Articles

Eight Ways to Support Faculty Needs with a Virtual Teaching & Learning Center

Teaching and learning support professionals, particularly those who must perform miracles as a “Department of One,” can have one of the most challenging jobs on campus. They not only support the course design, content delivery strategies, technology integration, and training/orientation for faculty and students in online learning programs (asynchronous and synchronous formats), but they also support all other teaching/learning needs for classroom, blended, and any other teaching environment. This professional may be an instructional designer, an educational technologist, or very often, a designated faculty member with some or all of these skills.

Kathleen MacDonald August 25, 2009

Using the Syllabus to Create an Engaging Classroom Climate

It’s important at the beginning of a course for students and their instructor to find out about each other. This exchange of information helps to create classroom climates of respect and fosters a spirit of exchange that can encourage students to ask questions, make comments, and otherwise participate in dialogue throughout the course.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 24, 2009

Tenure-track Positions Continue to Feel the Pinch

As college teachers, most of us know that the profession is changing, but we aren’t always as up on the details as we should be.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 20, 2009

The Pietas of Teaching

Recently, I encountered a snag in my teaching. Unlike past difficulties connected to particular classroom challenges, this one was more pervasive. For several months I contemplated the cause of this “bigger” dilemma. Upon reflection it became evident that my off-balance feeling was linked to the pietas of teaching.

Patty H. Phelps, EdD August 19, 2009

Values Surveys: Linking Course Content and Students’ Lives

Last week, while teaching Dante’s Inferno, I moderated a lively two-day class discussion about medieval and modern values and religion. How did Dante define virtue? How do we define it? For Dante, why was lust not as terrible a sin as theft of property? Why did his age consider gluttony a moral failing rather than a self-destructive behavior that one can take to Jenny Craig?

Barbara A. Mezeske August 18, 2009

Time Management Tips for Online Instructors

Online instruction invariably requires more time for logistics than does face-to-face instruction due to interaction needs, extraneous cognitive load (mental effort needed to attend to non-content-related course elements), and poor self regulation by students.

Kathryn Ley PhD. August 17, 2009

Aligning Assessment Strategies with Institutional Goals

Troll through university websites and you’re likely to see mission statements with such lofty phrases as “instill a passion for lifelong learning” or “a commitment to student-centered education.” But what do these things really mean and, more importantly, how do you know you’re doing them?

Mary Bart August 12, 2009

Communicating with Students: IM or Email?

Despite numerous studies that show that students prefer instant messaging to email, initiating communication with students via IM is not necessarily the best way to go, according to the editors of The Edutech Report.

Rob Kelly August 11, 2009

Travel Tips for Online Instructors

Well, it’s that time again: summertime, and thus more online instructors are on the road and that means your indispensible umbilical cord to the classroom

Errol Craig Sull August 7, 2009

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