Now that many of us have moved to a hybrid or online format, the conversation around student-to-content and student-to-student engagement has taken on a new level of significance and intention. We have developed a reading graphic organizer (RGO) that increases students’ reading comprehension, assesses their
A learning contract is a negotiated agreement in which a student develops an individualized learning plan with their instructor’s support. Learning contracts provide students with choice about how to complete class assignments within the framework of the course learning objectives (Knowles, 1986). There are five
Nearly all online faculty use discussion in their courses, often simply because everyone else does or their institution’s course development model assumes they do. But like any course content or activity, we need to ask about its purpose. There is no law that all online
How can a popular party game help students become better evaluators of the credibility of the information they find on the internet?
Two Truths and a Lie involves making three statements about yourself, one of them a lie; the challenge for the rest of the players
Google Earth is a powerful tool for linking curriculum to the real world. It can add a sense of place to historical events, and by creating customized maps, teachers and students can add pins to locations, providing additional information in the form of text, audio,
Have you ever wondered how to structure or strengthen a requirement for students in your online courses to interact with each other in meaningful ways? Perhaps you assigned discussion forum posts and responses or assigned team work only to notice that interactions devolve into superficial
Guest speakers can be powerful mechanisms to promote student learning and provide additional perspectives on course material. They can help students grasp topics that require more expertise than the instructor may possess and offer insight into the day-to-day workings of a particular career path. Still,
It’s well known that group work benefits the learning process but also that learners can dread the idea of doing group projects. So, as online instructors, what can we do about this situation? Research shows that group projects in online courses are fraught with mixed
Educators have come to realize that videos are highly effective and engaging ways to create online course content. One of the most engaging forms uses a green-screen backdrop to project images or videos behind or next to the speaker. Barbara Oakley used this technique in
When I began teaching just about 30 years ago, the classroom norm was chalk and chalkboard. Not a computer in sight! Over the decades, I have learned to use courseware and various digital applications, augmenting my once wholly analog approach to teaching step-by-step with digital
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