Group items tagged

"A model that encourages students to participate in online forum discussions, provides a template for new online faculty to use in creating effective discussion questions, and promotes a higher level processing of the material."

Research on online classes strongly identifies participation as a positive variable. Research on online teaching also reveals the time intensive practices involved with providing individualized attention and feedback. An online instructor must negotiate the balance between being responsive and managing time effectively. To that end, writing sound discussion questions, based on a model, is one way to invite and increase participation and maximize the time element. The CREST+ model, a model for writing effective online discussion questions, covers the cognitive nature of the question, the reading basis, any experiential possibility, style and type of question, and finally ways to structure a good question.  This model encourages students to participate in online forum discussions, provides a template for new online faculty to use in creating effective discussion questions, and promotes a higher level processing of the material.

"As a core project, a university eLearning Pedagogy Faculty Learning Community (FLC) chose to apply recommendations for the "art" of good teaching to the online realm. There is relatively little discussion of this issue in the literature. In this paper, we use Bain's (2004) book What the Best College Teachers Do to discuss some of the major ways that the practices of effective teaching in general can be applied to online teaching in particular. Specifically, we explore methods of fostering student engagement, stimulating intellectual development, and building rapport with students when teaching online. This analysis provides a much-needed "art of teaching" set of recommendations that complements the "science of teaching" best practices approach to online pedagogy. "

Good article. Takes the characteristics of best college teachers and applies it to teaching in an online environment. Three major Characteristics: Fostering Student Engagement Stimulating Intellectual Development Building Rapport with Students

"Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) identify and explain the critical elements of a Community of Inquiry that supports instruction and learning. The elements include: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence."

Short article giving five tips on building online presence: Have your online students introduce themselves. Introduce yourself to your students. Create a "commons area" for off-topic discussions. Use synchronous tools for office hours. Don't be the center of every discussion.

Very good.

"Realize the instructional and time-saving benefits of using discussion boards in both campus-based and online classes."

Discussion board rubric.

Pedagogy and the Class Blog

a little old.

"Discussions of technology strategy and planning for new media at colleges and universities are informed by many factors of higher education culture and the way its core constituents--faculty and students--work and learn. One rapidly evolving area is online assessment, whether for fully online programs or for blended learning environments. Here, learning designer Judith Boettcher examines online assessment strategies beyond the traditional end-of-term paper."

"Instructional blogging operates as a knowledge-centered instructional tool. In this model the instructor involves students in research activities, engages them in discussions with practitioners, and leads them through developmental concepts of the discipline's knowledge domain."

Practical tips from a Sloan-C award for Excellence in Online Teaching winner

Good article. Focuses mainly on using discussion boards in a class and using them to engage the students. Talks a little about rubrics. A little dated, form 2004.