Many online courses still use static content such as readings, PowerPoint presentations, and the like. Students are not “doing” anything other than consuming the information. We wanted to buck this trend by providing more interactive and engaging content. We did so by creating the Conversations
Adaptive learning has drawn growing interest in education. The premise makes perfect sense. Instead of giving students of all knowledge and abilities the same content, the student is first assessed on his or her knowledge, then provided the content appropriate to that knowledge. The student
Online faculty often assume that all student collaboration should go through the LMS discussion board, but there are other methods of hosting discussion. Yanyan Sun of Ohio University and Fei Gao of Bowling Green State University experimented with Web annotations as an alternative to traditional
How do you inspire your online students to move beyond making status quo postings in your discussion component and lackluster responses to their peers? Is there a way to get students engaged in meaningful group work in the online classroom? Consider using problem-based learning (PBL)
One of the most common mistakes I see among online faculty is to misuse questions under the guide of teaching by “Socratic dialogue.” Faculty will drop comments such as “Why did the author take this position?” into the margins of a student’s assignment thinking that
Hundreds of studies have demonstrated that there is no significant difference in learning outcomes between online and face-to-face courses. But many students still report having a bad experience with online education because their instructor makes some easily identified mistake when moving courses online.
Student discussion differentiates online education from the old correspondence courses. But there are still many questions to answer in order to facilitate good discussion online. Hong Zhiu, of the University of Texas at San Antonio, did a meta-analysis of studies of online discussion over the
As an adjunct professor and one who works daily with faculty in helping them understand online education, I have noticed and heard of increasing numbers of professors going missing in action (MIA) while teaching their online course. This is particularly disturbing since engagement is the
Just split your video into smaller clips, and ask students to answer questions on each clip after watching it.
Cultivating Relationships OnlineFaculty spend most of their training in learning their subject matter. But when 17,000 students were asked to list the qualities of an effective teacher, “respectful” and “responsive” came out above “knowledgeable.” Knowledge of the subject matter is more of a baseline for
