Building Online Learning Communities

In Building Online Learning Communities, Palloff and Pratt discuss a number of aspects of the online classroom, focusing mainly on the importance of forming and including a community in the course.  After explaining the usefulness of communities in a learning environment, the authors reveal the best ways to create a sense of community in an online course.  They also go over how to maintain the community and how to utilize the community throughout the course.  The book incorporates many examples from the authors’ experiences in successful online classes.  It also explains how to create an online course from scratch, with a focus on building a community among the participants.  You can check out this book from the Jefferson College Library.  Please comment by clicking the comment button below.

I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student

 This book, I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student by Patrick Allitt takes the reader through an award-winning professor’s typical semester of classes, answering common pedagogical questions and examining a range of classroom issues.  Learn about the teaching experience of this British-born American History professor from the course-creation process to midterm assignments to finals and course evaluations (and many learning experiences in between).  Any instructor can take something useful from reading about Professor Allitt’s personal examples of classroom situations.  The book is written with humor, wit, and sympathy for both teachers and students.  Topics covered range from ethics of student-teacher relationships to evaluating class participation to writing assignments and much more. This book is available for checkout from the Jefferson College library. Please comment about it or teaching experiences you’ve had by clicking the comment button below.

Collaborative Learning Techniques

In the book, Collaborative Learning Techniques, Barkley, Cross and Major provide a rationale for using small groups in the college classroom.  “Taken as a whole, the research appears to substantiate the claim that both underprepared and well-prepared students benefit from group learning, but perhaps for different reasons. Good students may benefit from having to formulate their thoughts and knowledge into concepts understandable to others, while academically poorer students may benefit from the explanations of peers” (p. 21).  Thirty small group activities for the college classroom are succinctly described and examples from specific courses are given for each activity.  Tips for ensuring group time is used for “substantive academic work” are provided.  If you have used small groups in your courses, please post a comment to share your strategies.

Grade Inflation

Lester H. Hunt, editor of Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education (2008), presents thought provoking information on the topics of grading and grade inflation. The book includes contributions from authors with differing perspectives. “What is the goal or purpose of grading?” is offered as the core question. The pressure for colleges to increase graduation rates, due to the rising costs for education, is also brought into the discussion. Six theses about grade inflation are stated in the Afterword.  “Is grade inflation a problem? And if it is, is there anything that can be done about it?” Please consider checking out this book and/or posting a comment on this post.

Online Tools for Expected Learning Outcomes

“The Tools for Successful Online Teaching” by Lisa Dawley is a well organized book based on the idea that effective online course design begins with the student learning outcomes for the course. Dawley demonstrates how to select online activities that match learning outcome action verbs. For each online tool, she gives examples of activities for the various levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy. For example, if the learning outcome calls for students to “formulate” (Synthesis level), online small group learning would be an appropriate tool. Specifically, small groups could be assigned the task of creating and maintaining a blog about specific course concepts.  Individual chapters in the book are devoted to various online tools, such as discussion forums, small group learning, assessment and survey tools, and blogs and wikis. If you have used any of these tools, please share your experiences by clicking on the comment link below.

Increasing Student Retention in Online Courses

 

“Going the Distance: A Handbook for Part-Time & Adjunct Who Teach Online,” by Beck and Greive, is a concise and practical book that provides great basic information not only for adjunct online instructors, but also for all instructors who teach face-to-face courses with an online course page. For example, the book includes a section on free resources, such as MERLOT, that are accessible with the click on a mouse.  In addition, the authors maintain that instructors can “have a tremendous impact on student retention” through effective community building.  Four pages are dedicated to the topic of community building.  Beck and Greive assert that “If students feel connected, if they believe you have a personal interest in them, they will be less likely to drop out.” Please share your successful strategies for engaging students in online courses by clicking on the comment link below.

Motivating Students

In the book, “The Professor’s Guide to Teaching: Psychological Principles and Practices” (2003), Donelson Forsyth encourages faculty to “stress the extent to which educational outcomes are caused by factors students control – time spent studying, note taking, diligence, preparation – rather than factors beyond their control- test difficulty, native ability, academic background.” Students who feel they are in control of their academic success are more likely to persevere. How do you get students to see the connection between their efforts and their grades? Please click on the comments link below to share your thoughts.

Grade Inflation

Valen E. Johnson addresses the issue of grade inflation in the book, Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education (2003). He notes that grade inflation rewards mediocrity, discourages excellence and negatively impacts faculty’s ability to evaluate students. Johnson states that grade inflation is partly a result of the varying grading perspectives among faculty members at any given college. The author, who states that he views grading from a traditionalist’s perspective, finds the postmodern view of grading bizarre. He describes the postmodern view of grading as being less objective and having an emphasis on divergent representations of reality. Seven strategies for addressing the problem of grade inflation are described in the final chapter of the book. Please share your thoughts on grade inflation by clicking on the comments link.

75 e-Learning Activities, by Ryan Watkins

In the book, 75 e-Learning Activities (2005), Ryan Watkins describes activities for instructors to consider when designing online courses. The activities generate “creative and interactive course experiences” for online learners. For example, Learner-Crafted Case Studies is an activity that provides a structure for students to work together to develop and share case studies that apply course content to the real world.  The activity utilizes small group asynchronous discussion boards to allow students to work in groups of 3-5 to develop real world examples of an assigned course topic. Finished case studies are presented to the class on a separate whole-class discussion board. If you have used this strategy or a similar strategy, please post a comment describing your experience.

Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers by Thomas Angello and Patricia Cross

Angello and Cross encourage faculty to use classroom assessment techniques (CATS) because CATS “empower both teachers and their students to improve the quality of learning in the classroom.” In their book, they describe fifty CATS, many of which require minimal preparation time and little class time to administer. For example, the minute paper is often used in college classrooms. Professors ask students to take a few minutes at the end of class to jot down the most important points from the day’s class. The instructor collects the papers, reads through student comments and makes notes of items to address in the next class. If you have used the Minute Paper strategy, please post a comment to let us know your thoughts on the effectiveness of this strategy.