I am a political science professor. And we are in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election campaign. My classes are going about how you’d imagine: students are excited, sometimes talking over one another, and occasionally throwing out wild hypotheticals.
Many research studies have underscored the importance of teaching presence in asynchronous online courses, with the benefits including higher student satisfaction, reduced isolation, and enhanced emotional engagement (Oyarzun et al., 2018).
There can be a certain inertia to teaching online, especially asynchronously. You and your students never see each other, don’t feel very connected, and by the middle of the semester may have unintentionally begun a slow slide toward phoning it in.
Decades of research show the value of instructor presence and student engagement for online learners. Yet many instructors wonder how well their efforts to foster engagement really work, leading some to question the value of discussion and other types of interactions.
It is best practice to open online courses with a welcome to students. The online format will be new for many students—in particular, adult students who are returning to school after a long absence—and they may be uncertain of their ability to perform in the
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, relatively few instructors had used web-based conferencing for teaching and learning. With the shift in the spring of 2020, many instructors suddenly found themselves teaching online courses, and many others found themselves teaching onsite with some students using videoconferencing to
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
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.
While most faculty think of assessments as used to measure learning after the fact, formative assessment classroom techniques (FACTs) give an instructor a snapshot of where students are in their learning so as to address any gaps in their understanding. Online instructors have a variety
Nearly all dedicated NPR listeners have had the experience of sitting in their car with the radio on after arriving at their destination simply because they could not tear themselves away from a fascinating segment. By contrast, most online students have had the experience of
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