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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.

"Faculty Competencies for Online Teaching Teaching in an online environment can be considerably different in nature from teaching face-to-face. The competencies listed on this site are intended to provide faculty and administrators with a better understanding of the instructional requirements of online teaching. Pedagogical Competencies Technical Competencies Administrative Competencies"

Welcome to TRAILS, the ASA Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology.  With over 2,700 peer-reviewed resources in more than 70 subject areas, TRAILS is the place to find fresh ideas for your classroom.  It's also the perfect place to publish your own teaching and learning innovations.

Welcome to TRAILS, the ASA Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology.  With over 2,700 peer-reviewed resources in more than 70 subject areas, TRAILS is the place to find fresh ideas for your classroom.  It's also the perfect place to publish your own teaching and learning

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.

Web 2.0 has been, during the last years, one of the most fashionable words for a whole range of evolutions regarding the Internet.Although it was identified by the current analysts as the key technology for the next decade, the actors from the educational fielddo not really know what Web 2.0 means. Since the author started to explore and use Web 2.0 technologies in her owndevelopment/improvement, she has been intrigued by their potential and, especially, by the possibility of integrating them ineducation and in particular in the teaching activity.The purpose of this paper is both to promote scholarly inquiry about the need of a new type a pedagogy (Web 2.0 based) and thedevelopment / adoption of best practice in teaching and learning with web 2.0 in higher education (HE).The article main objectives are: * to introduce theoretical aspects of using Web 2.0 technologies in higher education* to present models of integrating Web 2.0 technologies in teaching, learning and assessment* to identify the potential benefits of these technologies as well as to highlight some of the problematic issues /barriers encountered, surrounding the pedagogical use of Web 2.0 in higher education* to propose an agenda for future research, and to develop pedagogy 2.0 scenarios for HE sector. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

You wish to play all or part of a movie or piece of music, show a picture or image, or post articles for downloading from your online course Web site. How can you do this?

When we gather to discuss our experiences in online and hybrid classes, we often end up talking more about technology than about the subjects we're studying/teaching. For me, it's like sitting down to write an essay with pen and paper and becoming distracted by ruminations about the nature of No. 2 pencils and loose-leaf paper. Likewise, discussions of digital pedagogy can quickly become preoccupied with best practices for using technology and not best practices for teaching. 

The mission of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy is to promote open scholarly discourse around critical and creative uses of digital technology in teaching, learning, and research. Educational institutions have often embraced instrumentalist conceptions and market-driven implementations of technology that overdetermine its uses in academic environments. Such approaches underestimate the need for critical engagement with the integration of technological tools into pedagogical practice. The JITP will endeavor to counter these trends by recentering questions of pedagogy in our discussions of technology in higher education. The journal will also work to change what counts as scholarship - and how it is presented, disseminated, and reviewed - by allowing contributors to develop their ideas, publish their work, and engage their readers using multiple formats. We are committed first and foremost to teaching and learning, and intend that the journal itself - both in process and in product - provide opportunities to reveal, reflect on, and revise academic publication and classroom practice.

One of the best, most concise explanations of why the antipathy to technology in education.~JB The conflict between computers and schools is really a conflict between educational paradigms. The traditional and dominant paradigm is rooted in the book and the pedagogy is one of transmission. Teachers, who have presumably read more books than their students and listened to more scholarly lectures, transmit what they've learned to their students in a similar fashion. The students who do best within this system are those who can capture the transmission - as unfiltered as possible - and mirror back to the teacher what they have delineated. Within this model, digital technology can provide improvements, but they are cosmetic. Teachers can enhance their lectures with presentation software, videos and other forms of multimedia, but the methods stay the same. For teachers who don't understand how these new tools can enhance what they are teaching, then technology can be a distraction. Within this system of learning, (Inquiry based and student centered) there is real value in having the widest range of technological tools for not only consuming information in all its multimodal forms, but for creatively demonstrating what one has learned.

kCELTER's - we can use this to frame our conversation about WHY use Twitter. Nice and simple post to get started. How do you actually do it? I'm going to leave behind the pedagogy (mostly) in this post, and instead offer some practical advice for teaching with Twitter. I'll cover six aspects of Twitter integration where it pays to plan ahead of time (i.e. sometime last week): organization, access, frequency, substance, archiving, and assessment. I'll deal with of each of these areas in turn, but before I do, and if you're new to Twitter, I want to urge you to read Ryan Cordell's comprehensive ProfHacker primer on Twitter. Ryan addresses many common questions about Twitter, and his guide is perfect for sharing with colleagues-and students-before you move into the nuts-and-bolts aspects of teaching with Twitter.

Teacher Robert Drewnowski had only $300 in grant money to help him develop a more effective way of teaching math to fourth graders. He used it to buy a Wii.

You will find a significant amount of research that strongly supports the move to a learner centered teaching practice on this site. It also contains  all of my most recent presentations and more than 30 instructional resources designed to assist faculty and students in making the changes they will need to make if learner centered teaching is to be a successful learning practice for both groups.

Recently, the authors engaged in a collaborative inquiry with a sixth grade science class to explore mind mapping, a graphic organizer that can be used to generate ideas, take notes, develop concepts and ideas, and improve memory (Buzan 1979). With a very limited body of research available on how to best use mind maps in the classroom, the authors decided to explore ways mind mapping could be used for the teaching and learning of middle school science. This article reviews research about graphic organizers, describes the ways the authors incorporated mind mapping into a sixth grade science curriculum, and discusses what they learned by using mind mapping as both a teaching and learning strateg

The following study, "Using Digital Images in Teaching and Learning," was commissioned by Wesleyan University in collaboration with the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). The study focuses on the pedagogical implications of the widespread use of the digital format. 

Good teaching and exposure to students from diverse backgrounds are some of the strongest predictors of whether freshmen return for a second year of college and improve their critical-thinking skills, say two prominent researchers.

"I used to think that I needed to help teachers to use tools, but now I think I need to help teachers meet learning goals." "I used to think that I needed to guide teachers through new technologies, but now I think I need to create safe spaces for them to play and explore." "I used to think that my workshops should be named after new technologies, but now I think they should be named after learning goals." "I used to think that I needed to keep my teachers up to date on new technologies, but I now I think I need to give them a framework to think about how to use technology in their teaching that can adapt to new technologies."

"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."

Open educational resources (OER) are any resources available at little or no cost that can be used for teaching, learning, or research. The term can include textbooks, course readings, and other learning content; simulations, games, and other applications; syllabi, quizzes, and assessment tools; and virtually any other educational material. Open resources are issued under a license that spells out how they can be used: Some may only be used in their original form; in other cases, resources can be modified, remixed, and redistributed. OER expand the access to educational resources to more learners, more of the time, and they have the potential to spur pedagogical innovation, introducing new alternatives for effective teaching.

both a blog and a book "Thanks to Chad Orzel and his endearing mutt Emmy, I finally understand Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle! Not to mention a few crucial ideas that Emmy grasped perhaps more quickly than I. How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is a blessing for all those who never mastered - or maybe even had the faintest glimmer about - modern physics. I can't be the only one"

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.