online learning

Like so many aspects of the online course, we must pre-plan student interaction and incorporate it into the course at the design stage. I find it helpful to distinguish between organizational interaction (exchanges that help learners understand, and thrive in, the structures of the course) and social interaction (ways that ...

Evaluations of faculty, both peer and student, can be a valuable part of the teaching landscape. Without doubt, faculty peers see strengths and weaknesses an individual instructor might not otherwise notice. Similarly, asking students about their experiences yields important insight into how learning happens--if one poses the right questions. Well-designed ...

I spent most of my early teaching online trying to figure out how to make key aspects of residential teaching and learning—interactive lecturing, organic discussion, respect for diversities—possible in online contexts. I’ve sometimes wondered: “Will teaching online at some point begin to enhance what I think I ...

George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Noble Prize in Literature and award-winning Irish playwright, famously said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” As I reflect back on my years of online instruction, I confess: I’ve made this mistake. I often assumed ...

Last year, my university offered online instructors two video tools on a trial basis: Flipgrid and VoiceThread. While VoiceThread’s features did not suit the classes on my schedule, I might incorporate it with advanced students in the future. Flipgrid, a Minneapolis-based educational startup (acquired in mid-2018 by Microsoft), uses ...