Dr. S. David Vaillancourt

Dr. S. David Vaillancourt

About me

Dr. S. David Vaillancourt currently serves as the Vice President of Academic Affairs for the College of Health Care Professions based in Houston, Texas. Prior to this post he worked as an e-Learning consultant for companies across the USA. His primary research focus over the past four years has been the development of online learning Engagement Metrics. Dr. Vaillancourt’s 27 years of service in education includes multiple levels of experience in both private and public educational institutions. His professional positions include Online Campus President for Virginia College, National Dean of ITT's Online Division, Director of Education for Ultimate Medical Academy, President of a two-campus allied health college in Utah, Certified Cisco Academy Instructor, Master Certified Novell Instructor, and K-12 public school science teacher.

Dr. Vaillancourt’s BS and MS in Education were earned from Samford University in 1983 and 1989, respectively. He completed his Ed.D. in Instructional Technology and Distance Education from Nova Southeastern University in May 2004. Dr. Vaillancourt designed, founded and chaired the non-profit National Math Bee (2006-2011), which provided an online learning community for over 15,000 elementary school mathematics students in 37 states across the country.  He was a US Army soldier prior to his career in education.

Activity

Patricia, There are probably many of us on this forum not expecting to be teaching (formally) 20 years from now. ;-] Your point about the f2f advantage is indicated in some of the research about hybrid classes and programs. Good point.
Jake, This is a good list. Do you set any specific expectations for academic honesty, plagiarism/citations, etc.?
Jake, Agreed..."Guide on the Side instead of Sage on the Stage" does have many andragogical advantages, but takes a great deal more skill to accomplish. It is an important first step to getting the students more interactive with each other (to overcome the 'solo' feeling), so they can get more benefits from the diversity of their learning community within the class. Nice going - to implement it in the f2f environment.
Jake, Nice, individualized approaches for each student. Both are excellent examples of the metacognitive approaches indicated by research (US Dept of Ed - May 2009 - Meta-Analysis) to contribute significantly to student success in online classrooms.
Patricia, It seems as though the 30 count is workable for you in the program you teach. Do you think the student online classroom experience could be significantly improved by having less (or more) students assigned per class section?
Patricia, Your observations accurately align with what we see in the marketplace today. Do you think this may differ in 20 years, or so? Is so, how?
Jenson, In many classes the students must respond to classmates' postings within a particular timeframe. Is there a limited number of threads going at any given time within the class so students aren't spread too thin?
Jenson, Very good point. The synchronous chat is a difficult way to facilitate more than about ten students at a time in a one to many conversation. I have heard of teachers using dictation software (Dragon) to make it easier. Does anyone on this thread have experience using speech recognition software within live chats?
Louise, Yes, I was 'lurking' to acquire more information for this discussion board. ;-] Excellent approach and resolution to this post. Thank you for your contribution.
Louise, Using the rubric (the established class criteria) as the basis for indiviualizing the assistance provided to the student is sound approach. Consistently implementing positive reiforcement, recommendations for improvement and linking to the next learning task are all marks of quality instruction. Nice work.

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