Office of Online Education: Tips for Effective Online Teaching

To be successful in online classes, students must participate consistently and frequently. This requires a high level of both student-student and student-instructor interaction.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1032/thumbnail.jp

UDL and What it Means for Online Instructors

While designing an inclusive online learning experience is critical for student success, so too is effective implementation. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) goes beyond the initial course design to focus on best practice for delivering content to ensure understanding, providing multiple means of student expression and encouraging active engagement. These are all components of the online classroom determined and enhanced by the instructor. In this informational session, we will explore strategies you can begin using in your online class to best meet the needs of all students

Framing Information Literacy: The Importance of Setting the Stage

Do students learn more when information literacy instruction is provided in-person by a librarian, mediated by their course instructor using a librarian-created tutorial, or self-paced using a tutorial? This presentation will focus on assessment results from a multi-sectioned college course targeting first-year students that explored this question and revealed an unexpected answer. Use the results, which are applicable to any instructional setting, to plan your next information literacy session

Technical and didactic knowledge of the moodle LMS in Higher Education: beyond functional use

Higher education institutions at the international level have seen the need to adopt and integrate information and communication technologies to meet the opportunities and challenges of innovation in teaching and learning processes. This logic has led to the implementation of virtual learning environments called ‘Learning Management Systems’, the functionalities of which support flexible and active learning under a constructivist approach. This study measured didactic and technological use of Moodle and its implications in teaching from a quantitative approach by administering a questionnaire to a sample of 640 higher education teachers. Some guiding questions were as follows: Are teachers using the Moodle platform for didactic purposes? What strategies, resources and tools are teachers using, and what do they contribute to student-centred teaching? Are teaching strategies that are focused on collaboration, interaction and student autonomy promoted? The results coincide with those of other studies, confirming an instrumental and functional use of the platform, which is mainly being used as a repository for materials and information, while its pedagogical use remains limited. This is becoming a problem in higher education institutions, something that requires debate and reflection from a systemic perspective on the adoption and integration of technology in the classroo

The Importance of Building a Social Presence in the Online Classroom

While important, many of the guidelines put in place to prevent disease transmission during the Covid-19 pandemic (social distancing, quarantining, facial coverings, etc.) have created challenges to building student-student and student-faculty relationships. However, these relationships are, according to the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al., 2000), essential to learning. The purpose of this piece is to explore strategies to build social presence in the classroom to benefit students and faculty alike. Strategies such as the strategic use of discussion boards, collaborative assignments, class announcements, extra credit, and more are discussed in the context of improving student learning without significantly increasing the workload of faculty

Best Practices for Encouraging Instructor/Student Communication and Partnerships in Online Learning

When students and instructors communicate well, students’ GPAs, GRE scores, educational engagement, personal development, and satisfaction with their learning experience all improve. Similarly, when instructors are transparent in their course decisions and involve students as partners in their education, student retention, academic sense of belonging, student-instructor interactions, and networking opportunities all improve. However, face-to-face techniques for student/instructor communication, like informal before-class conversations or in-class question-and-answer sessions about assignments, can be challenging to implement in an online environment. The purpose of this piece is to discuss evidence-based strategies for improving transparency and communication in an online learning environment

The Effectiveness of Offline and Online Classes in Language Learning at Universities Majoring in English Education

In this contemporary era, technology's influence on education is profound. Online teaching, in addition to traditional offline classes, has become prevalent. This study explores the preferences of 16 English students at the Islamic University of Malang regarding online and offline classes. The research employs a mixed-method approach, analyzing questionnaire data quantitatively and qualitatively. Results indicate a clear preference for offline learning due to its perceived effectiveness, better understanding, and enhanced engagement, mainly attributed to face-to-face interactions with instructors. Consequently, students favor offline classes over online ones

Problem-based Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Can Project Groups Save the Day?

In this paper, we describe how a Danish problem-based learning university adapted to the circumstances surrounding the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our findings reveal that digital problem-based learning mitigated some negative consequences that appeared with the lockdown and resulting shift to 100 percent online teaching. While students prefer the traditional face-to-face teaching mode due to the energy, variation, and socialization associated with on-campus learning, we observed that students who have worked in project groups had a more positive experience with online learning, which indicates belonging to a project group can increase students’ motivation to participate in online teaching activities. Our findings challenge the idea that problem-based learning revolves around face-to-face interaction on campus. We highlight lessons that we learned when we rapidly shifted to online distance teaching

Online, Blended And Technology-Enhanced Learning: Tools To Facilitate Community College Student Success In The Digitally-Driven Workplace

Community colleges have embraced distance education as a means to provide increased flexibility and access to their large numbers of non-traditional students. Retention rates and student achievement measures alone may not reflect all of the benefits and opportunities that online learning, blended or hybrid learning, and technology-enhanced learning may afford these students. Online learning resources should be viewed as a tremendous value-added benefit for community college students, not only for the content conveyed, but also for fostering the digital readiness, cultivating the professional personas, and encouraging the self-directed learning needed to succeed in the digitally-driven workplace