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researcher at the National Education Policy Center, said research has so far failed to prove that online instruction is superior to face-to-face education. Jeff Hunt, who runs Indian Prairie's online program, said such critiques are a caution to those who want to expand Internet-based learning. "We have to do this well because we can't do it over," he said. "(Poor results) will verify to critics that there's no quality there." Tribune reporter Lawerence Synett contributed. jkeilman@tribune.com Get the Chicago Tribune delivered to your home for only $1 a week > Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune Share61(2) RECOMMENDED FOR YOU 2 charged with prostitution at Evanston spa (Chicago Tribune) Ind. couple pleads guilty to duct-taping children (Chicago Tribune) Hospitals drowning in noise (Chicago Tribune) Chicago's at top as gas prices jump again (Chicago Tribune) Chicago discussed as terrorist target, document says (Chicago Tribune) FROM AROUND THE WEB What?! Prince in foreclosure?! (BankRate.com) Every Parent's Nightmare: Your Grad Is Moving Home (CNBC) Little-known credit card perks (BankRate.com) Riskiest Places to Use Your Credit Card (CNBC) Mary Robbins Dies Just 12 Days After Husband (The New York Times) [what's this]   Comments (2)Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ ckotarch at 10:55 PM April 25, 2011 Online learning offers the people who can learn faster than their peers the opportunity to work ahead and learn more and do more in the same amount of time.   The fact that students are graduating early is testament to the fact that there are some superior advantages to it when used that way.  Credit recovery too gives kids the opportunity to catch up to meet their goals of graduation where without it, they would not.  What more evidence does one need?   The benefits are self evident. Arrive2.net at 9:57 PM April 25, 2011 "Gene Glass, senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center, said research has so far failed to prove that online instr

Class Differences: Online Education in the United States, 2010 is the eighth annual report on thestate of online learning among higher education institutions in the United States. The study isaimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of onlineeducation. Based on responses from over 2,500 colleges and universities, the report addresses thefollowing key issues:* Is Online Learning Strategic?* How Many Students are Learning Online?* Are Learning Outcomes in Online Comparable to Face-to-Face?* What is the Impact of the Economy on Online Education?* Proposed Federal Regulations on Financial Aid.* What is the Future for Online Enrollment Growth?

Think-Pair-Share is a strategy designed to provide students with "food for thought" on a given topics enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with another student. It is a learning strategy developed by Lyman and associates to encourage student classroom participation. What is Think, Pair, Share? Think-Pair-Share is a strategy designed to provide students with "food for thought" on a given topics enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with another student. It is a learning strategy developed by Lyman and associates to encourage student classroom participation. Rather than using a basic recitation method in which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response, Think-Pair-Share encourages a high degree of pupil response and can help keep students on task. What is its purpose? * Providing "think time" increases quality of student responses. * Students become actively involved in thinking about the concepts presented in the lesson. * Research tells us that we need time to mentally "chew over" new ideas in order to store them in memory. When teachers present too much information all at once, much of that information is lost. If we give students time to "think-pair-share" throughout the lesson, more of the critical information is retained. * When students talk over new ideas, they are forced to make sense of those new ideas in terms of their prior knowledge. Their misunderstandings about the topic are often revealed (and resolved) during this discussion stage. * Students are more willing to participate since they don't feel the peer pressure involved in responding in front of the whole class. * Think-Pair-Share is easy to use on the spur of the moment. * Easy to use in large classes. How can I do it? * With students seated in teams of 4, have them number them from 1 to 4. * Announce a discussion topic or problem to solve. (Example: Which room in our school is larg

The 5th annual Jossey-Bass Online Teaching & Learning (OTL) Conference ONLINE will equip educators and administrators just learning the intricacies of online course design, development, instruction, and assessment with a comprehensive understanding of 'the WHAT' and 'the HOW' of online teaching & learning. You'll learn both the concepts and the real-life applications and tools, directly from the experts in the field - everything you need to build a foundation for success.

There are several widely-accepted rubrics (Quality Matters, the ION one in Illinois, etc.), but in my opinion, they focus on course design, not on teaching the course. When I was at Black Hawk College, we created a Best Practices for Exemplary Online Teaching set of standards based on the Chickering and Gamson's "7 Principles of Good Practice for Undergraduate Education" meta-analysis. Individual best practices for online teaching were pulled from the literature and listed as possibilities under each of the 7 principles, and an 8th was added with some of the course design elements not already mentioned in the first 7. In other words, we created a local document that could assist faculty in doing self-assessment, peer evaluations of each other's courses, and potentially institutional review of online courses. However, our instrument was not used for institutional assessment because it was not approved as part of the faculty [union] contract. It is important for a document like this to be shared with the faculty ahead of time so that they know how their courses are going to be evaluated. I also think it is helpful to have several people evaluate various aspects of online courses, such as someone who is an expert in online education who can evaluate the learning experiences and course design elements of the course, someone from the faculty member's department who can evaluate the quality and accuracy of the course content, as well as the administrator whose job it is to evaluate teaching. If the institution uses a type of rubric or assessment document when evaluating face-to-face teaching, it needs to be vetted by online experts to determine if it emphasizes appropriate, comparable variables in the online environment. For example, if activities to promote student engagement is on that form...what does that look like online? Not all administrators or faculty who have not taught online would know what to look for as indicators of student engagement.

Our education is shifting from century-old, industrial-age factory model to personalized learning through technologies. Blended learning has been widely recognized as a promising approach to facilitate a learning-on-demand model. This infographic displays the ideas around it along with 6 programs representing each of the blended learning models

Models for meeting vs online are very useful

Colleagues, Last semester 30 faculty and staff participated in a reading group focused on Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring's "The Innovative University." The reading group came together face-to-face on a number of occasions and continued the rich discussion online. It was a great experience and a fascinating book. This semester the faculty and staff participating in the American Democracy Project recommended that we invite the campus community to come together to read "A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future." The work was completed by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, under the leadership of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. It's a brief volume, rich in examples, on how colleges and universities must reclaim responsibility for civic learning. "A Crucible Moment" is available in PDF here: http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/college-learning-democracys-future/crucible-moment.pdf The reading group will meet once in March and once in April, with opportunities for online discussion. More information will follow later in the month. In the meantime, if you're interested in joining us for this discussion, please email Kim Schmidl-Gagne (kgagne@keene.edu). If you would like to commit to the reading group, but would prefer to read in hard copy, Kim will also order a copy for you. I look forward to this discussion, and I hope you will consider joining us for our spring reading group. Mel

The classroom of the future features face-to-face, online, and hybrid learning. And the future is here.

The Online Faculty Competency Certification program is intended for future and existing online teachers. The program is designed to help faculty members become proficient in the use of Blackboard and to become effective facilitators in the online environment.

Designing a Blended course: Here is a three-step process: Establish clear learning goals for the topic. Design activities to help students meet the learning goals. Sort the activities into two categories: online and face-to-face. Very short article that might be useful in CELT's blended classes.

"Simply putting traditional courses online could have negative consequences, especially for lower-performing and language minority students."

On September 15 and 16, 2010, the ELI teaching and learning community gathered for an online focus session on blended learning. This white paper is a synthesis of the key ideas, themes, and concepts that emerged from those sessions. This white paper also includes links to supporting focus session materials, recordings, and resources. It represents a harvesting of the key elements that we, as a teaching and learning community, need to keep in mind as we work to refine the blended instructional delivery model in higher education.

"Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) just released its annual survey of online learning in US higher education (press release here). This year they have moved from use of survey methodology for the online enrollment section to use of IPEDS distance education data. Russ Poulin from WCET and I provided commentary on the two data sources as an appendix to the study."

Blackboard, UNCP's course management system, is available to instructors who are interested in online teaching and learning, either to enhance a campus-based course or to create a course entirely online. Blackboard offers a rich variety of tools for posting materials online and facilitating interaction with and among students. We believe you will be pleased with Blackboard 9.1. On-demand Learning Center - Interactive Videos  

Project-Based Learning grabs hold of this idea and fosters deep learning and autonomy by using technology to help students engage in issues and questions relevant to their lives. This resource will direct you to a variety of resources on this approach, the research behind it, and how you can use it in your class to transform your students into engaged and interested independent thinkers.

"The ninth annual survey, a collaborative effort between the Babson Survey Research Group and the College Board, is the leading barometer of online learning in the United States.  Based on responses from over 2,500 academic leaders, the complete survey report, "Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011" can be downloaded here."

Based upon proven research and informed by practical experience, this Blended Learning Toolkit will offer guidance, examples, professional development, and other resources to help you prepare your own blended learning courses and programs.

Here is a collection of 12 free online quiz making applications I collect after days' collection. These apps will help you make quizzes for online use for free.

"The important point here is that investment in new or adapted physical classroom space should be driven by decisions to change pedagogy/teaching methods. This will mean bringing together academics, IT support staff, instructional designers and staff from facilities, as well as architects and furniture suppliers. Second, I strongly believe in the statement that we shape our environments, and our environments shape us. Providing instructors with a flexible, well-designed learning environment is likely to encourage major changes in their teaching; stuffing them into rectangular boxes with rows of desks will do the opposite."

When designing a blended learning course, the instructor should remember to use the online portion as an opportunity to create more exciting face-to-face interactions.