Resolving Instructor Challenges in the Online Classroom

The rapid growth of online education has led to expanded opportunities for students while introducing instructors to new teaching challenges inherent to virtual learning environments. The practical responsibilities, once confined to the traditional classroom, such as handling student records, class size, teaching assistants, and instructional material now require a new mind set as well as sufficient technical knowledge. The online instructor faces additional opportunities and challenges once the class is online and students have enrolled. How to merge the best of the traditional classroom including teaching and practical responsibilities with the best of an online teaching opportunity become paramount to the online instructor. These issues and corresponding suggestions for the online instructor will be discussed in this paper

Using YouTube Videos to Engage the Affective Domain in E-Learning

YouTube, currently the largest and most widely used online video service, is at the epicenter of the expanding videosharing universe. Video 2.0, a subset of the Web 2.0 suite of interactive browser-based tools, offers educators millions of hours of free video content, hosting, and distribution online. This is particularly beneficial in e-learning which relies on digital content. While video is valuable for many types of instructional events, its role in meeting educational outcomes within the affective learning domain is compelling. Video is a powerful medium for conveying the spectrum of human emotion through the drama of the audiovisual story. This paper illustrates how short video clips can be selected and produced to meet affective learning objectives. A liability case study from the health-care profession is used as an example of a real-world story that contextualizes values that are critical for health-care professionals to internalize. Micro-level instructional design principles are used as the conceptual framework to guide selection and production of the types of short video clips that are commonly found on YouTube and other video-sharing services

Ethical Challenges of Online Teaching

Online technologies (e.g., e-mail, websites, course management systems) provide alternatives to traditional face-to-face instruction that have made it possible to offer courses either partially or completely online. Allen and Seaman (2010) identified four categories of course delivery that are based on the proportion of content delivered online: (a) traditional (0% online delivery), (b) web facilitated (1%–29% online delivery), (c) hybrid (30%–79% online delivery), and (d) online (80%–100% online delivery). In this chapter, we focus primarily on the fourth category, in which most or all of the course content is delivered virtually with the aid of online technologies. The growth of online education has been phenomenal. The seventh annual Sloane Survey of Online Learning (Sloan-C, 2009) revealed that approximately 4.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2008, an increase of nearly 17% from the previous year (Allen & Seaman, 2010). As more students enroll in virtual courses, questions and concerns about ethical teaching practice in digital classrooms will continue to emerge. Strike and Soltis (2004) described several types of ethical challenges within the educational context (e.g., punishment and due process, intellectual freedom, equal treatment of students, diversity, professionalism). These types of ethical issues are also present in virtual (online) classrooms, albeit with the added complexities of online course delivery. The online educator shoulders the solemn responsibility of handling student records, instructional materials, and private communications, which are stored and distributed in digital form. Additionally, the educator assumes the added responsibility of maintaining sufficient technical knowledge to avoid unfortunate breaches of confidential information. Although many additional ethical challenges emerge in an online format, we limit our discussion to the specific issues of digital privacy, intellectual property, and professional practice in the online classroom

The Post-Baccalaureate Perceptions of Psychology Alumni

Faculty members from 7 Departments of Psychology distributed a link to an online survey to their psychology alumni in order to ascertain alumni opinions about college courses, impact of student clubs, value of the undergraduate degree, beliefs about the department, and measures of global satisfaction. These variables were examined in conjunction with the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Alumni who continued their education beyond a bachelor\u27s degree in psychology responded differently at times as compared to baccalaureates. These results are discussed in the context of how departments can learn from alumni to improve services to current students

Are Private Counselors Comfortable Treating Combat-Related Trauma?

Between 40% and 90% of Americans will experience at least one traumatic event at some point in their lifetime (Breslau et al., 1998; Ford, Stockton, Kaltman, & Green, 2006; Kessler, Sonnega, Bromet, Hughes, & Nelson, 1995; Resnick, Falsetti, Kilpatrick, & Freedy, 1996), with an adult average of four traumatic events (Breslau et al., 1998). However, certain subgroups of the population may be even more vulnerable to experiencing traumatic events and to developing a trauma-related mental health issue. In particular, over half of individuals with combat experience will develop a serious mental health issue; this number may jump as high as 96% depending upon the war in question (Sutker & Allain, 1996). Furthermore, the greater the intensity of the traumatic exposure to war, the greater the likelihood that an individual will develop a serious mental health issue as a result of their war-related trauma (Sutker, Uddo-Crane, & Allain, 1991)