach to pedagogy and innovative course design. The feeling of “getting it right” typically involves a good deal of testing…
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When students enroll in online classes, they are often wary and a bit intimidated by the experience. There are a multitude of concerns such as assignment quality/rigor, technology and…
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Multi-Faculty Collaboration to Design Online General Studies Courses
September 10, 2019 B. Jean Mandernach, PhD
In the face-to-face classroom, each faculty member typically designs and teaches their own course with minimal input from departmental colleagues. Reflective of this approach, many colleges and universities have…
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Prior to every course, faculty should consider how they can connect with their students. Building rapport with students must be intentional and consistent (Glazier, 2016). Merely copying and pasting…
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Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with approximately 300 faculty who have developed and taught their first online course. One of the concerns I frequently hear…
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Participating in team projects offers students the chance to develop interpersonal communication skills (Figueira & Leal, 2013), build relationships with classmates, and increase the level of collective competencies as…
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The phrase “desirable difficulties” was first coined in the nineties by psychologist Robert Bjork to describe learning conditions that introduced inconveniences to yield greater learner retention of material. According…
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Another Tax Day is upon us. I’ll keep this post brief, just in case you haven’t yet filed. The Internal Revenue Service is good for lots of things, but…
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Due to the shift to performance-based funding in many states, colleges and universities have sharpened their focus on student retention. Because of this, I have sought out information about…
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Where did it all go wrong? Professor Elavor* just wrapped up what she hoped would be a successful semester of her new online course—Introduction to Natural Sciences. Unfortunately, the…
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Using Bridge Questions to Teach Technical Content Online
March 20, 2019 Stefan A. Perun, PhD, and Edward A. Liva
Courses with a great deal of technical content for application in practice such as law, business, or STEM courses are oftentimes designed in what amounts to an information delivery…
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The Art & Science of Quality Course Announcements: How to Avoid the Trap of the Info Dump
February 1, 2019 Karen Costa
It’s the night before a major assignment is due and you sit down to post an announcement in your online course. You want to remind your students of the…
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As the number of online courses and degree programs in higher education continues to increase, more faculty are being asked to design and develop online courses. Sometimes this course…
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An Online Mentoring Model That Works
November 5, 2018 Mary Jane Pearson, PhD, and E. Gail Kirby, EdD
Recent findings indicate that higher education enrollment is being outpaced by online enrollments while overall enrollment in higher education has declined over the last three years (Betts, 2017). Data…
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8 Student Personality Types in Distance Learning Part 2
October 30, 2018 Jack T. Judy
The first part of this article spent time discussing some of the less motivated student personality types I have encountered through the years, as well as providing some context…
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8 Student Personality Types in Distance Learning Part 1
October 29, 2018 Jack T. Judy
I was taking advantage of some down time, cleaning out some of my old files on my computer, when I ran across a great article I saved that covered…
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In the online class environment, students enjoy many advantages, such as increased scheduling flexibility, ability to balance work and school, classroom portability, and convenience. But there are potential shortcomings…
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As an online instructor, I require my students to engage in weekly discussion forums. In the online college environment, discussion forums are designed to simulate a professor and his…
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“I’m sorry to bother you, but…” was the opening line of every email I received in the first week of this semester. This line was usually followed by nothing…
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Finding the Instructional Value in Peer Review Discussion Boards
June 22, 2018 Priscilla Hobbs, PhD, and Evan Kropp, PhD
In their article on the effect of instructor participation in online discussion boards, Margaret Mazzolini and Sarah Maddison (2003) asked if, “online instructors [should] be encouraged to take a…
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Online students need to feel an instructor presence in their classes. Thorough explanations and effective communication help fulfill this need and can transform a mediocre online course into a…
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By now we’ve all heard about the importance of faculty engagement in online courses. A faculty member who properly engages in an online classroom can boost student success, improve…
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Strategies for Creating a Successful Online Classroom
April 6, 2018 Jill Alred, PhD, and Candace Adams, EdD
Online learning presents new challenges beyond those of a traditional classroom because students must become more responsible for their learning. Many learners are unfamiliar with the online learning environment,…
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Many faculty members express concern that discussion in their online courses is shallow or sparse. What is it that makes meaningful dialogue so elusive in online courses? Some practices…