Peer-Reviewed Entry

Anyone involved in an online course, whether that person is the instructor or student, can find the absence of face-to-face communications challenging for one primary reason: interaction or the lack thereof.  To address the interaction issue, Krause (2020) stresses the importance of building a community through exercises that involve connectedness and shape relational trust. Wehler…

The metaverse can be utilized in various platforms such as Mozilla Hubs, and VRChat. Mozilla Hubs is a free and open-source platform that provides a virtual space where users can communicate and collaborate with each other in real-time. VRChat is a social VR platform that enables users to create their avatars and explore virtual worlds.…

Faculty who teach asynchronously online must build-in purposeful engagement activities with their students to grow the faculty-student relationship. It is this purposeful effort towards relational humanity that allows students to see their professors as real people who care about their success and learning, rather than grading robots hidden behind a screen. Relational humanity is the…

Assessing knowledge for individual students online can be a challenge, let alone when in groups. Add the remote learning conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the challenges increase even more to offer accessible, inclusive, and equitable learning experiences. Technologies such as Padlet allow remote learners to virtually collaborate on a single product. One such product…

Backward Design is an instructional design strategy in which the course developer begins the process by drafting and reflecting on the intended learning outcomes of the course — beginning with the end in mind.

Traditional gallery walks let students stroll through the classroom viewing their peers’ work, which is often set up on the top of their desks. At its heart, a gallery walk is an interactive, discussion technique where students move around the room, actively analyze information, and provide peers with feedback about their work (Fasse & Kolodner,…

Students enrolled in university programs were affected significantly in their ability to remain focused on meeting program expectations while contending with pandemic-induced challenges. Faculty in a school of nursing responded by developing a four-pronged model with initiatives to support students and foster their success.

Description When teaching remotely during synchronous online learning sessions, finding ways to engage the students as they enter the virtual meeting room is important to capture the students’ attention. Providing a hook also known as an anticipatory set is a one way to set the focus for the lesson to prompt student reflection and discussion.…

Conrad and Donaldson note that the shift from the instructor as provider of knowledge to the “the instructor as facilitator of active student learning” began well before the introduction of online learning, with the work of John Dewey, who emphasized “diverse and meaningful peer collaboration” in learning environments. One of the ways to foster significant…

Description Learners in synchronous course meetings benefit from accessing course materials for task-related use during a live session with ease (Falloon, 2011; Park & Bonk, 2007). Class Meeting Launchpads offer students a predictable structure and platform from which to access content and applications. For some platforms, such as Google Docs, they also offer additional options…