How can professors encourage students to participate in synchronous discussions?

I think it is imperative to continuously evaluate your course and strategies.

I think online courses may be more prone to plagiarism the on-site based courses.

I think it is important to check ALL hyper links posted to make sure they are classroom appropriate.

I think having an easily navigational site is imperative to enhancing the learning environment.

In one of my online teaching experiences, instructors were required to call all students during the first week of class. (We were given a long distance card to use). Do you think that calling students would increase the retention rate?

I would like to know your opinions about the best way to evaluate on line courses? Multiple chopces ot true or false or short essays questions?

I think on line quizzes are a good tool for the students to check if they get the information that they need to learn

Developers of online courses do not have to be technological wizards. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer. I agree--they don't have to be wizards. For the most part, many onine modalities today are relatively easy to use and to develop courses with.

The time invested to develop a quality online course is less than the time required to develop the same course for a traditional classroom delivery. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer. I think it takes about the same amount of time--I taught in both modalities and find that the preparation for either type of activity requires substantive effort.

We should not be concerned about students cheating in an online environment; they may cheat in traditional classes as well. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer. We should definitely be concerned about this. It's probably easier and more tempting to cheat in the online format because it is more difficult to provide a documented trail of who is actually taking a test, etc.

The look and feel of an online course is as important as the knowledge and skills it is designed to impart. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer. I agree to a certain extent....I think that it's important to have quality content, no doubt, but I also think it's important not to go overboard on the bells/whistles in the online environment. Too much color, pictures, etc can actually detract from the learning environment. The best of courses combines excellent technical material with a good supporting cast of pictures, colors, text, etc.

I haven't noticed too many hybrid classes (involving both online and in-class learning/participation). Is this something that is common and if so do certain classes/topics lend themselves better to a hybrid approach? Could someone provide an example and explanation of what this would look like?

An instructor must respond to students in a timely matter to gain trust from their students. This entails, but is not limited to, responding to student emails within 24 hours and grading all assignments within 48 hours. Instructors must exhibit a high level of integrity and responsiveness to gain trust from their students.

Has any on used the Apple program face time with students that can not make it to class? I used it the other week for a student who was out with pink eye. It was like she didn't even missed class.

The course I teach has 4 instructors currently. We continue to tweak the material together, but have never entered into a significan re-design. I wonder what this looks like as a collaborative process.

I like the idea of using our quizzes to build learning and unlimited tries. It makes me wonder if we should build more quizzes into our CD 2600 class.

I'm wondering if in addition to flat PPT presentations if we should add audo.

We don't use synchronous chat in the course I teach. It made me wonder if me along with others who were instructors of this course divided up time slots if we could get any benefit from this, even though we would be interacting with each other's student's due to scheduling conflicts.

When designing courses it is important to ensure that learning activities support the type of learning that is to occur. For example, a traditional class was learning about motivating the workforce. I make three puzzles of equal shape and with equal sized/shape pieces. One puzzle was Maslow's theory, one was Psychological Contract and one was How to Deal with Difficult people. Divide the group up into equal teams (4 - 5 members; 3 teams), mix up the pieces and give each team equal number of pieces. Tell them that they have to form the three puzzles (give them the topic of each puzzle) but they cannot talk. They quickly learn about effective communication, team support, and motivation. Susan