Category: Articles

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many educational institutions quickly changed traditional classroom teaching to online, remote learning. As a result, some strain was placed on the student to teacher relationship since they were no longer face-to-face. Some students encountered challenges learning from home, which negatively affected their engagement and ability to learn.

One of the foundations when designing a course, is the learning objectives. Learning objectives aren’t just a list of what you plan to cover in the class, rather what you want your students to learn or achieve by the end of the course. If your students don’t know the end goal and if the course doesn’t have measurable learning objectives, your students could get lost along the way.

During these unprecedented times, science teaching faculty are faced with the challenge of moving their lab courses to the online environment. This article presents strategies on how you can create online field labs throughout multiple semesters in an online course. The best practices in this article reinforce concepts to deliver successful and engaging online field labs.

In a recent LEC Newsletter Article, Leveraging Canvas and NSU Software in the Online Classroom, you were introduced to some of the tools you have available to stimulate active and learner-aligned strategies to students such as videos and zoom breakout rooms. This article presents three easy-to-setup activities that you can use immediately in your course to generate interest and increase student engagement. Think-Breakout-Share, Short Video Burst and Fishbowl Discussions are all presented.

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 put these tips to use with the common software and tools in use at NSU.  Provide Lecture Outlines  Outlines are useful to students for a straightforward breakdown of what they are about to learn. As professors there are several ways to make outlines available to your students, here are a few suggestions:  Upload a Word or PDF document to your course and link the document in a page as part of your weekly or topical course modules. Present the document in your Zoom meeting, linking to it in your Zoom chat prior to starting.  Develop a short video that can be watched prior to starting your lecture. Videos can be uploaded to SharkMedia and embedded into a page accessible prior to the start of the lecture content.  Use Pre-course Videos and Subject Matter videos Constructively  Using software, you can record your webcam, your computer screen or both and create a short introductory video to the course or weekly modules. Recording videos is as easy […]

Hi Sharks! Shark Notes is a brief summary of article highlights that you may find helpful. Whenever we read an article we’d like to share, we’ll provide the link in our newsletter. Since you probably get quite a few suggested articles coming from colleagues, external companies, and so on, you can first read the Shark Notes to help decide whether you want to read further. Check out our second article recommendation along with the accompanying Shark Notes. We promise, there will not be a quiz! Distracted Minds: The Role of Tempo in Good Teaching https://www.chronicle.com/article/distracted-minds-the-role-of-tempo-in-good-teaching Summary: Wondering what you can do to keep your students attentive during class? This article presents strategies to “think like a conductor” so that you can “change the pace and the action” in your classroom. The three strategies listed in the article helps captivate your student’s attention in class. Highlights: Structure and signpost – Once you have outlined the structure of your class, identify ways you can captivate your students once they have become distracted. Inspiration from index cards – How can you arrange the activities to be more meaningful and more engaging? Pentecostal pedagogy – What are some of the attention-renewal strategies you use in your classroom and how does this relate to your classroom structure? Viewing the article […]

Hi, Sharks!  We’re kicking off a new addition to our LEC weekly newsletter.  Shark Notes is a brief summary of article highlights that you may find helpful.  Whenever we read an article we’d like to share, we’ll provide the link in our newsletter.  Since you probably get quite a few suggested articles coming from colleagues, external companies, and so on, you can first read the Shark Notes to help decide whether you want to read further.  Check out our first article recommendation along with the accompanying Shark Notes.  We promise, there will not be a quiz!  8 Ways to Be More Inclusive in Your Zoom Teaching  https://www.chronicle.com/article/8-ways-to-be-more-inclusive-in-your-zoom-teaching/  Summary:  Many faculty have had to jump into virtual classrooms with little or no prior experience in running synchronous sessions effectively.  Applying the principles of inclusive teaching can have a profound, positive impact on reaching diverse learners who are also adjusting to new environments, especially in Zoom.  These eight suggestions will help you reach students and keep them engaged during your Zoom sessions.    Highlights:  Have students edit their names in Zoom to names or nicknames they preferred to be called.  Set Zoom ground rules and let students know what they should and shouldn’t do.  Encourage students to […]

  You may have heard it once or many times over: the way to help to students succeed is to forge a trusting environment and relationship with them. Although research has proven this to be true; however, teaching online is quite different from delivering lessons in face-to-face classrooms. Instructing remotely can sometimes leave both instructors and students feeling a little disconnected. No judgement here, but it can be easy to forget that percipient students do exist in the cyber classroom. So how can instructors help students stay connected in a remote classroom?      Culturally Responsive Teaching   According to Inside Higher Ed, the student demographic is shifting towards becoming more ethnically diverse and attracting more non-traditional adult learners. The good news here is that these are growing demographics, so it is important to foster an inclusive environment  (St Amore, 2020).  Incorporating cultural diversity in online courses can take a little more time to prepare however, “constructing a shared belief through course design may help lessen some of the adverse effects that may be experienced in the online classroom” (Hampton, 2018, p.27). Some ways to improve the method or development of online teaching programs are to:  Know your students (nationality, gender, age, […]

Most instructors know the concept of the flipped classroom. It is an instructional strategy where students complete readings and watch lectures at home and do assignments and discussions in class. With the shift to BlendFlex teaching, instructors can still apply the flipped classroom concept. Instructors need to carefully plan the flipped class time acknowledging their role has shifted from a lecturer to a designer of learning activities. In addition, creating classes in which all students can learn and feel they belong is key. Here are some tips for creating an active learning environment with a focus on engaging students who might be more introverted and less inclined to want to participate in many of the active and collaborative activities that a flipped classroom promotes.   Reflection  The flipped classroom focuses on collaboration and interaction, which can favor the extrovert. Introverts oftentimes prefer working on creative tasks by themselves and therefore, valuable contributions and good ideas from introverts may be missed during the flipped class time. It is important to include opportunities for students to reflect and work on their own in the flipped classroom space. Reflection allows students to think, pause, rethink, make connections to course content and all students can benefit, not just the introverts. Honeycutt […]