Emory College Strategies for Online Teaching

by John Sullivan Why Change? Author provides a practical step-by-step manual for using MS Publisher to design an attractive syllabus.

Ed, I love this option, however in the SON, we are constrained to use the "approved syllabi" by the Curriculum Committee. The belief and supported information tends to validate that consistency among the courses is easier for the students who are enrolled in multiple courses to "find" the information. The creative in me longs for this Publisher option, but the pragmatist must follow the rules!

Hi Ed! Just to follow up on Phyllis' comment - unfortunately, the standardized syllabus is really useful at accreditation time. Accrediting bodies like to be able to see that particular outcomes are being addressed (for example) and having uniform syllabi makes it simpler for departments and schools to demonstrate that. I'm sure that those in our cohort who are administrators can speak more authoritatively about this (and I hope I'm not stating the obvious :)

June , 2014 StoryDesk is a good presentation app for iPad. Its beautiful interface makes it fast and easy to create presentations that help you break down complex concepts into bite-sized, easily understood bits. In many ways, StoryDesk is a next generation alternative to PowerPoint and Prezi.

Faculty learning communities provide their members with both information and support as they move toward utilizing digital technology tools, learn new skills, and share meaningful instructional practices... This is off-topic for M3 , but it occur to me that we have established a learning community among ourselves with the above goals.

A Blog about Open and Online Education (by Debbie Morrison) I really liked her entry, Start Here, because it discussed the PROS and CONS of some of the various instructional models presented in other resources. She made the connection between design and higher education - much of what I've been seeing relates to training in a corporate or business setting. I can more easily see how to use these models as tools to build my course now.

The Sloan-C 2013 International Conference on Online Learning Proceedings provides interesting research and ideas for online learning, teaching and evaluation.

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.

Assessment of undergraduate research (UR) programs using participant surveys has produced a wealth of information about design, implementation, and perceived benefits of UR programs. However, measurement of student participation university wide, and the potential contribution of research experience to student success, also require the study of extrinsic measures....

This particular article relates more to undergraduate research experiences and their relationship to student success than to online teaching and learning. When viewing and reading the "student as producer" content, I immediately thought of undergraduate research experiences (URE). URE in STEM fields are thought to be valuable in promoting gains in student knowledge and skills, enhancing retention of students in STEM fields (particularly underrepresented minorities and women), among other goals. A commonly reported outcome of studies on URE is that "students learn to be scientists," (to paraphrase a bit). Fechheimer et al. looked at participation in UR in all fields by UGA students for more than a single semester, and found positive, quantifiable outcomes (like increased GPA) in this study. UR is an approach to reach some of the same goals that we have in online teaching and learning. I would argue that it also is a learner-centered approach. And, it certainly allows students to produce products that require novel assessments (for example, a poster or presentation at a conference; co-authorship of a paper). Interestingly, I'm not sure that the evidence to date is clear on the ability of URE to promote and develop higher order skills in students.

This was linked to from the Authentic Assessment website and looks like a treasure trove of useful assessment tools and rubrics for InfoLit. Page was last updated in March of this year too, so it's not likely to be full of broken links.

This resource gives some great, easy to read ideas for matching your learning objectives with your assessment techniques. It also has a list of criteria for writing clear assignments, which could be useful as a checklist when creating a new assignment.

Hi Susan - I particularly liked the Alignment tab, which gave some very clear suggestions of assignments that align with stated learning objectives. Your suggestion of a checklist is brilliant! I also noticed that they linked to their Institutional Assessment page from this page - a nice reminder that everything needs to be in alignment at every level.

Susan, Great find, I too find the tabs really helpful and have bookmarked this reference to my Bookmarks page so that I can refer to it over and over. Thanks so much!

Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Talks about the changes occurring with E-Reading.

Includes a map of modules and 9 key changes made when using a heutagogical approach to prepare new teachers for the self-determined lifelong learning essential for the real 21st century world.

Depth of Knowledge Levels

Leah, This is a great visual aid for those who need a quick reminder with constructing measurable objectives. Thanks for the connection.

This is a provocative article (even more enjoyable reading the blogs concerning it) regarding faculty online "public presence". I know I am struggling with privacy versus connection in trying to establish an online presence.

Rodney Murray discusses trends in eLearning and technology. Parallels some of what we have been discussing in class.

Interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that deals with the lack of proper research skills of college graduates as they engage the internet.

I have not yet purchased this ebook, but I'm considering it. The author is well-known in the edtech and online/blended learning community.

As we begin our peer assessment, this article from Troy who has used the Quality Matters rubric in their assessment of online courses gives great tips and tidbits for further improvement