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"Use of in-class concept questions with clickers can transform an instructor-centered "transmissionist" environment to a more learner-centered constructivist classroom. To compare the effectiveness of three different approaches using clickers, pairs of similar questions were used to monitor student understanding in majors' and nonmajors' genetics courses. After answering the first question individually, students participated in peer discussion only, listened to an instructor explanation only, or engaged in peer discussion followed by instructor explanation, before answering a second question individually. Our results show that the combination of peer discussion followed by instructor explanation improved average student performance substantially when compared with either alone. When gains in learning were analyzed for three ability groups of students (weak, medium, and strong, based on overall clicker performance), all groups benefited most from the combination approach, suggesting that peer discussion and instructor explanation are synergistic in helping students. However, this analysis also revealed that, for the nonmajors, the gains of weak performers using the combination approach were only slightly better than their gains using instructor explanation alone. In contrast, the strong performers in both courses were not helped by the instructor-only approach, emphasizing the importance of peer discussion, even among top-performing students."

"University teaching and learning have transcended the physical boundaries of the classroom. UTK instructors and students can now connect and engage in learning through a variety of Internet-enabled technologies. Interest is growing in pedagogically sound online courses. An online course is delivered via the Internet and is comprised of instructional materials designed and developed to be student-centered and uses a variety of tools and techniques to facilitate communication and convey the subject matter. OIT has developed the Online Instructor Toolkit to assist instructors in preparing and teaching their online courses."

"Students who use OER find them to be accessible, relevant, and engaging. Over 60 percent of students reported that the overall quality of their learning experience in an OER course was higher in comparison to a typical, non- OER course. Though creating OER courses and degrees is time consuming, instructors in several colleges said they had made changes in instruction as a result of working with OER materials. Though few instructors made changes to their pedagogical practices specific to OER, use of these materials allowed them to align materials better with their learning goals. Instructors already using student-centered and hands-on learning strategies said that the OER materials helped what they were already doing. Several instructors also reported that students were more engaged with OER materials compared to textbooks, because they are better tailored to good pedagogy, reading materials are more relevant and interesting, and students can be more involved in the construction of the learning experience."

"We contend that the real issue - and the one that largely goes unaddressed - is that the majority of people who teach online are given virtually no assistance in learning how to teach online. Professional development for these instructors is limited to lunch 'n' learns, basic learning platform support, and other technology-related resources, but generally fails to expose instructors to the best techniques for online instruction."

This year's study, which was released last month, reflects well on instructors. Faculty members, contra their reputation for being change-averse, appear to be adapting well to the expectations of technology-thirsty students, according to the authors. "More students than ever gave positive marks for their instructors' use of technology," they wrote.

" humans are more important than technology, but inspiring faculty should be our goal. Our organizational cultures need to embrace online learning as unique. We need to be supporting faculty by immersing them in engaging, meaningful online classes as part of their preparation to becoming great online instructors. When our organizational practices convey a hierarchy between face-to-face and online classes, that hierarchy will translate into the attitudes of the instructors who teach those classes."

""Relate" videos get the student to feel connected to the instructor. They seek to establish instructor presence. They also prompt students to reflect on their own prior experiences with the topic and reasons for taking the course. "Narrate" videos share stories, anecdotes, or case studies that illustrate a concept or put the learning in context. They tap into the power of narrative to make learning sticky. "Demonstrate" videos illustrate how to do something in a step-by-step way. They pull back the curtain on invisible phenomena or procedures. They visually demonstrate how students will complete assignments and apply learning in the real world. "Debate" videos are perhaps the most important if you want students to actually change the way they think. These videos explicitly surface and address the misconceptions that students have about a domain and showcase competing points of view."

"In recent posts I've written about how course instructors can support online learners, how to consider the needs of the learner and guide them through phases of dependency to independence. Yet what is the responsibility of the learner? What role does the online student play in his or her learning? And how can this be communicated to him or her? In this post I discuss learning models that assign responsibility to the learner, how these principles can be applied to online learning, and finally describe how instructors and institutions can hand over responsibility to the student."

Powerful Instructional Tools for Instructors and Students Delivers an automatic grading solution for math and science courses. Reinforces student learning through practice and instant feedback. Offers instructors a wide selection of textbooks and advanced teaching tools.

Twenty-first-century learners have expectations that are not met within the current model of higher education. With the introduction of online learning, the anytime/anywhere mantra taken up by many postsecondary institutions was a first step to meeting learner needs for flexibility; however, the choice and determination of delivery mode still resides with the institution and course instructors. Recently, the massive open online course (MOOC) movement has been introduced as an undeniable force in higher education, and the authors argue that it is distracting leadership from focusing on alternative options for supporting the needs of learners who demand both personalization and real access to learning opportunities. The key element to the MOOC movement is its openness that enables student access to education. In this article, the authors present the multi-access learning framework that envelops the MOOC phenomenon and merges course access modes enabling student choice and agency. The authors report results from a pilot study on one type of multi-access course, where students were able to choose their mode of access. In this case, remote students accessed the course via webcam and joined their on-campus classmates and instructor who were together face-to-face. Implications for multi-access learning in relation to the MOOC movement are discussed.

"Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) are seen to be, and are in fact designed to be, stand-alone online courses, their introduction to the higher education landscape has expanded the space of possibilities for blended course designs (those that combine online and face-to-face learning experiences). Instead of replacing courses at higher education institutions, could MOOCs enhance those courses? This paper reports one such exploration, in which a Stanford University Machine Learning MOOC was integrated into a graduate course in machine learning at Vanderbilt University during the Fall 2012 semester. The blended course design, which leveraged a MOOC course and platform for lecturing, grading, and discussion, enabled the Vanderbilt instructor to lead an overload course in a topic much desired by students. The study shows that while students regarded some elements of the course positively, they had concerns about the coupling of online and in-class components of this particular blended course design. Analysis of student and instructor reflections on the course suggests dimensions for characterizing blended course designs that incorporate MOOCs, either in whole or in part. Given the reported challenges in this case study of integrating a MOOC in its entirety in an on-campus course, the paper advocates for more complex forms of blended learning in which course materials are drawn from multiple MOOCs, as well as from other online sources."

The authors lay out four "pillars" of practice, conveniently chosen to form FLIP as an acronym: Flexible environment (Students are allowed a variety of modes of learning and means of assessment) Learning culture (Student-centered communities of inquiry rather than instructor-centered lecture) Intentional content (Basically this means placing content in the most appropriate context - direct instruction prior to class for individual use, video that's accessible to all students, etc.) Professional educator (Being a reflective, accessible instructor who collaborates with other educators and takes responsibility for perfecting one's craft)

"Lack of civility in online forums within learning communities is manageable in small, closed online learning communities where an instructor is in control of a class of up to thirty, or even forty students. However, as classes expand, with MOOCs, and other types of learning communities growing, in combination with platforms that allow anonymity (such as Coursera) it will become an issue for educators [and their institutions] involved in online learning at some time or another. Peers within my network have shared their experiences as students and instructors within MOOCs that involve politically charged or contentious subject matters where discussion forums are fraught with offensive, even toxic comments and vitriol discussion.  It is for this reason that I write this post; to provoke thought and discussion in order for educators to be proactive and develop appropriate strategies."

"The eTexts: Adopt, Remix, Create program supports instructors who want to find better textbook options for their students. This initiative is being piloted by DoIT Academic Technology and the UW Libraries to encourage a transition away from high cost commercial textbooks and to explore new paradigms for course readings. We encourage instructors to think broadly and creatively about what might make their course materials better."

"The University of Toronto is committed to exploring new ways of teaching and sharing knowledge in the 21st Century, and its participation in the two platforms Coursera and EdX are an essential part of this. Instructors from the university have already launched very well received "Massive Open Online Courses" on subjects ranging from programming to aboriginal education, statistics to mental health and psychology. To further our understanding of these new course formats, the Office of Online Learning Strategies (OLS), together with the course instructors, have developed an extensive research program around MOOCs and flipped classrooms"

The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when everyone,and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology. A framework for making decisions about your teaching is provided, while understanding that every subject is different, and every instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching.The book enables teachers and instructors to help students develop the knowledge and skills they will need in a digital age: not so much the IT skills, but the thinking and attitudes to learning that will bring them success.

"In a student-centric LMS, the core abstraction of the LMS is the student. In the diagram, I'm imagining a student with control of connections to other entities within the system. These could be instructors, or other students, or learning materials. To create a course, you invite students to connect with a common set of resources, one or more instructors, and the other students in the course. When the course is complete, the student can drop the connections she doesn't need any more - but keep the rest. As the educational experience proceeds, the student collects, under her control, the connections that remain meaningful and useful and drops the ones that are stale or irrelevant. Furthermore, these resources could be local and within the LMS, or they could be external to the LMS or to the student's current institution."

"Rather than providing information about students at risk, we aimed to develop a system that would broadly inform instructors about all their enrolled students, providing summarized institutional data about the aggregate characteristics of the students enrolled in their respective classes. We call it the Student Profile Report (SPR), a short document that summarizes student records, intended to provide a useful snapshot of information about the population of students taking a course prior to the start of a semester. "

"ProQuest SIPX, provider of the most complete digital course materials solutions in higher education, has signed a three-year deal with Arizona State University (ASU), the largest public university in the U.S. with over 90,000 students. ASU will integrate the SIPX Central service-a scalable, self-service configuration that enables anyone at the school to set up course readings-into the campus' Blackboard learning management system. The technology is unique, sophisticated, yet user-friendly and helps get more library resources and open access content into the hands of instructors. The service will reduce the cost of course materials for students and simplify sharing of the course readings between instructors and students."

"What do students want in the learning activities for their online STEM courses? They'd prefer more real-life problems to solve and instructional resources such as simulations, case studies, videos and demonstrations. They'd also like the chance to meet and collaborate with other students as well as teaching assistants online. Finally, they'd appreciate clear and consistent information from instructors about instructions, assignments, assessments, due dates, course pages and office hours. What do students currently get? The most common course activities are the completion of major projects or assignments, reading, visiting websites, taking quizzes or exams, and viewing slideshows. The most interaction they report experiencing comes from reading course news and announcements and receiving e-mails from the instructor."