Supriya Sarnikar, associate professor in the Economics and Management Department at Westfield State University, enrolled in several MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offered through Coursera for several reasons: personal enrichment, to learn of any pedagogical or technological innovations these courses offered, and to better understand
Careful preparation is essential to the success of an online course “to provide a positive experience for the students and to be able to maximize your time with students so that you’re not spending time on reworking things that weren’t clear up front,” says Ann
While the limitations of online teaching preclude on-site meetings with students, the fact remains that seeing a face adds essential elements to a message that cannot be conveyed by email or phone. Our faces humanize us, making others more receptive to our messages. Plus, most
Incivility in the online classroom can take many forms. Angela Stone Schmidt, director of graduate programs in the School of Nursing and associate dean College of Nursing & Health Professions at Arkansas State University—Jonesboro, uses Morrisette’s definition: “interfering with a cooperative learning atmosphere.” So in
The options we have in communicating with our online students have markedly increased, and no longer are we limited to text-only emails and postings. In past columns I have mentioned a few of these, such as the use of audio and live chats, but it’s
Self-regulation—controlling the factors that affect one’s learning—is an important skill for online learners to possess. Course design that encourages metacognition can help online learners develop their ability to self-regulate. In an interview with Online Classroom, Maureen Andrade, associate vice president for academic programs at Utah
I found a nice set of online discussion activities that strike me as good in-class discussion activities as well. One of the reasons discussion so often fails or doesn’t realize much of its potential is the absence of structure. The discussion is too open-ended. It
A recent classroom observation reminded me that student participation can be encouraged and supported by attention to small but important presentational details. In this article I have highlighted these details in the form of questions, and I hope that you’ll use them to reflect on
I’ve been thinking lately about the relationship between what we teach and how we teach. Part of that relationship is pretty obvious: If you teach something with problems to solve, you spend time problem-solving when you teach. If you teach a skill (like writing or
In the July 10, 2013 post, I shared some ideas about learning with students precipitated by an article that made an interesting distinction between “doing for” students and “learning with” students. The post generated some good responses and prompted Aron Reppmann, a philosophy professor at
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