Articles

5 Ways to Create Nonthreatening Distance Learning Courses While Maintaining High Academic Standards

Instructors who are new to the online classroom often struggle with the issue of how to be rigorous while creating a safe learning environment, and mistakenly think, “You can be nice or demanding, but somehow you can’t be both.” “That’s absolutely not true,” says Andrea Sanders, associate professor of English at Chattanooga State Technical Community College…

Rob Kelly September 10, 2008

Six Recommendations for the Physicality of Distance Learning Classrooms

In the past, I have used the spatiotemporal aspects of my office for online teaching. My workstation, which has undergone multiple ergonomic reinventions over the years, fits my body, habits, and routines. Although teaching elsewhere is an option, my workstation helps me prevent (or slow down) what I call “professor posture,” that is, head forward and shoulders rounded. And in my office I can disappear into time, emerging hours later with completed products. For faculty who wish to use their offices as online classrooms, I provide the following recommendations:…

Aimee Luebben EdD. September 9, 2008

A Focus on Teaching and Learning at Mid-Career

Are your experienced faculty members as effective in the classroom as you would like them to be? If not, perhaps a faculty development program like the University of Minnesota’s Mid-Career Teaching Program could be the answer. Many faculty members currently in mid-career have probably had fewer teaching enrichment opportunities than their more recently hired colleagues, and just because they are experts in their disciplines does not necessarily make them good teachers. In addition, teaching is becoming more complex: student populations are more diverse than they used to be, and they often expect more from professors than students did in the past…

Rob Kelly September 8, 2008

Teaching Circles: Low-Cost, High-Impact Faculty Development

Two years ago, a midcareer colleague in the mathematics department sent around an e-mail to all faculty at our college, inviting us to read a book with her. And as simply as that, a teaching circle was formed.

A teaching circle, the term we use at my institution, is simply a group of faculty interested in discussing teaching at regular intervals, ideally over food. As my colleague said, laughing, at our first meeting, “I need a support group, and everyone needs lunch!”…

Barbara A. Mezeske September 7, 2008

A Template for Designing a Perfect One-Day Retreat

A worthwhile faculty retreat can breathe new life into the academic community. The structure and content of a good retreat can contribute to the development of college or school identity and can inspire a shared sense of reflection and forward motion. As many of us know, a retreat also can be seen as a dreadful bore, an unwelcome obligation that faculty may regard as a distraction from their real work. How many faculty feel that they cannot pause and enjoy the possibility of refreshment in the confinement of the obligatory faculty retreat? So often, retreats are positioned against the momentum of fall, of new students, of new classroom power realized from good summer reading, of the desire to be focused on the future. Retreats, by their nature, seem to speak to the past, and to reflection, just when faculty are getting warmed up to look forward…

Margaret Sullivan September 6, 2008

Understanding Conflicts with Students

Sometimes we get into it with students. Most often it involves grades, exams, and excuses. And most often, at least from our perspective, the students don’t have a case. The grade is fair, the exam contains predictable content, and the offered excuse is lame. We dismiss the complaint and deny that a problem exists. And most of the time we are right, at least from our perspective. But how do these conflicts look from the student side?

Maryellen Weimer, PhD September 5, 2008

Project Introduces Students to Helpful Resources

Many of my students wait until they are in academic trouble before they seek help. By then, they are often in too deep to be retrieved. At the beginning of the semester, I’ve always tried to encourage students to know what support services are available to them. “Find help before you need it!” I tell them. But often times this advice is either completely ignored or stored for use when it’s too late. How could I convince students to heed my advice? I needed a more creative approach…

Maryellen Weimer, PhD September 4, 2008

Improving Instruction Through a Faculty-Driven Initiative

During the 2000-2001 academic year, a group of faculty from the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services in Ohio State University’s College of Education began meeting regularly with the school’s director to find ways to enhance instruction. From these meetings came the idea for the PAES Instructional Enhancement Initiative, a faculty-driven series of instruction-related activities, which includes workshops, a book club, a quarterly newsletter, and seminars.

Rob Kelly September 3, 2008

Technology-Enhanced Faculty Learning Communities Expand Development Opportunities

Faculty learning communities provide opportunities for faculty to get together to discuss similar interests and improve their teaching and learning practices. In the past 15 years, they have become more formalized through the work of Milton Cox and others as well as through use of Web-based technologies to connect faculty in new ways.

Rob Kelly September 2, 2008

Using the Syllabus to Lay Down the Law

“You will submit three projects.” “I expect regular participation.” “You must attend class.” “Students bear sole responsibility for ensuring that papers…submitted electronically to the professor

Maryellen Weimer, PhD September 1, 2008

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