Oregon State University Ecampus

A resource for translating seat time and credit hour requirements to online activities from Penn State

A set of good discussion facilitation tips, especially for faculty who are new to online teaching.

Program, course, and teaching assessment handbooks -- great references!

An oldie but a goodie -- a WCET paper on designing courses and policies to promote academic integrity

"Two-stage examinations consist of a first stage in which students work individually as they typically do in examinations (stage 1), followed by a second stage in which they work in groups to complete another examination (stage 2), which typically consists of a subset of the questions from the first examination." Q: What are ways to successfully apply this strategy in online courses?

Excellent instructors' toolkits to apply six evidence-based learning strategies: retrieval practice, spaced practice, elaboration, interleaving, metacognition and growth mindset.

An excellent teaching guide about backward design from Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching including a Grant Wiggins "understanding by design" video, description of the 3 stages of backward design, and a backward design template.

A collection of tips for the first month of teaching a course. [We might think about how this approach translates to an online environment beyond the Start Here module.]

Interesting blog post about how VR is being used in nursing education - having students experience the world from the patient perspective. Curious how this approach might be used in courses that we're developing - public health, etc?

Excerpt: "Effective online STEM courses integrated active learning activities, interactive engagement strategies, and robust assessments. In particular, assessment design significantly impacted students' self-perceived learning and learning satisfaction for students of all populations. . . . Online STEM instructors are strongly encouraged to utilize the Universal Design for Learning principles."

Article about a new non profit for Active Learning. http://aalasinternational.org/. They also have a free publication called the Flipped Learning Review. http://flr.flglobal.org/

Excerpt: "faculty autonomy, competence, and relatedness positively predicted autonomous motivation (intrinsic, identified), but not controlled motivation (introjected, external). Autonomous motivation, in turn, predicted greater incorporation of effective teaching strategies, namely instructional clarity, higher-order learning, reflective and integrative learning, and collaborative learning."

Updated link: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2000/1/teaching-critical-thinking-through-online-discussions

Though this post refers to in-class activities, the techniques are readily transferable to online teaching and learning.

Excerpt: "In order for video to serve as a productive part of a learning experience . . . it is important for the instructor to consider three elements for video design and implementation: 1. cognitive load 2. non-cognitive elements that impact engagement 3. features that promote active learning."

Key finding: "Our data suggest that inserting short summaries into existing course videos is a simple and facile way to improve student recall of course contents." Thirty-second lecture summaries at the midpoint and end of lecture videos were correlated with significantly better learner performance on related quizzes. This was true if the lecture summary was delivered by the course instructor but not if it was delivered by a "guest." (Note: The average video length was approx. 10 minutes.)