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…
What Online Faculty Can Do to Avoid Burnout
January 5, 2018 Edna Murugan, PhD, and Noura Badawi, EdD
With the increase in online classes being offered by higher education institutions and the convenience and flexibility it affords (particularly for adult learners), it is important that institutions hire,…
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But What If They Cheat? Giving Non-Proctored Online Assessments
December 8, 2017 Sheryl Cornelius, EdD
As online education continues to grow, so does the potential for academic dishonesty. So how do you ensure your online students are not cheating on their tests? Bottom line,…
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In Educational Assessment, Online Education
Which Assessment Strategies Do Students Prefer?
October 27, 2017 John Orlando, PhD
While most faculty stick with the tried-and-true quiz and paper assessment strategies for their online courses, the wide range of technologies available today offers a variety of assessment options…
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Pause, Play, Repeat: Using Pause Procedure in Online Microlectures
October 23, 2017 Judith Dutill, MA, and Melissa Wehler, PhD
We all know the classic thought experiment involving a tree falling in the woods, but have you heard the one about online lecturing: If a faculty member posts a…
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In Academic Leadership, Online Education
Tips for New Online Faculty Deans: A Faculty Perspective
September 22, 2017 Noura Badawi, EdD
We know that strong leaders empower and genuinely care for those whom they lead. That empowerment and care is not expressed by the words they speak, but by their…
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A student’s initial introduction into higher education can be exciting and frustrating, especially when the student is enrolled in their first online class. This year I taught a newly…
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Engaging Students in Online Courses: Adding Experiential to Asynchrony
August 14, 2017 Eric J. Perry, PhD
Teaching online is a unique experience for faculty and students. Although I love the online environment for some courses, it does present its own challenges. One of those challenges…
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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…
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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…
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Ten Concierge ‘Keys’ for Supporting Individualized Online Course Development
April 28, 2017 David S. McCurry, EdD, and Bonnie B. Mullinix, EdD
Large group training workshops to facilitate online course design can be a mechanistic experience and a nightmare to schedule given perpetually busy faculty with overloaded calendars. Equally ineffective static,…
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Student discussion differentiates online education from the old correspondence courses. But there are still many questions to answer in order to facilitate good discussion online. Hong Zhiu, of the…
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In Educational Assessment, Online Education
Reduce Online Course Anxiety with a Check-in Quiz
March 10, 2017 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
“Online classes are often intimidating for first-time students,” writes David St Clair. “They wrestle with the gnawing fear that their class has no anchor in the physical world and…
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Instructor Presence: How to Keep from Going MIA in Your Online Course
February 3, 2017 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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Five Ways to Make Your Online Classrooms More Interactive
December 12, 2016 Amy Peterson
The convenience and flexibility of the online learning environment allows learners to develop new skills and further their education, regardless of where they live. However, for all of its…
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Classroom Assessment Techniques, or CATs, are simple ways to evaluate students’ understanding of key concepts before they get to the weekly, unit, or other summative-type assessment (Angelo & Cross,…
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More and more students are flocking to the online classroom for the convenience of earning college credits from the comfort of their home. However, many of these students are…
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Many instructors feel that they need to be experts in mathematics in order to understand analytics. But according to John Vivolo, director of online and virtual learning for New…
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Students like online classes due to their flexibility and convenience. But not all students do well in these courses; the statistics indicate that online classes have a much higher…
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Student Engagement Strategies for the Online Learning Environment
March 14, 2016 Paula M. Bigatel PhD
During the past year and a half, our faculty development unit has been gathering data from students about how engaged they felt in their online courses. We wanted to…
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The online classroom can sometimes feel like a lonely place due to a lack of presence of the instructor and other students. This lack of presence can negatively affect…
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In his wonderful TED talk, Dan Meyer describes how he began one of his math classes by showing students a video of a hose slowly filling a bucket with…
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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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Wallflowers in the Online Classroom
November 17, 2015 Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti
What does it mean to be a wallflower? Such a person might be thought of as shy and might sit apart from others at a party or social gathering,…
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Supporting the Mental Health Needs of Online Students
November 12, 2015 Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti
Every higher ed administrator knows that mental health services are becoming increasingly important on-campus. Fewer know that they are also important for students who study primarily or entirely online.…
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There’s a growing body of evidence that indicates the educational benefits of game-based learning. Although some courses are likely to be more conducive to a game-based approach, it’s helpful…
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A lot of faculty worry that they do. Given the cheating epidemic in college courses, why wouldn’t students be even more inclined to cheat in an unmonitored exam situation?…
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Promoting Learning: The Instructor’s Main Mission or a Secondary Duty?
October 30, 2015 Ronald C. Jones
As instructors, promoting learning is, or at least should be, our primary task. As an online instructor, I must enforce deadlines, respond to requests for accommodations, post announcements, provide…
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Trying to support students in an online course can create an unsustainable burden on the instructor. “I’ve heard faculty members say things such as, ‘When I first started teaching…
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In their 1995 Change magazine article, “From Teaching to Learning—a New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education,” Robert B. Barr and John Tagg described the Learning Paradigm, which emphasizes learning over…
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How to Give Your Students Better Feedback in Less Time
September 29, 2015 John Orlando, PhD
Online instructors focus most of their teaching on curricular issues—what they will teach, how they will teach it, etc. But studies have found that differences in curriculum have little,…
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Scenario-based learning can be an effective way for students to apply what they have learned to realistic situations. There are many different ways to design scenarios for online delivery,…
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Valerie Powell, assistant professor of art at Sam Houston State University, decided to supplement her face-to-face courses to extend the classroom and provide opportunities for students who are not…
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Successfully transferring a face-to-face course to the online learning environment requires careful preparations that take into account differences between these two modalities. “If you simply take your face-to-face class…
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Direct Instruction has a bad reputation. It is often associated in higher education with long lectures and passive learners. “Passivity isn’t wrong because it’s boring; it’s wrong because it…
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Threaded discussions can provide excellent opportunities for students to engage in critical thinking. But critical thinking isn’t an automatic feature of these discussions. It needs to be nurtured through…
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Online Group Projects – Yikes! You can hear the moans and groans of students echoing through your computer monitors as you start the first week of your online course.…
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Save the Last Word for Me: Encouraging Students to Engage with Complex Reading and Each Other
April 13, 2015 Aimee deNoyelles, EdD; Janet Mannheimer Zydney, PhD; and Kay Kyeong-Ju Seo, PhD
Online discussions are often implemented in college classes to allow students to express their understanding and perceptions about the assigned readings. This can be challenging when the reading is…
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You’re asking the wrong question. No, seriously, you’re probably asking the wrong question. Yeah, that’s a pretty bold statement. But I've read tens of thousands of questions meant to…
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Taking the Leap: Moving from In-Person to Online Courses
April 3, 2015 Jessica Harris and Sami Lange
The landscape: You have taught a class in-person for five years and due to a variety of reasons you have the option to teach it online ... next semester.…