Professional Development
Courses & Resources
Teaching Online Learners
About this Group
Public
Activity Feed Discussions Blogs Bookmarks Files
Sign in to engage with members of this group

Ask a question from your peers to help you in your professional work. Seek different points of view on a topic that interests you. Start a thought-provoking conversation about a hot, current topic. Encourage your peers to join you in the discussion, and feel free to facilitate the discussion. As a community of educators, all members of the Career Ed Lounge are empowered to act as a discussion facilitator to help us all learn from each other.

Patricia Hewitt
Patricia Hewitt

Getting to Know Your Students

Has anyone used an initial synchronous discussion to set the tone for the upcoming class, answer general questions, and get to know the students a bit?
Anthony Baldi
Anthony Baldi

Learning Styles online compared with classroom

I don't understand how Bergquist & Phillips compare their learning styles which seem more like personality traits to Visual, Auditory and Kinestetics.
Marisol Soto
Marisol Soto

Feedback

I have found that students truly appreciate and recognize when a professor provides a timely feedback. I try to always respond to my students within 24 hours and on site I mark tests the same day and they really appreciate that. It reduces the level of anxiety of the students.
Kathryn Sellers
Kathryn Sellers

Student Welcome

Try this, see if it works for you. Any suggestions for improvement would be appreciated. Greetings~ Welcome to School X's General Psychology class. As your instructor it is my job and more importantly my personal goal to make sure you have an awesome term! If this is your first experience with online learning...then WELCOME to the wonderful world of virtual education. This is such an awesome tool for those of us with hectic lives and many demands from home and work. The most important aspect (in my humble opinion) is COMMUNICATION!!! I encourage each of you to begin an open… >>>

Kathryn Sellers
Kathryn Sellers

Engaging Shy Students

Shy students are willing to discuss topics if the instructor can find an innovative way to get them involved. What are some techniques you have used to engage shy students? Kathryn
Kathryn Sellers
Kathryn Sellers

Online Office Hours aka Virtual Office Hours

One suggestion I have for holding office hours is to register for an AOL IM name. It is free and students can access you anytime they choose. I find this very helpful, especially if you teach for multiple colleges. You can have one "office" for all your students. Kathryn
Kathryn Sellers
Kathryn Sellers

E-mail in the Online Classroom

Many platforms have e-mails set up within the course (WebCT) while others (E-College) have e-mails sent to a personal e-mail address established by the college. At CFC our e-mails from students will be delivered to our personal account. Will you set up a new personal account for your online classroom to keep it separate from your personal e-mails? Why or why not? What are the advantages to each method? Kathryn Sellers
Cynthia Cruz
Cynthia Cruz

Recognition and Feedback

The most important thing when going to my days as an online learner is recieving feedback. When students submit assignments they afraid to go on to the next one until receiving feedback from the one prior. They need the recognition to let them know that they are on the right track. I hope we are all staying on top of this and providing fast responses to our students.
Rosie Branciforte
Rosie Branciforte

DIscussion Prompts and More

Typically discussion prompts are provided within the online delivery. These prompts and responses create the online classroom. However, the instructor must play an active role to drive, move, and provide tools to probe deeper into ideas and thoughts in the student responses. If an instructor is absent, the classroom will become as unruly as a traditional on ground one. Students will be off topic and informal if not facilitated properly. Thus, the instructor must take the responsibility of facilitator as a serious job!
Rosie Branciforte
Rosie Branciforte

CHATS

I have found that the best way to create a presence in a virtual classroom is the Live Chat. In my first online experience I had office hours, however, the interaction was one email at a time. In a recent experience, I had specific times and a room and the results were fantastic. We spoke about assignments, the syllabus, and other issues... weekly. I believed it helped retention and completing timely assignments, so I recommend this practice!
Rosie Branciforte
Rosie Branciforte

Computer Skills

The biggest hurdle I have noticed among new online learners is computer skills. Many do not know how to type,add a space, and then place a period along with features such as copy and paste and creating margins. These are just a few of the basic skills that we take for granted. So, to help these learners I have created little "how-to" Word files with screen shots. Getting ready must include understanding these skills!!
William Young
William Young

Timely submission of work

Are there any suggestions on how to get students to submit work on time in the absence of a late work policy ?
William Young
William Young

Self-discipline

Some of my ground students have said that they are not disciplined enough for online study .Because there are less excuses available for online students , I would think that more discipline is needed by ground students .
Rhonda Cameron
Rhonda Cameron

Transferring class Computer Based Instruction for to online course

I currently teach Microsoft office courses and other classes in the traditional method. We are go to transfer the courses into an Online environment. The difficulty I am having is that I lecture through the course as well as show provide visual work through of what I am lecturing. I have been tasked to create the course while teaching a live class. As I have different levels of student performers it is difficult to go through without having a lot of stopping and student questions while trying to record the class and record all of the strokes at the same… >>>

Melanie Campbell
Melanie Campbell

Premature exit of an e-learning program

For the student who prematurely exits an e-learning progra, what would be a method of "tactfully bringing them into the participation mainstream"?
Melanie Campbell
Melanie Campbell

Substitute online instructor

Are there additional steps one might take to keep the students' comfort level and feelings of stability up when called in to substitute for an online instructor?
Melanie Campbell
Melanie Campbell

Length of learning

Do online students typically take more or less time to complete their total education than the traditional on ground student?
Debra Smith
Debra Smith

Small Synchronous Discussions

I am confused as to how to lead a small group of 5 or 6 in synchronous discussions with a class size of 30+ students. Do I require only a chosen few for each module to participate? With four modules this would allow for each student to participate in at least one synchronous discussion. Please advise.
Libby Scoggins
Libby Scoggins

Dedication

Are on-line students more or less dedicated to complete course requirements than on-ground student?
Joanne Frable
Joanne Frable

Are the root issues of E-learning any different from the traditional?

Aren't the general background, innate abilities (or inabilities) related to the learning skills, expectations or commitment of the individual student and the training, background, and teaching skills of the instructor the same? Apparently anything can be put online, it is not precluded that everyone should or will succeed who takes an online course or that what is learned is any better than what is delivered closer by other methods. Technology will improve for delivery but it may not change the learner.