I would go over the rubric with Mike and point out the areas where his weaknesses were. I will go over any areas where there are differences between the way he looked at his assignment and the way I viewed it. I will show him what to look for in future assignments and rubrics so that he will do his best. I will just point out that she did a great job and show her on the rubric how well she did. I will tell her that there are always ways to improve. I will pick an area where maybe she did not do 100% on and show her how to make that area 100%.

I disagree, if you cannot reach a student with offers of help you can still encourage the student with any and all of the assignments and tests the student completes. This encouragement might build a trust with the student that can lead to the student accepting help later in the course. The use of a biography for the student and instructor may also lead to a way to reach a student and establish a dialogue that will again develop a trust between the student and the instructor.

This is a good question- one that I spend a lot of time thinking about, as forums are a very important part of my online classes. First of all, I put a lot of thought into the questions that I post in the forums. They are always relevant to the topic of the week, but they bring out elements not covered in the lessons. The questions are very open ended, and are usually so interesting that students normally do check back in to see what other students have posted. For example, I teach an online Intro to Computers class, and one of the discussion questions this week is, "How does modern digital image-processing technology affect the reliability of photographic evidence? How does digital audio technology affect the reliability of sound recordings as evidence? How should our legal system respond to this technology?" Students usually have quite a number of different opinions about this topic. I always participate in the discussions at the end of the week. I monitor the threads in case there are questions directed to me, but I don't post my summary until the end of the week. My students know that in order to receive full credit for participation each week, they have to post well-thought-out responses to the questions. I don't give any credit for "I agree with you" unless new content is provide along with the agreement. The truth is, it isn't hard to know who is participating in a productive way and who isn't. I also weight my grades, and 30% of the the total grade comes from participation in the discussion threads. The students who care about their grades participate.

Online learning provides a viable alternative to the traditional classroom but will not replace brick and mortar institutions. On campus learning has many benefits that can not be gained online. Teacher-student interaction as well as student-student interaction plays an important part in the learning process. Learning online can cause students to be detached and may hinder the learning process.

Being a "guide on the side", is a huge challenge when a great deal of security comes from knowledge of content in a traditional classroom setting and face to face contact with students which make it easier to communicate; especially when you can use body language and facial expressions to emphasize lecture material. An online instructor needs to learn how to apply technological skills while also facilitating communication with distance learners. Class material must be prepared and ready for students before the course even begins. Onine instructors need to make themselves available to student questions on a consistent basis through out each day to insure that students have a consistent resource for learning. This can be quit consuming if the instructor doesn't manage their time efficiently. Students need to be monitored for their participation in the class and the material being presented,an online instructor needs to monitor students on forums and message boards. Finally instructors online need to create a sense of community for the online student that a traditional student experiences, assigning group projects can create that sense of belonging. Overall there are a great deal of challenges with transitioning to a "guide on the side".

I think the student to teacher ratio for online courses should not exceed 30:1. My argument is mostly from experience with classes of difficult students that require extra support and guidance. When the class size grows past 30 students, the amount of time needed to support the difficult or problem students, starts to reduce the time spent with the rest of the class. This leads to an overall difficult class with the majority of students not learning as much as they could have.

Class I like to have my name, email address and office hours. Also I include my cell number, resolving technical issues, course overview, chat sessions, assignments info, discussion board, group projects, late policy, grading, and plagiarism. In addition I include the top ten reasons for success. Course exp[actions is a good way to understand policies and procedures. Thanks Fred K

In teaching for a number of schools, I have found that the way in which discussion boards are structured have a significant effect on student interaction. For instance, it is the requirement of one school that students must post an initial response to the DB by Thursday and respond to two other students by Monday (in a Tues-Mon class week) in each of two discussion threads for each week. I am required to respond to every student post between the two posts by the end of the week. Another school I teach for requires the same student participation (in a Mon-Sun class week with the initial post due by Wednesday.) I am required to make at least one post on five separate days during the week to each thread, but there is no requirement for responding to individual students. For which of the two would you expect more student interaction? I have found that student interactivity is significantly greater in the second scenario and as a result I try to structure my responses in the first scenario along the same lines while meeting the criteria for the school. Interestingly, this does not seem to have much of an effect in increasing student interactivity at the first school. I guess this is leading me to a question, which is do you think that students at a given school are conditioned to participate in a certain way? If so, how can we change this pattern of participation?

I often see students who procrastinate in discussions and quickly lead the class off the topic of discussion. Chris

I know I have often narrrowed a topic of discussion too much for learners. I should be more open and broad while also directing learners to the concept behind the discussion. Chris

I have integrated Tegrity video clips in one of my classes. Students tell me that they appreciate what they view as "closer" interaction through the clips. Chris

I have been with many institutions who only provide perfunctory training and it hardly covers the CMS (LMS). I tend to be wary of these institutions. Chris

Most online instructors use a discussion board, but not all are active in participation. It is important to get involved in the discussion and engaged in the conversation, commenting on students' posts and guiding their learning. The instructor should always continue to explore how to use discussions effectively.

Students who enrolled in online courses tended to have stronger academic preparation and come from higher income brackets, researchers found that students who took online classes early in their college careers were more likely become self-directed learners than those who took only face-to-face courses.

What learning objects have you created and how does that serve as a workload management strategy?

What methods do you use for formative course evaluation?

What methods have you developed to manage dynamic course elements?

How can participating in professional development courses serve as a workload management strategy?

How do you create a good atmosphere of collaboration without overtaxing yourself as an online instructor?

How do you model good communication that works in your favor regarding workload?