Tips for Letting Your Personality Shine When Teaching Online

If you are like me, I am a perfectionist who strives for great student evaluations of my online teaching. To accomplish this, I constantly read online teaching/distance learning literature to expand my knowledge of teaching in the online environment. 



In addition to my research, I collect data on online teaching and I use this data to conduct research on online teaching effectiveness. Here are Tips for Letting Your Personality Shine When Teaching Online!

Three of these Tips Are...

1. Create an Introductory Assignment

2. Online Discussions

3. Create a Blog Assignment

Enjoy!

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Texas Students Could Be Required to Seek Off-Campus Learning Options - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Readers,

What do you think? What impact might this have on higher education in Texas?

Texas Students Could Be Required to Seek Off-Campus Learning Options - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Millennial Professor, Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

How to Cheat on Blackboard Phase II...

Sorry readers, I had to bring this back ONE MORE TIME! This is a post from Oct. 2008 (546 views from 7,497 visitors) and and it has been my second highest most read most ever!

This section is called, "How to Cheat on Blackboard", but it should be titled "How to Minimize Cheating on Blackboard".

This summer, I started giving face-to-face tests on Blackboard.com (our university's content management system) using the assessment tool. This new tool has proven itself to be very effective in my classroom. This is the first time that many of my students have taken a blackboard test in one of their classes.

1- Walk around the classroom while students are taking the test.

2 - Show the students' answers and the correct answers at the end of the test. This helps the students learn which test questions they answered correctly and which questions they answered incorrectly. My students enjoy this feature.

3 - Provide the students with a test time frame. This prevents the students from accessing the questions and answers later.

4 - Provide a test question database for each course test (i.e. - 50 questions). Then make blackboard randomly select questions (i.e. - 25 questions) from your test question database (i.e. - 50 questions). This feature serves as another anti-cheating mechanism.
I hope this helps!

-Millennial Professor

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Building Higher Education Courses Through Outsourcing

Today, I discovered this article on colleges and universities who OUTSOURCE some of their online student services to Embanet (http://embanet.com/). Some colleges use Embanet to host courses, design courses, market their courses, and to provide student services. 


Here's the article - Outsourced Ed: Colleges Hire Companies to Build Their Online Courses

Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Do You Experience Information Overload? Here's a remedy! - A Video of Coping Strategies

I experience information overload EVERY morning and evening. I have five e-mail accounts, four courses on blackboard, a facebook account, a myspace account, linkedin account,

In addition, I participate in scholarly writing at least two times daily, engage in virtual office hours 5+ hours a week, update two blogs on a weekly basis, and I usually respond to e-mail within a 24 hour period. This amount of information becomes overwhelming to me, especially when people expect an instant response.


This week, I will attempt to adopt some of the strategies introduced in this video - "The Digital You: Attention, Multitasking and Addiction" - Frontline.

Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

I Do Not Give Up on My Online and Face-to-Face Students, Do YOU?

My experience as faculty has been a very rewarding, yet stressful experience. As a student affairs practitioner, we are encouraged to care for each and every student we communicate with on a daily basis. This is an easy process, because we usually communicated with a few select students on a daily basis.

However, as faculty we communicate with many students three times or more per week. We become an integrated part of each students' daily lives, we learn about their celebrations, their heartaches, and we observe their learning experiences.

As faculty, I try to learn each of my students' names, their hometowns, at least five facts about their lives, and their future career plans. This week, I encountered a student that I taught a few years ago at an campus international festival. I addressed her by name and we had a great conversation. I could tell that she was very surprised that I remembered her names and facts about her current life and future career.

As my career progresses, I hope to continue this strong level of interpersonal connectivity between faculty and students. This is a stressful process, but I hope that my students will remember my in-class and out-of-class efforts long after they graduate.

This is my experience as faculty, however some faculty give up on their students. Here is an article titled, "Do Faculty Give Up on Students?" and it focuses on how faculty can make a positive OR negative impact on their students. This impact seems to be directly influenced by a level of care that is exhibited by the faculty member.



Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Online Adult Students and Predictors of Success

Many adult learners are choosing to take online classes in conjunction with their face-to-face classes (or exclusively online classes). This is an exciting opportunity for both colleges/universities and adult learners. However, some of these adult learners experience both barriers and supports when pursuing their degrees.

Recently, I discovered a great literature review focused on adult online learners, "Predictors of Success for Adult Online Learners: A Review of the Literature". This literature review focuses on adult online learners and the predictors of their success. I am very interested in this topic because I will teach two online courses in the fall semester. I hope to provide these online students with ample opportunities to overcome potential barriers they may encounter in the online educational process.

This article was very helpful!

Millennial Professor

Communication Tech. (Use This Tool!): Screencast-O-Matic

Use Screencast-O-Matic.com to create "how to" videos and power point presentations for online classes. This website has the EASIEST online screencast software that I have ever used for my syllabus overview for online classes. It provides an easy upload to youtube.com (10 min. or less) and the site even provides its users with a place to host their 15 minute presentations. The volume is great and I uploaded the video to my youtube account. This provided me with a seamless integration into my blackboard course.

Here's one of the videos from the site (another professor):



This browser-based tool would be great for professors who teach online classes and librarians who need to teach others how to conduct research using the databases. Just an idea!

Have a great week!

Millennial Professor/Jennifer T. Edwards

Surviving Teaching Online Courses

Are you teaching a class online? Are you pulling your hair out? Well, this article offers seven strategies for professors who teach online, "Surviving Teaching Online Courses".

Millennial Professor/Jennifer T. Edwards

Seven Suggestions for Online Professors Who Would Like to Improve Their Online Courses

I plan to modify my entire online speech course during the Winter holidays! Unfortunately, it seems that students enrolled in online courses are more likely to drop out of their course than students taking face-to-face courses (Marry, 2009). During the next few years, I would like to discover what keeps the students enrolled in online courses and what causes them to drop out.

Recently, I discovered an article by Bob Kelly (of Faculty Focus) titled "Seven Ways to Personalize Your Online Course". As the title indicates, the article offers other professors some interesting ways to personalize their courses, which may have an impact on student learning.

The author exerpts information gathered from Jane Dwyer's (a senior lecturer at Rivier College) article titled "Tips From The Pros - 7 Things to Personalize Your Online Course".

Here are the tips:

• Sending the students an introductory letter.
• Welcome the students to the course with a video clip.
• Ask the students some "introductory questions" in discussion boards.
• Create and sustain a "pet gallery", in which students can submit pictures of their pets instead of themselves.
• Create a "bully session" which enables students to contribute likes and improvement suggestions about the course.
• Create an environment of shared leadership, in which students will create and facilitate their own discussion questions.
• Respond to student questions by creating and sustaining a "question forum". This enables all students to see the professor's answers to one student's question.

I am very interested to see if these techniques have an impact on student learning AND if other professors utilize the same pedagogical techniques in their online courses.

Have a great week!

J. Edwards (Millennial Professor)

Teaching Online: Pros and Cons (Chronicle of Higher Education)

As many of you know, I teach "COMS 101 - Fundamentals of Speech Communication" in an online format. There are many pros and cons of teaching a college course in an online format. Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published two articles in their commentary section titled "Teaching Online: 2 Perspectives".

The first article, "A Reaffirmation of Why I Became an Educator", focused on the benefits of teaching online and the second article, "I'll Never Do It Again", focused on the negative aspects of teaching online. These articles can be accessed by clicking the links above.

What do YOU think about teaching a college course online?

Sincerely,

Chat Y! messenger: drjtedwards Skype: drjtedwards

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What? I Have to Be ACCOUNTABLE for My Words?: Professors and Online Content

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamaleaver/

Some colleges and universities are encouraging their faculty to record their lectures and to post them online (either a university-based website or a site like youtube). However, professors are on both sides of the fencepost on this issue. Some professors are excited about the possibility of uploading their lectures online and others are afraid of the potential consequences.

Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education featured an article titled, "Caught (Unfortunately) on Tape: More College are Recording Lectures, so More Professors are Learning to Watch Their Words". In the article, one of the professors stated, "[W]hen it [the lecture] is recorded, "and you say something you shouldn't-you make a joke about a fellow scholar-then what if it gets out and suddenly you're sued for slander?""

http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/

Slander is one of the many issues that professors encounter in their journey towards tenure/ promotion in the digital age. Despite all of the video cameras and recording devices that currently exist or that may appear in classrooms in the future, I believe professors should maintain a sense of self in the classroom. I worry that professors will not be comfortable in their own skin if they fear the potential repercussions of their statements.

"Most classrooms are still free of microphones and cameras (the latest Campus Computing Survey, which tracks information-technology trends, showed that only about 3 percent of courses are recorded)" (Young, 2009, p. A17). However, the last sentence of the article states, "Some professors suggest that the best approach is to go into every class session assuming that their words could be broadcast to the world" (p. A17).

I believe professors should take this information into consideration. It seems more universities are offering online courses to cope with the recession (Pawlowski, 2009). Therefore, more professors may be asked to upload their lectures to compliment their PowerPoint presentations. Who knows what the future may bring to the higher education environment? It is always advantageous to be prepared!

Millennial Professor

References

Pawlowski, A. (2009, March 18). Ride out the recession in a virtual classroom. CNN.com. Retrieved April 9, 2009, from http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/18/economy.online.degrees/

Young, J. (2009, March 20). Caught (Unfortunately) on Tape: More College are Recording Lectures, so More Professors are Learning to Watch Their Words. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(28), A17.

How to Cheat on Blackboard!

This section is called, "How to Cheat on Blackboard", but it should be titled "How to Minimize Cheating on Blackboard". 

This summer, I started giving face-to-face tests on Blackboard.com (our university's content management system) using the assessment tool. This new tool has proven itself to be very effective in my classroom. This is the first time that many of my students have taken a blackboard test in one of their classes.

1. Walk around the classroom while students are taking the test.
2. Show the students' answers and the correct answers at the end of the test. This helps the students learn which test questions they answered correctly and which questions they answered incorrectly. My students enjoy this feature. 
3. Provide the students with a test time frame. This prevents the students from accessing the questions and answers later. 
4. Provide a test question database for each course test (i.e. - 50 questions). Then make blackboard randomly select questions (i.e. - 25 questions) from your test question database (i.e. - 50 questions). This feature serves as another anti-cheating mechanism.
   

I hope this helps!

-Millennial Professor

Benefits of Using Blackboard for Testing!

There are many benefits to using blackboard.com for giving classroom tests. Here are a few...

1. The assessment feature enables the professor to add extra credit points with ease and to correct an incorrect answer with little effort.
2. In the pre-blackboard/scantron era (i.e. - last semester), I agonized over entering the students' grades in my gradebook because it was time consuming. Blackboard.com enables me to export grades into an Excel spreadsheet, which I import into my gradebook. This is a definite plus for me!
3. Students get instant feedback on their test and they are also able to view their grades in the blackboard.com gradebook (i.e. - mygrades). This feature helps me tremendously, because the students always know their course grade at any given moment and I do not have to use paper to disperse their grades.

Millennial Professor 

This Week is BLACKBOARD WEEK!

This week is BLACKBOARD WEEK!

Monday - "Weekly Topic Announcement"/"Ask a Professor" (Response - Next Tues. 11/25/08)


Tuesday -  "How to Cheat on Blackboard"


Thursday - "Benefits of Using Blackboard for Testing"


Next Week  - "My Response to the "Ask a Professor" Question"/New Topic

Do Students Prefer Online Courses?

        This week, registration started at my university. Every semester, I virtually watch the enrollment in each of my classes. I am not a huge football fan, but my view of class registration is similar to the NFL draft. The team (classroom) dynamic seems to change as the enrollment changes. It appears that many of the students in my classes were referred by other students who took the class before. This helps to keep a steady line of "academic minded" students as well as "class clowns" every semester. :)

        When examining the enrollment each semester, I pay particular attention to the following: (a) the number of women and men, (b) the majors that may potentially add to the dynamic context of my course, and (c) the amount of students who enroll in a class that is held at a morning time vs. an afternoon time.

        This semester's registration period is slightly different for me. I am teaching three sections of COMS 101 (Fundamentals of Human Communication) in the spring, because this will be my first semester teaching an online course at a university (I taught a similar course at a community college). The students seem to be very interested in my online COMS 101 course. At this time, I have more students in my COMS 101 online course than my three sections of COMS 101 (face to face classes) combined. I have to keep in mind that many students have not registered yet, but it seems that they are excited about taking an online course. Next semester, I plan to conduct a few assessments in both types of classroom environments (face to face and virtual). I cannot wait to see the results!

Is anyone else encountering this situation (increased enrollment in online courses vs. face to face courses)?

Millennial Professor

The Dreaded 24-Hour Professor Phenomenon

Recently, I realized that I have become a 24 hour professor. I tried to avoid this phenomenon, but I think that it is inevitable at this point. On Friday, I finished grading my students' speeches on blackboard at 11:30 p.m., but I did not get finished with class-related items until 3:00 a.m. The next morning, I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to post the midterm review.

Despite my weekly scholarly research, I teach four classes a semester. In addition, I have a thirty minute commute to campus. I LOVE my job and I keep a very organized schedule, but there are not enough hours in the day to finish everything that I need to finish.

Most nights, I respond to e-mails and instant messages (related to course material) from students until 11:30 p.m. The negative aspect of the phenomenon is that I should know better. I conduct research on computer mediated communication and the impact that this type of communication has on the educational environment.

According to Jeffrey Young (2002), a writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education, "The growth of e-mail, course Web sites, instant-messaging software, and online courses has forced many professors to rearrange their daily routines and has made them more accessible to students than ever before". I complete agree with this statement. My Sunday evenings (before speech days) used to consist of Desparate Housewives (DHs) and spending time with my family, but now the first day of the week includes DHs, spending time with family and blackboard/instant messenger.

 

I am definitely going to have to minimize my computer mediated communication (CMC), because next semester I will teach my second online-only class. This will be interesting and I hope to have a life as well. As a result of my hope for less CMC, I decided NOT to add a wireless PC card/service to my computer. If I added this feature to my computer/wireless account, I would NEVER be able to take a vacation again. I experience a sigh of relief when I carry my computer to a hotel that charges for internet services. If I have to pay for the internet, I buy one 24 hour session and finish all of my work during that period.

This week, I plan to minimize my 24-hour professor tendencies. We shall see how the fruits of my labor (or lack thereof) will impact my 24-hour professor phenomenon.

Millennial Professor


References:
Young, J. R. (2002, May 31). The 24-hour professor. The Chronicle of Higher Education website. Retrieved October 8, 2008, from http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i38/38a03101.htm

Five Best Practices for Online Workshops Targeted Towards Millennial Students

Some college graduates and current undergraduates from the millennial generation have short attention spans. This weekend, my husband and I will facilitate a "College Prep Boot Camp" for high school seniors.

There are certain aspects of this generation that we have to take into consideration when planning this event. I am a college professor and my husband teaches high school, therefore we have very interesting conversations about students from the millennial generation before and during college.

While planning for the workshop last weekend, I found an article from Litmos.com titled, "5 Tips to Design Effective Training for Generation Y". This article focuses on online workshop facilitation for millennial students (which we may consider in the next few months). According to this article, these are five things to consider before you build an online training course for students of this generation:

1. Keep training short & to the point.
   
   
2. Good communication tools within the training system are a must. Messaging at a minimum!
   
   
3. Community is important. Build forums & discussion groups around topics.
   
   
4. No one likes to be told what to do, especially Gen Y. Make sure your training 'guides' thinking rather than telling them how it is.
   
   
5. Incorporate the big picture. Generation Y are very interested in their part in it, and more importantly how they can change it!

I will definitely take these into consideration when planning for my online course next semester.

Testing Millennials Via Blackboard

Recently, I decided to administer my tests online. This has been very challenging for me, because I know some students may take advantage of this opportunity. I researched this issue for a few years and I decided to implement online testing in all of my classes (lower level and upper level).

My first test had 25 questions and the students had 30 minutes to complete the examination. One of the classes is longer than the others and this class was given 15 extra minutes to take the examination. This class also served as my variable in this semi experimental research design.

This time, my main focus was on minimizing the opportunities that students may use to cheat on the test. Here are some other things that I did:

a) I reminded the students that cheating on this test will put them at a disadvantage in the future. (The next test (midterm) will be worth more points and I will be present to proctor the examination.)

b) I randomized the questions and answer choices on the examination.

c) I informed the students that I could see when two students or more took the examination at the same time.

d) I created a database of 40+ questions and blackboard randomly chose which questions would create the test of 25 questions for each student.

This is a great website that helped me! - Problems with Online Testing

If you have any additional suggestions, please let me know! I hope that this helps!

-Millennial Professor

Gas Prices and Our Undergraduates!

As all of you know, gas prices are the highest that they have been in a very long time. Many of our students do not live on campus and they are feeling the impact of the gas prices.


The number of students enrolling in online courses is increasing.
College students at most colleges and universities do not live on campus and they have to commute to campus. The cost of commuting is rising with the gas prices and let's not forget about the wear and tear on the student's automobile. Students are feeling the crunch and are deciding to enroll in online and hybrid (face to face and internet instruction) classes.

According to Ed Klonoski, a representative of Charter Oak - Connecticut's public online college, across the nation there is a 10 percent increase in the number of students choosing to enroll in online courses.

Are faculty ready for this new demand?
As the number of students choosing to enroll in online courses increase, it seems that the number of online course offerings will increase as well. In my experience, a large number of the faculty at small and mid-sized institutions are resistant to offering online courses in their discipline. As a professor from the millennial generation, I believe that this resistance comes from the technology-centered learning curve that exists between the generations. This curve is perpetuated by the increase in internet technology and the content management systems that colleges and universities offer to their faculty and students. The blackboard.com content management system has experienced many updates that benefit almost everyone at a given university. For example, all of my grading for my face-to-face classes is conducted online by using the rubric feature and my my tests are administered online as well. This is a win-win situation, because the students gain instant access to their grades and I conserve paper and time.

However, as I stated before, many faculty are resistant to this new change and it will be interesting to see more internet-based classes are offered in the future.

Are For-Profit Institutions Taking Our Potential Students?
Since the gas prices increased, I observed fair amount of commercials advertising online degrees (associates and bachelors) through for-profit institutions. Many high school seniors and non-traditional students will have trouble gaining financial aid from private lenders (Schnurman, 2008) and they may start paying more attention to these for-profit colleges.

What will be the impact on U.S. competitiveness when this growing amount of students with degrees from for-profit institutions enter the workforce? Will these students be as competitive as students from traditional public and private institutions?

Interesting Article! - Gas Prices Driving Students to Online Courses - By Jeffery R. Young

Thanks for reading!

-MP