LEC Articles in 2022
As Featured in Faculty Focus: 15 Years and 15 Ways to Engage Your Students In-Person, Online, and In Zoom
Welcome to the Winter 2022 term! Although we have resumed our classes in their regularly scheduled format (i.e., in-person, hybrid, and online), we continue to practice flexibility in our teaching due to the recent surge of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Over the 15 years that Marti Snyder, Ph.D., PMP, SPHR has worked at NSU, she has had the opportunity to teach face-to-face, online, and blended courses to undergraduates, master’s, and doctoral students. Here are 15 strategies that she uses most often in these various formats to engage her students. Many of these strategies overlap and can be used regardless of delivery mode.
Assessments: Getting it Right!
Student assessment is a critical aspect of the teaching and learning process. It is important for instructors to strategically evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching by measuring the extent to which students in the classroom are learning the course material. Any student pursuing any course of study will be evaluated in some way. Similarly, each member of the teaching staff will be involved in assessment-related tasks at some time. Assessment consumes a big percentage of your time, and for students, it may be a key predictor of why, when, and how they learn. As a result, getting evaluations ‘right’ is critical, both for your students and for you.
Long Live the Discussion Board, Eliminate the Discussion Bored
Candidly speaking, even with interesting discussion prompts, the same old read, write, post (and respond to two peers) discussion board routine can become a cringe-worthy event not only for students but instructors too. Even though much time and care may have gone into staging scintillating topics for captivating online discussions, they can still fall flat of the critical thinking and dialogue you were hoping to inspire. Although online discussion boards have been around for decades, unfortunately, they may have gotten a bit of a bad rap from some online course participants for generating repetitive thought sharing, voluminous posts readings for course participants, and worst of all-a lackluster conversation. However, according to the Voice of the Online Learner, sixty-three percent of online learners who recently graduated said they would enroll in an online program again. So, online discussion boards cannot be all that bad. While sharing many similarities with methods for cultivating face-to-face interactions, online discussions can offer different opportunities and limitations, in creating meaningful dialogue between students and instructors. Here are a couple of simple ways to make virtual discussions engaging and fun in online, blended, or traditional face-to-face courses.
Consideration of Web Camera Use in Remote Learning
With remote learning being so prevalent in our classrooms in recent years, you have likely put into consideration when and how to use web cameras for your virtual classrooms. This article looks at the benefits and drawbacks of introducing web cameras to online learning.
A Peek at Immersive Learning in Higher Education
Some learning paths involve complex, critical, or even lifesaving decisions. What path would you take to teach those details and how effective would it be? Materials, case scenarios, and exams are excellent ways to promote learning. In some areas of expertise, hands-on experience might be the best approach. But what if learning from mistakes in real-time is too costly? When it comes to the need to learn difficult tasks or perform skills safely in an active and authentic environment, immersive learning might be a solution.
Considering Course Design for Affective Learning
Bloom’s taxonomy provides a common language for designing instruction. Although Bloom’s cognitive hierarchy is typically used for designing instruction to help students move up the hierarchy in knowledge, student learning can take place in any or even all of Bloom’s three main domains of learning. Course designers can use Bloom’s taxonomy to create learning goals that will increase learners’ knowledge in the cognitive domain, develop skills in the psychomotor domain, or encourage students to move up the hierarchy in the affective domain from having passive feelings to perhaps more involved feelings.
Tips on Improving Group Assignments
Group assignments are a useful way to bring students together and give them important real-world experiences. They can take the form of projects, presentations, or collaborative papers. This article includes some strategies that can be used to successfully manage group projects.
Creating Innovative and Engaging Learning Experiences Using Kaltura Interactive Video Paths
Students and teachers can now create and share their personalized video experiences using Kaltura Interactive Video Paths, a newly acquired learning tool on SharkMedia. Interactive Video Paths allow learners to “choose their own adventure.” Interactive videos can quickly offer a guide or “hotspot” to a specific topic for information. Students can personalize their own viewing experience, rather than scrubbing through a vast video timeline and inadvertently missing valuable information which makes for a more user-friendly experience.
Should Instructors Consider Changing Default Due Times for their Assignments?
When instructors design their courses, as they assign due dates, they often leave the default due time of 11:59 p.m. for assessments. This may work well for many people, but there are reasons to reconsider whether this is the best time to have as a deadline for both students and instructors alike.
Leveraging Canvas and NSU Software in the Online Classroom
There was an excellent article recently on Faculty Focus by Tracey A. Carter, Student Engagement in the Online Classroom: Eight Quick Tips to Spark Students’ Learning. Often times we read articles such as these, and they mention practices paired with tools that we don’t have access to. We wanted to highlight these tips and provide you with some examples of how you can…
Learning with the LEC
Learning with the LEC: Canvas Student Groups
Learning with the LEC – A Learning Resource for NSU Faculty
Learning with the LEC – Canvas Assignment Groups
Learning with the LEC – Canvas Assignment Weights
Learning with the LEC: Drop the Lowest Grade
Learning with the LEC Video: Canvas Link Validator
Learning with the LEC Video: Canvas Module Progression
