Bruce Fraser

Th.is section on engaging learners has a lot to offer and a lot to consider, depending on what type of environment you teach in, or if you teach in both environments (asynchronous and synchronous).  The oveall goal, regardless of the type of environment however is to do the right thing, to encourage student / user participation, growth and success. I do have to question some of the guidelines or suggestions offered in this chapter, like having only five or six students in an synchronous discussion - that is simply not reality in today's educational world. Right now, during the Covid-19… >>>

The whole idea of creating and maintaining an effective online learing environment where the student has a higher sense of comfort, support and security comes from establishing and maintaining effective communications up front and then maintaining those communications in a consistent, high quality manner that inspires student confidence and trust in the instructor and helps to build effective two-way communications between the student(s) and the instructor.

This module gives an excellent overview as to how online courses should be structured and administered. Having completed my Masters Degree online at University of Phoenix, I'm very familiar with being a student in an online class environment over a long period of time (2 years). Over time, it became easy to spot the professors that were not familiar with using the University of Phoenix CMS and / or administering a particular class or program module.

Support from our professors for students in that graduate level online environment (in our case, all of the students were full time teachers) was… >>>