In 2019 we were tasked with building an online graduate-level survey design course. We wanted students to make decisions about survey design and experience the consequences of those decisions in a low-stakes, self-paced environment. The solution was Twine, a free, open-source game-development platform that allows
I recently had an instructor ask whether the feedback he was about to provide to a student was too harsh. He said the student’s writing was a mess and that there was no way that the student would make it through their program without writing
All communication begins with grabbing your listener’s attention, something that everyone instinctively understands. A marriage proposal does not begin with the speaker opening a PowerPoint presentation, providing an outline of topics to be covered, and a schedule with time for each topic—including time at the
Online faculty have numerous options for creating graphic, video, and website content. But Adobe Spark stands out as a single system that can create all three types of content. Spark is really three systems in one—Spark Post for graphics, Spark Video for videos, and Spark
One of the challenges online learners face is sustaining motivation over the duration of the course. In face-to-face classrooms, teachers can personalize motivational strategies to meet the needs of individual students, and the social presence of teachers and fellow learners provides its own motivational incentives.
Open education resources (OER) are gathering more and more interest in higher education as the high cost of textbooks has led a significant percentage of students to simply forgo textbook purchases (Reddon, 2011). OER provide a free alternative to expensive textbooks. But the number of
Snapchat is probably the most popular social media app among those under 30. What distinguishes it from other such apps is that it allows users to add cartoon-like images and text to their photos and videos. While this playful interaction between users may seem like
Learning takes place when students solve problems beyond their current developmental level. Often peer support is needed for the student to get over the hurdles to accomplish a task (DePew & Holt, 2018; Schell, 2016; Vygotsky, 1978). Peer assessment is one means of support that
When students learn there will be group work in a course, they often let up a collective groan. Group work tends to leave a bad taste in students’ mouths due to their lack of understanding of group dynamics. If you plan to use group activities
Sarah Rose Cavanagh’s book The Spark of Learning (2016) teaches how student control and value is central to learning. Control-value theory was first conceptualized by Pekrun (2006), who defined it as being “based on the premise that appraisals of control and values are central to
