Lisa Herrera

Instructors can encourage students with active learning activities to practice and grow their critical thinking skills. 

Students must be informed of how much time the assignments could take to complete to allow students to manage their time. Rubrics are important for both the students and instructors to use their time efficiently and have transparency for grading.

Preparation is a key factor in having a successful online course. Technology needs to be operable to teach the lesson.

Value added assessments compare students level of knowledge and understanding after they have been taught information to their level of knowledge when they started, measures how well the instructor delivered the course information to ensure growth and knowledge of the students. 

Subjective assessments are thoughts and opinions. Objective assessments are right and wrong answers. Both can be helpful in assessing students in their learning. 

Assessments are helpful whether done before, during, or at the end of a lesson to gain information to help students in learning.

It is important to know how the assessment tool functions before deciding to use it and possibly causing confusion for students and instructors. 

Having and using a Rubric allows instructors to analyze and be consistent in grading assignments. It also allows students to refer to it to ensure they submit the assignment that meets the requirements as detailed in the Rubric.

Communicate with students individually and have a verbal conversation and find out about their life outside of school, ask what responsibilities they have and help guide them to create a study schedule and remind them you, the instructor, is available to answer questions and communicate your scheduled availability. 

Setting standards and expectations for communication is necessary, as well as being transparent in the instructors availability and response time so students are aware when they will be assisted.