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Does class size matter? http://www.magnapubs.com/newsletter/distance-education-report/270/Does-Class-Size-Matter-13523-1.html This article originally appeared in Distance Education Report. I've been the director of online education at my institution since 2007. One question I've been asked many times over the years is "What is the optimal number of students to have in an online class?" My usual response is to pretend I didn't hear the question and walk away as quickly as possible. Well, that's not totally true. But as you can imagine, this is not an easy question to answer, as there are many variables that come into play--the topic of the class, the overall course design, the academic rank of students in the class, the experience of the instructor teaching the class, etc. I've had many interesting discussions with students, staff and administrators over the years about enrollments in online courses. When I first started teaching online, my courses would fill almost immediately, sometimes within minutes. Inevitably, students would contact me and request an override for the course - not just one or two students, but dozens upon dozens of students. They were usually surprised when I said no. These frustrated students would often reply with a comment such as, "But it's an online class, so you can take unlimited numbers of students and it won't be any additional work for you." Surprisingly, I've heard this kind of comment from some faculty, staff and administrators as well. I usually view these interactions as opportunities to offer a bit of education about online learning. So I might say, for example, that if I had seven graded assignments in my online course, and 25 students, I would end up grading 175 assignments--with the emphasis on "I." However, if I doubled the number of students in my class and graded seven assignments for 50 students, that would be 350 assignments to grade. There were also 22 quizzes, two exams and multiple

Providing students with multiple ways to access content improves learning (Hattie, 2011). Providing students with multiple ways to demonstrate knowledge and skills increases engagement and learning, and provides teachers with more accurate understanding of students' knowledge and skills (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Instruction should be informed as much as possible by detailed knowledge about students' specific strengths, needs, and areas for growth (Tomlinson, 2014).

Student Reflections @wattspoi on "Heutagogy & its Implications for Evaluative Feedback" http://t.co/xiuWsCsD #lrnchat #edchat

RT @dmlresearchhub: Finally! Research-based proof that students use cell phones for LEARNING http://t.co/qrnJFLFHLn

No Significant Difference Phenomenon This website has been designed to serve as a companion piece to Thomas L. Russell's book, "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" (2001, IDECC, fifth edition). Mr. Russell's book is a fully indexed, comprehensive research bibliography of 355 research reports, summaries and papers that document no significant differences (NSD) in student outcomes between alternate modes of education delivery, with a foreword by Dr. Richard E. Clark. Previous editions of the book were provided electronically; the fifth edition is the first to be made available in print from IDECC (The International Distance Education Certification Center).

"Building Good Search Skills: What Students Need to Know"

Anchored discussion is a form of collaborative literature processing. It "starts from the notion of collaborative discussion that is contextualized or anchored within a specific content" (van der Pol, Admiraal & Simons, 2006). In this course, the discussions we participate in are based on prompts that address ideas included in each of the required resources for each module. However, an anchored discussion is a discussion that is focused on one piece of literature. As students read and digest the material, discussions about the meaning of that material occur within a window where the material is present. It is like having an asynchronous chat window open next to a research article. (van der Pol et al., 2006) As I started learning about anchored discussions, I saw many connections to shared annotation such as what we use Diigo for. Van der Pol et al. (2006) state that "shared annotation might leave more room for individual processes, but is shown to have some limitations in supporting interactivity". Anchored discussions take shared annotation a step further in that it requires conversation (as opposed to individual notes) regarding a resource. The collaborative piece of anchored discussions really got my attention in that it provides greater opportunity for the development of teaching presence by both students and the instructor. The opportunity to facilitate a discussion within the context of a required reading is an exciting idea for me. The use of anchored discussion allows for all three facets of teaching presence: instructional design and organization, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction (Shea, Pickett, & Pelz, 2003). I am wondering if there is a way to use Diigo in creating anchored discussions.

"Students' Perceptions of Online Course Quality: How Do They Measure Up to t he Research?"

I think most students are familiar with using Google to search for things, so the interface is not a big stretch, as opposed to using other science specific databases available through the library. It does come down to what the objectives for the students are though, if you want them to find a few primary lit articles to include in a research project then Google Scholar would probably be just fine, but if you're objective is to get them ready for more grad level research then you probably want them to have to learn how to use some other databases ...

"Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning"

Faculty participating in quality course reviews have the added benefits of learning from others' course design and teaching practices. Translating their findings from a review of their own courses and others, with expert advisement from an instructional designer, they can put into practice design and facilitation modifications to reduce online students' experiences of transactional distance.