Encourage Metacognitive Learning by Visualizing Objectives

Description Students want to know what will be on the test. But faculty want students to focus on authentic learning rather than simply scoring well. Our strategy addresses both desires. Good course design involves alignment of course and lesson objectives with relevant activities and assessments. It is imperative that students be provided with this “roadmap” …

Related Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Preparing Students to Facilitate a Webinar

Description Today’s technological environment requires practical skills in online competencies; one of these skills is webinar facilitation. Facilitation is a useful skill to support group in meeting an objective, making a decision, or collaborating more effectively. Facilitation is also the teaching strategy that can be selected for assignments in order to: (1) model for students …

Related Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Scaffold Student Success in Online Learning through Metacognitive Prompting and Reflective Journaling

Description Student self-regulation, or the ability of students to self-direct and monitor their learning behaviors, has been shown to be a viable predictor for significant learning (Shea & Bidjerano, 2012) and accounts for significant portions of the variance in learning outcomes (Wertz, 2014). Scaffolding student self-regulation has been shown to impact self-regulation of online interactions …

Related Tags: , , , , , ,

Implement Open Educational Resources

Description The global movement of utilizing Open Educational Resources (OER) to enhance or build course content is rapidly growing amongst educators (Hilton, Wiley, Stein, & Johnson, 2010). Faculty are using OER to provide access to educational materials at little to no cost, allowing for up-to-date, relevant and accessible content to students. Hylén (2006) defines OER …

Related Tags: , ,

Create Accessible Narrated PowerPoint for Content Delivery Online

Description PowerPoint Presentations are often a staple of face-to-face classes. With the move to online courses, PowerPoints, originally used to accompany face-to-face lectures, were uploaded to online content. However, without the accompanying lectures, they are generally of little value to students. In order to ameliorate this problem, audio narrations were added as a supplement. However, …

Related Tags: , ,

Assign Six Word Memoirs for Reflection and Synthesis

Description Similar to the six-word story from the flash fiction genre, the Six-Word Memoir is a writing genre for telling a personal story in six-words. In popular culture, it has become a global movement now featured in the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs: by Writers Famous and Obscure, on [in the …

Related Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Create Screencasts to Present Content and Focus Attention

Description Screencasting refers to as a digitally recorded playback of computer screen output which often contains audio narration (Udell, 2005). Faculty choose to use them to record portions of lectures to provide overview, describe procedures, present concepts, focus attention and elaborate content (Sugar, Brown & Luterbach, 2010). Here are a few examples of instructional uses …

Related Tags: , , , , , ,

Use Excel-based Simulations to Improve Online Student Understanding of Deterministic Financial Models

Description Numerous studies have found that students who use simulations to learn concepts then subsequently demonstrate higher test scores than students using traditional lecture and discussions to cover the same material. Thus, the research indicates that online students could benefit from properly designed simulations (Porter, 2004). Individual instructors have two basic choices for obtaining simulations: …

Related Tags: , , , , ,

Apply Motivational Design Principles to Create Engaging Online Modules

Description In a classroom setting, levels of student engagement vary widely, but instructors can adjust the lesson based on the perceived level of student engagement. However, in an online environment, instructors cannot spontaneously prompt students to motivate their engagement. When developing asynchronous modules, using a motivational design model and appropriate technologies allows one to replicate …

Related Tags: , , , , , , ,

Use Word Clouds to Enhance Critical Thinking

Description One of the major goals of higher education is to cultivate students’ critical thinking skills (Roth, 2010). In order to be prepared for the workplace and to be an informed citizen, students need to be able to base judgments, make decisions, and solve problems based on the careful critique of available evidence. Engagement, defined …

Related Tags: , , , , , , ,