Online discussion has tremendous potential to engage students, develop written communication skills, and promote learning. Unfortunately, discussion boards often fall short, resulting in perfunctory posts and comments and surface treatment of the issues. If discussions, online or otherwise, are to endure and change thinking, they
Icebreakers can help promote the important social component of online learning. Common icebreakers have students share information about themselves with the idea of creating a bit of conversation and perhaps provide fodder for course-related discussions later in the course.
Gamification became a hot topic in education when it was discovered that games are ideal learning instruments. We think of students’ amazing dexterity in navigating virtual worlds as somehow innate, but in reality they have learned quickly because of fundamental design considerations that can apply
Threaded discussions are a crucial part of most online learning models. By composing comments and posting them to a discussion board, students in online classes demonstrate their comprehension of what they are learning; they reflect on how their response to the course content compares with
One of the most common questions about distance learning is how to ensure academic integrity during exams. After all, students at a distance have ample opportunity to consult unauthorized resources or even engage another person to take an exam for them. The concern
Calls to ban laptops in college classrooms are based on accumulating research showing their negative effects not only on users but also on students sitting nearby. Survey research documents that students believe they can simultaneously pay attention to what is happening in the classroom while
Occasionally I read old issues of the newsletter, usually looking for something I vaguely remember. Sometimes I find it and other times I don’t, but pretty much always I stumble across something that I’ve completely forgotten that I wish I’d remembered. Case in point…
It was a syllabus used in a small, upper-division political science seminar, which explains the name and the question of interest to the teacher of the course. “Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process?”
“Enabling interaction in a large class seems an insurmountable task.” That’s the observation of a group of faculty members in the math and physics department at the University of Queensland. It’s a feeling shared by many faculty committed to active learning who face classes enrolling
Whatever philosophical and empirical issues college teachers may have with the Rate My Professor (RMP) website, there is no denying that the site in now a huge repository of information on college teachers. The website reports that it contains 15 million ratings for 1.4 million
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