As professors, we work hard to create the perfect syllabus for our courses. We outline our expectations, students’ responsibilities, and important policies. Ideally, we do all of this with a learner-centered approach. We are told that the more information we provide, the more successful our
The Learning Management System (LMS) was developed to allow faculty to create online courses without having to learn HTML. It provided even the least technologically sophisticated faculty member with an opportunity to teach online by centralizing all course functions in one “mothership.”
Positive classroom climate can encourage students to participate, think deeply about content, and engage peers in intellectual debate. Creating a classroom climate conducive to that type of expression can be difficult. Classrooms are filled with a diverse cross-section of our society representing multiple learning preferences
To remediate the exam preparation study skills that beginning (and other) students are missing, most of us respond by telling students about those skills that make for good exam performance. “Come to class.” “Take notes.” “Keep up with reading.” “See me during office hours if
How can institutions support excellence in online education? The question is one of paramount importance to all institutions with online course offerings, but it may be a particular challenge to residential, research universities, which are not necessarily designed with online education in mind. But Julie
Group work is a valuable learning device that teaches teamwork skills which students will use no matter what profession they enter. It is perhaps even more valuable in online classes, as more and more organizations are using distributed employees who need to coordinate their work
A global classroom is an initiative between two partner universities, often in different countries, designed to bring students together through a project or collaboration. These can work in any academic discipline—the objective is to increase cross-cultural awareness while the student learns about the course subject.
In winter 2015, I was given the opportunity to design and teach my department’s first fully online course, in calculus. Some design challenges emerged in the process, not least of which was the question of assessing homework. In a face-to-face class, students either turn in
This year’s Online Education Year-In-Review comes to us via Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois Springfield and long-time thought leader on distance education. I recently spoke with Ray about emerging areas in distance education over the past year,
Class discussions are valuable for pushing participants to think more deeply about ideas and defend their thoughts. However, poorly designed online discussions can turn into mundane and tedious renderings of testimonials, folk wisdom, and repetitious speculations. To avoid this, instructors need to provide the right
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