A wise teacher once told me that half of college success is just being organized, and I’m sure the same is true for any work. Yet we provide precious little guidance to students on this critical life skill. Lack of organization leads to students who
An overwhelming sense of fear can overcome us when we are suddenly asked to teach not only an online course but a compressed one on top of that. By compressed, I mean teaching in eight weeks (or sometimes even less!) a course that is usually
Not all students taking online courses are good self-regulated learners. Authors Rowe and Rafferty believe there are interventions online teachers can use that develop these very necessary skills. Based on an extensive review of research on interventions in postsecondary courses, they suggest four interventions.
Teachers of traditionally discussion-intensive courses can have a hard time translating their classes into an online format. Most courseware has only a forum module, and those may not structurally encourage the students to interact with each other much, for example with “reply” links and threaded
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 online, I drowned in my course. I was making myself available 24 hours/seven days a week.
One of the challenges of the online classroom is finding ways to connect with students, to build relationships as you might in a face-to-face environment. To achieve this, you might want to look beyond your LMS to some tools that can engage, connect, and inform.
The discussion forum plays a central role in our online graduate-level advanced research methods course, providing opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge and connect and learn with each other and the instructor. It is often the closest approximation of the kinds of conversations that occur
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, if any, effect on student outcomes. John Hattie compared more than 100 factors related to student
Flawed pedagogy, lack of learner preparation, and reliance on extrinsic motivation can detract from the learning potential of discussion boards. In an interview with Online Classroom, Naomi Jeffery Petersen, associate professor of education at Central Washington University, discussed these problems and offered advice on getting
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 comfortable speaking up in the face-to-face environment. Rather than demanding that students interact using a specific
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