Phyllis Smith

For the past year or so, I have worked with students with various disabilities.  All students in the class have some form of disability...ranging from physical to cognitive as well as behavioral.  I had one student that was actually a teacher.  He suffered a stroke and lost quite a bit of cognitive ability and came back to school to relearn those skills he had lost. A few are almost blind; one has 2 hearing aids and is diabetic as well as other disabilities.  The list goes on and on, and there are 28 students enrolled in the class.  A couple… >>>

I am curious.  I am a habitual user of rubrics.  I actually teach a mini lesson about rubrics:  how to read them, decipher them, reword them and then how to let the rubric guide the students' time managment, etc.  I use rubrics found online but edit them to suit my audience and purpose.  I guess you could say, my classes, especially English classes are rubric oriented.  I always give a rubric with the assignments and regularly refer students back to that rubric. Does anyone else depend so heavily on their rubrics?  Is there an easier way to keep students focused,… >>>

Just wondering if anyone has ever dropped a student and what the reason(s) were for cutting a student from a particular Chat or Topic.  Actually, I was not aware that we could do that as long as the student was registered in our class.

Reply to Lisa Brown's post:I also was intrigued by all the responsibilities for an online instructor.  I have used online teaching casually when students ask for it, but was not so concerned about the responsibility it entailed.  I simply used it to help students understand a concept or to catch them up when they missed a class/lecture.  It was very informal; however, those students have given great feedback on the fact that I responded to their questions on a personal basis.