Topics

Using Apps to Improve Communication with Students

One of the challenges of the online classroom is finding ways to connect with students, to build relationships as you might in a face-to-face environment. To achieve this, you might want to look beyond your LMS to some tools that can engage, connect, and inform.

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Enhancing Online Course Discussions through Conference Roles and Blogs

The discussion forum plays a central role in our online graduate-level advanced research methods course, providing opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge and connect and learn with each other and the instructor. It is often the closest approximation of the kinds of conversations that occur

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Online Learning 2.0: The Teaching Toolbox

Online instructors focus most of their teaching on curricular issues—what they will teach, how they will teach it, etc. But studies have found that differences in curriculum have little, if any, effect on student outcomes. John Hattie compared more than 100 factors related to student

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Encouraging Active Participation in Discussion Boards

Flawed pedagogy, lack of learner preparation, and reliance on extrinsic motivation can detract from the learning potential of discussion boards. In an interview with Online Classroom, Naomi Jeffery Petersen, associate professor of education at Central Washington University, discussed these problems and offered advice on getting

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What’s the Story on Learning Styles?

We have this tendency in higher education to throw babies out with bath water. It derives from dualistic thinking. Either something is right or wrong, it’s in or out, up or down. As mature thinkers, we disavow these dichotomous perspectives, but then find their simplicity

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What’s an Empowered Student?

That was the question, followed by, “Are they students who want to take over the classroom?” “No,” I replied, “it’s about how students approach learning—motivated, confident, and ready to tackle the task.”

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Taking a Look at the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory

The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory, developed by a research group at the University of Bristol in the UK, is a self-assessment tool that helps learners develop an awareness of how they learn and encourages them to take responsibility for their learning. It contains seven scales

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Developing Students’ Learning Philosophies

We, as instructors, often discuss our teaching philosophies but rarely consider our learning philosophies and those of our students. I believe that a learning philosophy is different from a learning style, which is often described as an innate student quality. In contrast, a learning philosophy

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