The promise and perils of asynchronous learning: how faculty, students, and administrators can collaboratively increase retention and satisfaction in the online classroom

This paper explores some of the major challenges faced by faculty, students, administrators, and support staff in retaining online students, and doing so while earning high marks for the quality of each course. A number of strategies are explored beginning with the need to carefully consider effective mixes of technology, structure, and content in the classroom environment. With an emphasis on social presence and careful consideration of how students use technology to access the class learning management system (LMS), the paper offers a variety of options to build classroom spaces that foster a sense of community and collaboration. Thereafter the paper addresses best practices to turn well‐ considered design elements into a classroom experience which addresses issues related to retention, achieving learning outcomes, and ensuring students and faculty invest in the learning process from day one. By addressing concerns shared by the major actors in the field of online education, realistic best practices can be identified to help ensure online learning achieves, if not exceeds, retention and satisfaction levels seen from brick‐and‐mortar classrooms

Visualizing the Limits of Democracy in the Silence of the Cold War: The Photography of Life Magazine and the Unraveling of the American Century

This volume emanates from a commemorative act—the University’s tenth Symposium on Democracy, founded in 2000 as a living memorial to the four students who lost their lives and as an enduring dedication to scholarship that seeks to prevent violence and promote democratic values and civil discourse. The work in this collection pursues historical meaning that holds relevance both for a particular community and speaks indelibly to the entire human community

“Modern Day Presidential:" Donald Trump and American Politics in the Age of Twitter

The increasing power of social media over American news and politics is difficult to ignore thanks to the visibility of President Trump’s tweets both on online and traditional media. This paper seeks to better understand the strategy behind Donald Trump’s use of Twitter both as a candidate and during his first year as president. Through a careful study of his tweets and their ability to take advantage of the specific user makeup on Twitter and the choice of mainstream media to often echo his tweets in their coverage, a consistent strategy emerges based on a combination of traditional advertising practice and radicalist discourse that continues to reshape the American political landscape today

Visualizing the Limits of Democracy in the Silence of the Cold War: The Photography of Life Magazine and the Unraveling of the American Century

This volume emanates from a commemorative act—the University’s tenth Symposium on Democracy, founded in 2000 as a living memorial to the four students who lost their lives and as an enduring dedication to scholarship that seeks to prevent violence and promote democratic values and civil discourse. The work in this collection pursues historical meaning that holds relevance both for a particular community and speaks indelibly to the entire human community

Ending the Silence: Using New Media Technologies to Overcome Alienation in the Virtual Classroom

Students as well as faculty often feel alienated from their peers and the general functioning of online courses, shaped by expectations of in-person teaching etched into participants by a culture holding rigid expectations of proper classroom dynamics. Even with blended classrooms, while they allow relationships between participants to be grounded in physical space, they do not avoid the alienating potential of transferring those relationships online. However, as much as technology and the expectations associated with it has helped birth the “distance” in distance learning, it can also offer a solution. Regular and dynamic discussions, small peer groups, the use of visual media to spur discussion, as well as multiple channels of feedback, from announcements to Twitter, YouTube and other digital means, creates presence through technology. The result blends the intimacy the traditional classroom offers with the advantages of virtual communication. Course structures that provide an easy means to keep up on expectations and are built into the design are also critical. This creates a more dynamic and active online learning experience critical in building community, that feeling among students they are not just individuals working towards the completion of the course, but part of a greater whole. This presentation will cover techniques gathered from researchers and personal experience to build community in the online classroom, addressing longstanding criticisms of distance learning and best practices to improve the student learning experience and faculty satisfaction in blended or wholly online courses

Ending the Silence: Using New Media Technologies to Overcome Alienation in the Virtual Classroom

Students as well as faculty often feel alienated from their peers and the general functioning of online courses, shaped by expectations of in-person teaching etched into participants by a culture holding rigid expectations of proper classroom dynamics. Even with blended classrooms, while they allow relationships between participants to be grounded in physical space, they do not avoid the alienating potential of transferring those relationships online. However, as much as technology and the expectations associated with it has helped birth the “distance” in distance learning, it can also offer a solution. Regular and dynamic discussions, small peer groups, the use of visual media to spur discussion, as well as multiple channels of feedback, from announcements to Twitter, YouTube and other digital means, creates presence through technology. The result blends the intimacy the traditional classroom offers with the advantages of virtual communication. Course structures that provide an easy means to keep up on expectations and are built into the design are also critical. This creates a more dynamic and active online learning experience critical in building community, that feeling among students they are not just individuals working towards the completion of the course, but part of a greater whole. This presentation will cover techniques gathered from researchers and personal experience to build community in the online classroom, addressing longstanding criticisms of distance learning and best practices to improve the student learning experience and faculty satisfaction in blended or wholly online courses