Support Students in Online Discussions by Clarifying and Demonstrating Expectations, and Providing Guidance in Feedback

Description Online discussion forums provide students an opportunity to engage with one another and with their instructors on topics relevant to the course. They can be effective in creating community and can reassure students that their contributions to the class are of value. Additionally, they provide a space in which students can be experts, sharing …

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Peer review badge Encourage Transparency and Accountability for Group Oral Presentations

Description Developing oral communication skills is included as a learning objective for many general education programs and courses, however, implementation and assessment of such skills varies by course and instructor (Sapia et al., 2020).  Different forms of oral communication are incorporated into online introductory or upper-level courses. These include synchronous discussions as well as more …

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Peer review badge Five Quick Content Revisions to Enhance Online Student Experience Before the Course Start

Description Adult online learners are often non-traditional learners. They juggle multiple life demands, often multi-tasking. Many are returning to school after time away. They have varying levels of digital literacy, and a vast array of life experiences. While online learners may appear to be too diverse to have common goals and learning obstacles, this assumption …

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Peer review badge Use Shared Templates to Enhance Collaborative Online Learning and Skill Building

Description Online learning activities using shared documents to promote collaborative work is one approach that may facilitate student engagement and learning. By creating shared templates for students to complete in groups, students collaborate with classmates to apply learning and ultimately contribute to a shared outcome. While a great deal of academic work is produced independently, …

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Peer review badge Lightboard Lecture Pedagogy and Best Practices

Description Faculty seeking a dynamic lecture-recording method for their online, hybrid, or flipped classrooms appreciate the Lightboard strategy. A Lightboard is an educational technology tool with a glass writing surface embedded with LED lights, allowing instructors to face the camera and create engaging instructional videos. LED lights and fluorescent markers make the writing highly visible …

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Peer review badge Build Community Through Food Poetry

Description Online classes suffer from student isolation and a lack of participation. Yet, research has shown that interaction is important for building communities in online courses (Swan, 2010; Thurston, 2007). Presentations can create community (ODLI, 2023), especially through poetry (Christensen, 2000). One way to increase interaction is to assign slam poetry, a form of spoken …

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Peer review badge Replace Traditional Textbooks with Technology Resources through Trebian’s Model

Description College textbooks provide highly specialized content and are expensive whether they are in hard copy or digital format. The average cost of college books (see graph below) declined in the 2020-2021 academic year, in part due to an increased rate of textbook rentals and use of digital course materials such as OERs (Hanson, 2022). …

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Peer review badge Leveraging Lecture Passwords to Humanize your Online Course

Description Adult online learners are often non-traditional learners. They excel at multi-tasking, and finding small windows of divided attention learning times as they balance life demands. Attention spans are waning, and the days of fascination with talking head videos have passed. A recent research review suggests that online education videos should be no more than …

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Peer review badge Capture Student Attention with a Digital Writing Makeover

Description As an online instructor, do you feel frustrated when students do not read your course announcements, discussions, e-mails, or other written communication? What if we could capture attention by borrowing online marketing copywriting secrets designed to cut through life’s distractions? Online marketers are copywriting masters. Copy is text-based content that persuades readers to act …

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Peer review badge Implement “Biographical Disruption” as an Anchor for Critical Reflection in Online Learning

Description Online discussions are a cornerstone of remote learning as they promote active participation and allow for interaction amongst students and between students and faculty (Baglione & Nastanski, 2007), therefore fostering relationship. Indeed, interaction has been highlighted as one of the key factors in determining both faculty and student satisfaction with online learning (Martín-Rodríguez et …

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