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Course Netiquette Expectations

All students pay tuition and deserve a positive and courteous learning environment. Students should be aware that their behavior impacts other people, even when interacting online. I hope that we will all strive to develop a positive and supportive environment and will be courteous to

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Professor helping student in lecture hall

Finding Signs of Progress When Learning is Slow

Slow learning—not to be confused with slow learners—is learning that happens gradually, where understanding deepens slowly and skills advance but without immediate noticeable change. Some learning occurs all at once; suddenly, there’s a performance breakthrough. Typically, fast learning feels easy, even if it was proceeded

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Student-Generated Research Questions

Students and questions: it’s a topic written about with some regularity in this publication (and on the Teaching Professor Blog, for that matter). The concern starts with the quantity and quality of questions students ask in courses, but it goes beyond that, as Mara Brecht

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Interviews to Assess and Mentor Students

Using Interviews to Assess and Mentor Students

Have you considered adding five-minute student interviews to your teaching tool kit? Before you calculate how long it would take to interview all of your students and dismiss this idea out of hand, consider how student interviews provide a unique setting and opportunity for you

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Learning about Learning after the Exam

Exam debriefs are typically that: brief. The tests are passed back, score ranges are revealed, and the teacher goes over the most missed questions, identifying and explaining the correct answer. There may be a chance for students to ask questions, but most sit passively. This

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Making Multiple-Choice Exams Better

The relatively new Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology journal has a great feature called a “Teacher-Ready Research Review.” The examples I’ve read so far are well organized, clearly written, full of practical implications, and well referenced. This one on multiple-choice (m/c) tests (mostly

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Assignments: How Students Perceive Them

Assignments are one of those ever-present but not-often-thought-about aspects of teaching and learning. Pretty much every course has them, and teachers grade them. The grade indicates how much the student learned by doing them. But is this learning something that students recognize? Too often students

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Use It but Don’t Depend on Technology to Teach

This article is not a Luddite’s rejection of digital technology. Even though I feel some intellectual kinship with Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in regard to how some tools affect people constitutionally, I readily admit that digital technology has made my job as a teacher much

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Hashtag Concept Organization for Better Learning

Twitter’s greatest contribution to information management is the humble hashtag. Previously, most social media information was organized by source. Think of how Facebook is organized around the content contributors rather than content category. But hashtags introduced a method for organizing information by type. I can

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All students pay tuition and deserve a positive and courteous learning environment. Students should be aware that their behavior impacts other people, even when interacting online. I hope that we will all strive to develop a positive and supportive environment and will be courteous to fellow students and your instructor. Due to the nature of the online environment, there are some things to remember.
  1. Think before you write and reread your writing before you post anything online. Without the use of nonverbals with your message, your message can be misinterpreted. Sarcasm and humor can be difficult to interpret online and should be avoided.
  2. Keep it relevant. There are places to chat and post for fun everyday stuff. Inside a discussion board, stay on topic. Have your responses answer the question provided, expand the discussion to other relevant areas or build on the work from your classmates.
  3. Never use all caps. This is the equivalent of yelling in the online world. It is also hard to read. Only use capital letters when appropriate.
  4. Make sure that you are using appropriate grammar and structure. Some people in the class that may not understand things like "CU L8R," not to mention it does nothing to help expand your writing and vocabulary skills. Emoticons are fine as long as they are appropriate. A smile smily is welcome; anything offensive is not.
  5. Treat people the same as you would face-to-face. In other words it is easy to hide behind the computer. In some cases it empowers people to treat others in ways they would not in person. Remember there is a person behind the name on your screen. Treat all with dignity and respect and you can expect that in return.
  6. Respect the time of others. This class is going to require you to work in groups. Learn to respect the time of others in your group and your experience will be much better. Always remember that you are not the only person with a busy schedule, be flexible. Do not procrastinate! You may be one that works best with the pressures of the deadline looming on you, but others may not be that way. The key to a successful group is organization, communication and a willingness to do what it takes to get it done.
  7. In discussion boards, do not respond with sentences like "I agree" or "Me too". These add nothing to the discussion.

Adapted from Six Practical Strategies to Improve Your Online Course, an online seminar by Magna Publications.