Articles

The Benefits of Blended Learning Explained

Blended learning — a strategy that combines online and classroom learning activities and resources to reduce in-class seat time for students in a face-to-face environment — can be a tremendous boon for a university. It can help the institution enhance under-enrolled programs, complete faculty teaching loads, and improve cost effectiveness. However, convincing the institution’s constituents that a blended course or program is a good idea may take some work.

Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti January 5, 2011

Copyright and Fair Use Issues in Online Education

There are three main legal issues that can cause trouble in online educational programs: ownership issues, copyright issues, and issues of harassment and defamation. Each of these issues also pertains to the face-to-face classroom setting but requires a fresh perspective when applied to distance education.

Magna Publications January 3, 2011

Helping Students See Correlation Between Effort and Performance

One of the student engagement techniques described in Elizabeth F. Barkley’s Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty has students predicting and reflecting on their exam preparation and performance. It’s a technique that helps students see the correlation between their efforts and their exam scores, as well as one that helps them assess the effectiveness of the study strategies they use.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 20, 2010

A Vision of Students Today, as Told by Students

A Vision of Students Today is a short video created by Michael Wesch, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, and 200 KSU students. Since being uploaded to YouTube in Oct 2007 it’s been viewed more than 4 million times. Even if you’ve already viewed it, it’s worth a second look. It describes some of the most important characteristics of students today, as told from the student perspective.

Mary Bart December 17, 2010

Effective Uses of Video in the Classroom

Social media has allowed anyone to become a video producer. The result is an explosion of high-quality teaching videos. Thirty years ago a teacher might show a PBS video in class every once in a while, mostly just as a break from the usual routine. But today there are thousands of videos from which to choose.

John Orlando, PhD December 15, 2010

Beware of Faculty Promotion and Tenure Pitfalls

Controversies surrounding promotion and tenure can lead to legal trouble for departments and institutions. It’s up to academic leaders to guard against possible pitfalls by adopting, disseminating, and implementing equitable policies.

Rob Kelly December 14, 2010

Tips for Restoring Classroom Civility

Most people, when they conceive of hell, conjure up an image of a subterranean inferno to which sinners are forever consigned to an afterlife of endless suffering and punishment. But according to Dr. Gerald Amada, author of Coping with the Disruptive College Student: A Practical Model, hell also can take many temporal forms, especially in the world of academia.

Mary Bart December 13, 2010

Instructor’s Personality: An Essential Online Course Component

An instructor’s “digital” personality can influence student achievement, retention or completion, and satisfaction with courses, says Todd Conaway, an instructional designer at Yavapai College in Arizona. This is why he encourages instructors to infuse their personalities into their online courses. A growing number of tools and technologies can help.

Rob Kelly December 10, 2010

Using Wikis for Collaborative Learning

If you are looking for ways to facilitate collaboration among students, consider using a wiki—a website that contains pages that can be easily created and edited by multiple users. Several characteristics of Wikis make them excellent choices for projects that involve brainstorming and research and that require a final report, says Rhonda Ficek, director of instructional technology services at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

Rob Kelly December 9, 2010

Things Effective Teachers Do

It’s been a while since I was an undergrad, but I still remember my two favorite professors. They had completely different personalities and teaching styles, they even taught in different departments, but they did some things in very similar ways. I think that’s what made them so effective. It really wasn’t the content — although that was part of it — it was more the classroom experience they created.

Mary Bart December 6, 2010

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