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Addressing the Unique Needs of Your Students

Why are you interested in improving your courses and instruction?

That was the question posed to attendees to kick off the online seminar Five Steps to Improve Your Online Courses and Instruction by presenter Dr. Patti Shank. Most of the respondents selected as their answers “to better support students” or “I hope this will reduce some of the hassles of teaching online.” A few of the more honest ones chose “I’m expected to do this” and a couple more came because they “need to address specific problems.”

Mary Bart June 15, 2009

Establishing Online Instructor Performance Best Practices and Expectations

Helping faculty learn to survive and even thrive online is critical if we are to realize the potential of this new learning space. During a

Lawrence Ragan PhD. June 12, 2009

Voucher Points Help Build Student Engagement

I happened on the idea of giving voucher points accidentally, but over the years they’ve proven quite valuable in promoting active student involvement. It started when I was still teaching math in high school, and a student came up with a particularly clever method of solving a mathematics problem. As a reward, I wrote him an IOU good for one point on any of my tests. A few months later it happened again, and then later on I gave out a third voucher point. That semester, I received very positive comments about the practice on my student evaluations. Students requested that I “do voucher points more often.”

Melvin Billik June 11, 2009

Faculty Evaluations: Those Hurtful Student Comments

At most places now, students are given the opportunity to evaluate instructors at the end of each class. Along with standardized items, students are invited to offer open-ended narrative comments on the course and instructor. Sometimes the comments are nice; sometimes negative but constructive; sometimes negative and destructive.

Glenn Hartz PhD June 10, 2009

Get Students' Attention Right from the Start of Class

“Let’s begin today where we stopped last class.” How many college classes start this way every day? Some students attend by searching their notes or books to discover where the prior class concluded. But, for most learners, this opening fails to capture their attention, and they struggle to find some connections to the topic.

Brenda M. Davis June 9, 2009

Teaching and Learning Award Winners Announced

Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural McGraw-Hill – Magna Publications Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning Award. Announced last week at the sixth annual Teaching Professor Conference, the award recognizes outstanding scholarly articles on teaching and learning, and includes a $1,000 stipend from McGraw-Hill to the authors of the winning article.

Mary Bart June 8, 2009

Academic Leadership Development: Finding Correlations Between Teaching and Leading

The current conditions for leadership development in academe are less than optimal. More often than not, academic leaders come from faculty ranks having been asked to assume positions as department heads/chairs or even deans having had no previous administrative experience. The individual has opportunities for development, but not on any long-term or ongoing basis.

Michael Harris PhD and Roxanne Cullen PhD June 8, 2009

Promoting Collaborative Learning in Online Courses

One of the biggest problems with doing group projects online (and face-to-face) is student resistance, says Jan Engle, coordinator of instruction development at Governors State

Rob Kelly June 5, 2009

General Education Programs Incorporate More Engaged, Integrative Learning Practices

A survey released last month suggests that many colleges and universities are reforming their general education programs and developing new curricular approaches and educational assessment strategies for measuring key learning outcomes. As institutions review their general education programs, many are choosing to incorporate more engaged and integrative curricular practices.

Mary Bart June 4, 2009

Understanding the HEOA’s Student Authentication Provision for Distance Education Programs

Hundreds of distance education administrators breathed a collective sigh of relief upon learning in a recent online seminar that the vast majority of schools are already in compliance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act’s new rules on student authentication.

Mary Bart June 3, 2009

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