Consequently, cross cultural communicative competencies are increasingly important for mutual understanding and cooperation - how is that for some alliteration?

I am also keen on addressing the necessary skills students must acquire for the 21st century as outlined in the wonderful document from the Carnegie Institute available at www.p21.org (2).

The telephone.

“Students need to feel like they know their instructor and that you’re interested in how they’re doing,” says Mandernach, noting that these random calls make such a favorable impression on students that they always comment on it in their course evaluations.

online learning environment where students are not only isolated from their instructor and fellow students, but must be disciplined enough to ward off distractions and other commitments that compete for their time.

These are true benefits of a student-centered learning environment. Learners who really want to learn flourish in this environment, while those that are in classes for other reasons (parents sent them to college, or they had nothing else to do so came to school) will not fare as well.

Open-ended, student-centered environments properly designed to support learners allow them the best opportunity to succeed. It also gives them the prospect of finding something they want to learn more about--serendipity. As learning progresses, students are allowed to assess their progress and learning needs, to adjust the learning as necessary.

To be effective, learning must be meaningful to the student. Otherwise, the instructor's time in creating the environment and assignments, and the student's time in taking the course, are both wasted.

Now, recognizing that what these instructors need is markedly different training from their counterparts in high schools and at four-year universities, some graduate programs are offering credentials specifically for those students who plan to or already teach at community colleges as a supplement to their subject matter graduate training.

Those seeking the certificate do not have to be enrolled in a Temple graduate program, and there is a specific track for current community college instructors who, though they are already experts in their discipline, want a professional development opportunity to learn new teaching techniques.

The certificate for current community college instructors consists of a three-credit seminar on “teaching in higher education” — with broad-based lessons on various teaching philosophies and course designs — and three one-credit modules on specific topics. Current topics are “assessment,” “diversity and inclusive teaching” and “teaching with technology.

Virtual adjunct faculty have largely carried higher education into the cyber classroom. Adjunct faculty have always been broadly used in higher education, especially in the community college setting. Nationally, adjuncts teach 30-50% of all credit courses. At community colleges, adjuncts compose about 60% of all faculty (Gappa and Leslie, 1993).

About 80% of all online course offerings are taught by virtual adjuncts. About 70% of the active 250 adjuncts teaching in the program reside in the state of Florida , and the other half in assorted states.

As colleges and universities work steadily to get full-time faculty onboard with distance learning, virtual adjuncts have eagerly stepped up to fill the void, thereby enabling institutions to respond promptly to market demand.

Despite increasing rates of enrollment in online colleges, the most recent studies show that faculty in all fields has mixed feelings about the quality of online courses and online teaching. This has been a consistent trend for several years

48% of faculty who have taught online thought that online courses were inferior to on-the-ground courses, and only 37.2% thought that online and face-to-face courses were equivalent in quality and outcomes.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 50% of college faculty consistently report that institutional support for teaching and developing online courses is below average

Online enrollments continue to increase substantially (Allen & Seaman, 2010, p. 2), as nearly one third (30%) of higher education students take at least one online course (Allen & Seaman, 2010, p. 2).

These data revealed that online learning has been adopted in the mainstream of higher education with trends indicating continued growth. Unfortunately, however, institutions often require instructors to design/develop online courses and/or transition into teaching in the online learning environment sans an understanding of the fundamental pedagogical/andragogical differences among face-to-face (f2f), blended/hybrid, and online learning environments.

Online teachers must often have all class material prepared and ready for students before the course ever begins.

In online classes, teachers are not required to be in class at any particular time, but must make themselves available to student questions on a consistent basis throughout each day to insure that students have a consistent resource for learning

Instructors who conduct classes online have to be more aware of certain teaching techniques and learning outcomes. For example, online teaching classes available through public high school systems as well as postsecondary institutions emphasize the need to facilitate student communication. Because learners aren't communicating in a classroom setting, they need to be able to conduct ongoing dialogue with peers and professors. Teachers may wish to assign group projects or set participation quotas to provide distance-education students with the same sense of community and learning support that classroom-based students experience.

Nevertheless, these students still pay attention to tasks, activities, and media messages that are low in sensation-value, if the topic is particularly salient to them. For example, individuals may attend to a seemingly boring documentary on cancer research, if they have close relatives or friends who is suffering from the disease; they may attend to a lecture on the stock market if they have just received the gift of a larger sum of money.

Students with a high sensation needs benefit from instructional practices that meet those needs. It certainly is not possible to meet the needs of these students at all times, but some lessons can be altered to better hold their attention.

It is very important to bond with group members---to break the ice, post photos, details, etc.---so that team members can know each other personally

It is a good idea to discuss and identify the tasks at the beginning of the group work. The key is to divide the work and let individual team member’s work on their tasks

Finally, bring together all the work and make sure it blends in. The work should flow and sound as if it was d

collaboration is about open, learning, relationships, sharing and innovation.

Learning from and through peers is a dimension of learning both in the class and online that is often negated. In previous posts, I’ve also discussed the need for social presence as one of three dimensions of the community of inquiry model, which is foundational to successful group work. Students’ ability to express themselves confidently online is necessary for effective team learning.

For e-learning and online educators, incorporating group work into courses is a non-negotiable, given the demands and needs for collaboration and [online] communication skills.

. In this environment, teachers become mentors and guides rather than the "all knowing" authority often associated with the traditional face-to-face format. In addition, new issues and challenges have begun to materialize from this new paradigm, prompting investigations related to the quality of online instruction:

engage distance students in their local communities through experiential learning opportunities.

provide community service as part of their academic coursework, learn about and reflect upon the community context in which the service is provided, and develop an understanding of the connection between service and their academic work.3

2. Online learning enables student-centered teaching approaches

Course material is accessible 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Students have the ability to read and re read lectures, discussions, explanations and comments. Often spoken material in the classroom passes students by due to a number of distractions, missed classes, tiredness or boredom.

Over 75% of colleges and universities in the U.S. offer online degree programs, with online degrees as respected as "on the ground" degrees. (Lewis)

Since oral learners often learn best in dialogue with others, create opportunities for dialogue to occur. This could be in the form of group projects outside of class or small group discussions in the classroom.

Oral learners also learn best when learning is connected to real events, people, and struggles of life instead of learning principles that are removed from actual people and struggles.

The primary goal is information acquisition

Examples are traditional classroom lectures, reading assignments, and watching educational television.

high degree of instructional support, feedback and reinforcement — with limited learner control

seven distinct intelligences.

"we are all able to know the world through language, logical-mathematical analysis, spatial representation, musical thinking, the use of the body to solve problems or to make things, an understanding of other individuals, and an understanding of ourselves. Where individuals differ is in the strength of these intelligences - the so-called profile of intelligences -and in the ways in which such intelligences are invoked and combined to carry out different tasks, solve diverse problems, and progress in various domains."

Gardner says that these differences "challenge an educational system that assumes that everyone can learn the same materials in the same way and that a uniform, universal measure suffices to test student learning. Indeed, as currently constituted, our educational system is heavily biased toward linguistic modes of instruction and assessment and, to a somewhat lesser degree, toward logical-quantitative modes as well."