Group items tagged

Comprehensive. Several individual topics covering course management to syllabus design. I couldn't find a date of publication, however. The website facultyfocus.com has other good blog posts.

Peggy, this was a great find. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these tidbits and tips. Thanks so much. The get acquainted idea and cultural diversity ideas were wonderful.

This is a great resource... I really liked the different ideas about how to organize the course.

Online teaching redefines the faculty member's schedule. The feeling of being a 24/7 professor can lead to frustration. Managing one's time as an online teacher can be a challenge. As the popularity of online education continues to grow, teaching faculty need to develop effective time management behaviors to be efficient and not just busy.

Thank you for sharing this! I find the tips all very useful. As one example, I am going to give the students a syllabus quiz, for sure. When I took the Zaption quiz Leah prepared during M1, I was a bit surprised by how much information my brain did not retain reading through the course guidelines. The quiz was obviously helpful.

Because the early planning stages of online instruction are crucial, Diane Chapman and Todd Nicolet propose a 'project approach' to course Development: a formal, team-based operation that makes use of consistent standards, trackable processes, standardized tools, and structured communication to facilitate technology initiatives of all sizes. This appears to facilitate scaling and the design and development of online instruction while maintaining the quality and integrity of the courses. Course design and development become more manageable when they are translated into repeatable processes and easy-to-apply tools.

This is very similar to Strategy 6: Apply Project Planning and Management Methods to Course Development in last weeks reading, "Effective Workload Management Strategies for the Online Environment".

This is a brief article aimed at University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate students offering time management and email writing tips. I chose this article both because I find the general time management tips helpful for everyone and I feel that many of my students would benefit from similar suggestions/guidelines when communicating professionally online. I especially enjoyed the line reminding students, "that many faculty view an e-mail message as a letter that was delivered quickly rather than a quick conversation."

This article gives 6 practical tips to manage your time when teaching online

Thanks for sharing this, Simona. Skimming the article you highlighted and a few of the others in the journal, I noticed that some of the themes and suggestions were similar to the ones in the texts assigned by Leah (manage the students and their interactions actively and constantly/consistently, be empathic and explicit); I also appreciate the user-friendliness of these articles, as they include plenty of bullet-points for the busy reader ... Finally, I like that this journal is indeed international, including views on online teaching from around the world. Would be great if we could learn more about how online education functions elsewhere.

This is a report from 2002 that outlines the importance of certain tasks to be able to effectively management workload in the online environment.  May have some applications to residential teaching, as well.

I found this article to be very helpful in providing a sense that it will be possible to control time use when teaching on line. It gives great tips on how to overcome the feeling that online teaching will be a 24/7 class rather than one that meets TTh 10-11:15 in White Hall 208! I like this one a lot.

by Mike Acedo Over the years, many of us have personally experienced the growth of technology in today's classrooms. Instead of taking notes, students are now occupied by surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook, and messaging their friends on their smart phones, tablets, and laptops.

Brief article by online instructor sharing tips on managing online courses. Two tips I think would be especially useful include: 1) using a "What's New" section for adding content so students can find it easily and 2) for large classes to keep personalized grading assignments and high tech features to a minimum.

Kristy, thanks for this good resource, I think that author has several good points. There are ways to think about the "What's New" area. There is a module page within the site that can be used, I've added one in our class, just so you can see. Learners can also use the Global Navigation at the top right of the Bb site to see all (or to filter specific courses) of all new and up-to-date happenings. There are definitely strategies of workload management including team and peer-review assignments. You can also have student-led discussions. Large online classes are there own beast - and I think SON is facing it. I believe that we can come up with some solid solutions that still meet the instructional goals without burning out the faculty.

Not surprising (to me), there are very few studies of online teaching in Linguistics. The authors of this article state that they found only one prior to this 2014 publication. Similar to other research on online teaching in general, they found that time management, communication, and detailed instructions are crucial for a successful course. They also discuss how attitudes toward technology play a significant role in course success.

Time management is a HUGE issue for me. This is a good summer read and self analysis of how I really do use my time. Keeping a calendar for one week is so insightful.

Over the last decade, larger student numbers, reduced resources and increasing use of new technologies have led to the increased use of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) as a method of assessment in higher education courses. This paper identifies some limitations associated with MCQs from a pedagogical standpoint....

Trying to catch up and get ahead as I leave town this week :) I teach beginning undergraduates in typically large (150+ students) classes, often with little or no (or ineffective) TA assistance. Multiple choice questions are an absolute necessity as a management tool. I find that many of my colleagues in traditional liberal arts colleges think that multiple choice questions are unacceptable as a means of student assessment. However, I've noticed that many of the online adaptive learning tools and licensing exams required by many professional programs (nursing among them...) are also based primarily on multiple choice questions. I looked for an article to rebut the reading from the flaguide website (http://www.flaguide.org/) which stated, "...the multiple choice test..... [is] usually most effective at measuring fact-based knowledge and the ability to perform algorithmic problem-solving...However, if our goals include different student outcomes than these....then this assessment technique will not provide useful feedback about attainment of these goals." The above article gives several ideas for creating and using multiple choice questions to assess higher order thinking, my favorite being the idea of assigning scores based not only on student answers to the questions but also their confidence in their answer. I also liked the idea of the self-tests that students can take repeatedly to check their mastery of concepts, which seems to play into the instructional design loops that we were studying in M3.

More help on creating your syllabus. I found the sections on "Managing Your Student's Expectations" and creating the geographical "Map" for your course (showing students where everything is on the Bb site for example) were very helpful and provided some interesting information. It's not just about the nuts and bolts of putting a syllabus together but how doing it well can save you time and headaches later!

Written in 2006, the author shares his tips and tricks for reducing instructor workload after teaching both online and hybrid courses. Two useful tips the author shared are: 1) to create a reference list and share links to references as applicable in each learning module, and 2) to setup appropriate assessments when developing course assignments (such as mixing instructor, peer, and self-assessments) to help instructor manage workload assessment per student.

Simple concept-Great learning! This is an excellent video demonstrating 8 key tips to effectively manage, engage and get the most out of your online classes. The best part is that it is clear, straight forward and very easy to understand.

Very nice to the point tips that can easily be implemented. Also doesn't feel so overwhelming at this point in the learning curve. Thanks for sharing

I've been working with hundreds of virtual team members in over 9 different countries in the past 8 years. There have been times when I wanted to tear my hair out! Sometimes: - I had no idea what my team was doing. - Team members would "flake out".