I have been teaching at ground campuses on a college level for 14 years in the Visual Communications area. I've been teaching online for the last 2 years and knowing that students in Visual Communications tend to learn more when they they can "see" what they need to do. I've needed to be somewhat creative in developing methods of delivering the information to them visually so I've created Animations for my Announcements and have also created a You Tube Channel that shows step by step videos on how to achieve what the assignments state that they need to do to supplement their learning. Students have been endlessly thankful for this additional learning tool. The extra effort on my part has made for some very happy students.

I believe that an instructor needs to be flexible in his/her teaching techniques because not all students learn the same way or learn under the same approach. At the same time that instructors are flexible, they are teaching students to become flexible. This in fact will help them in their jobs and make them available to work successfully under different conditions.

Effective on-line instruction needs multiple assessment tools. Not every student will be able to take a quiz and show what he/she has learned. I strive to give students multiple and varied opportunities to apply new knowledge and skills.

I think I enjoy on-line teaching so much because I was always better at the "guide on the side" role. I taught writing for years and that subject just doesn't need as much lecture by an expert as it needs "hand-on" application and practice.

I have only used a synchronous method once, several years ago. My nontraditional students seem happy with the asynchronous courses but I wonder if adding an optional synchronous facet might be fun?

I have not used screen capture except to diagnose problems students are encountering. I am excited to learn about other uses!

If you see that a student is not adjusting to an online course, how would you approach the student? What would you recommend to the student?

If students do not complete the evaluations consistently, how do you know if you are completing the course appropriately? Should there be an incentive for completing the evaluations?

Which technique is most used, synchronous or asynchronous teaching? Which do you prefer and why?

Among the various types of information you will receive from learners, e-mail messages are likely to rank the highest. We recommend that you adopt a system for managing e-mail messages so that you reduce the amount of time you have to spend to respond to them.

In a traditional classroom setting, learners benefit from immediate verbal feedback as well as non-verbal feedback in the form of body language such as smiles, nods, confused looks, frowns, etc. The absence of these types of feedback in an e-learning environment makes feedback particularly crucial in this setting.

Writing text in MaxKnowledge platform works pretty much the way you would expect, but you also have the ability to include "smilies", "URL addresses" and some HTML tags in your text.

A good way to help other people think about a subject is to ask them a question about it. Being asked a good question can really help us put information together, evaluate our existing ideas and create new ideas.

The benefits of technology are evident in that students can have immediate access to information. What can be limiting about this is when we want students to use critical thinking skills. As an assessment tool I feel that students need to be able to resolve issues presented in a scenario rather than just answer direct questions. At times I feel these skills are being overlooked because of the accessibility of an instant answer.

I feel that online courses in some subjects are beneficial because it allows the student greater access to reviewing key information. The development of these courses seems to be more difficult however because we need to access if the class is following along and understanding the material. Sometimes this is easier when standing in front of a class and observing the classes response to the material. Course discussion forums do help with this evaluation but at times can be a limited evaluation. Thoughts?

How can we get a position as an online instructor for CEC if we have already been teaching classes in person for many years? Any suggestions will be appreciated. TY

To help my online (synchronous virtual classroom) students get acclimated to the class flow and my expectations I do two things: 1.) Before the first day of class I post a detailed announcement "ABC123 Course Information and Expectations." The posting contains my contact information; my availability; schedule for all live sessions; details on what is needed to do well in the Discussion Threads; APA formatting guidelines and hyperlinks to support information; grading scale; late policy, etc. 2.) My first live Chat Session is "How to Earn an "A" in This Class." In this one hour live session I break the above announcement into PowerPoint slides. During the live session we go through the slides, and just before the end I ask students if any of this information was familiar. I then point out everything was taken from the announcement, and remind everyone how important it is to read all announcements each week.

In a perfect online teaching environment, a combination of synchronous vs asynchronous would be ideal. However, most students choose the online education avenue because they want the flexibility to attend around their schedules. So often times achieving this can be a challenge. The school I teach for does provide avenues for both types of learning. Weekly live conference/web sessions are held. Students have the option to attend however it is not required if their schedules do not accommodate. Students who do attend get a lot out of these sessions though as it is such a great venue to connect on a more personal level with instructor and other students and get immediate answers to questions.

The school in which I teach for uses a mixture of technology to help ensure students have a well rounded teaching environment. I do find that sometimes students who have not been in the online setting before can be overwhelmed by the technology. Does anyone have suggestions on how to overcome this?

Hello In an online environment your choices for evaluation can be rather limited. The course material is usually predetermined as well as the weekly assignments. Keeping track of the weekly class average would be the easiest but not necessarily the best. You could pose questions on the Discussion Board weekly that could challenge student compression. Bill Becker