James Candelaria

There are so many different LMS out there.  Wherever one decides to become an instructor, one should grasp theat LMS and become one with it in order to facilitate what your students will be expected to do better.

New faculty should have weekly meetings or 1:1's with a supervisor to track progress (or opportunities) in order to get better results.

Understanding the reasoning behind accreditation standards gives new faculty a great insight as to WHY they must follow the standards.  Seeing and knowing what the standards are allows new faculty to ask any questions if they see something they might not understand.

Hiring faculty with real-world experience will have an easier time teaching their subject matter because they have actually experienced it.  They are better able to explain any lectures and add some value to that lecture by giving examples from their previous experience.

Comment on Lesley Fielding's post: Agree 100%.  All students come to you with different levels of capabilities.  As such, evaluating the rubrics every so often should occur.

Monitoring social networking can be a time consuming process for educators.  Especially if your student count is high.  Engaging students can start off easy but can be difficult after a while.  I think students may eventually understand WHY monitoring is so important

My only wish is that not only educators take courses like these but that all politicians be required to take these courses.  Maybe they could learn a little something about using social media/networking and HOW to use it appropriately.  We teach this to children young and older but the older population weren't trained/taught HOW to use it.

Keeping the lines of communication open with all students is key to successful students & teachers.  In an online environment, communication can take place in many ways.  Use all of them and make the students feel supported! 

Make students feel comfortable by getting to know them in a virtual classroom.  This is easily done by sending personal messages and getting them involved in the class.  Discussion threads seem to work really well for this.

An online environment can be just as fun as a classroom setting as long as you use creative ways to engage your students.  Narratives aren't always as easy to understand but probing students for more information can really clear things up.