Our College Graduates and Student Loans

This semester is finally winding down. THANK GOODNESS! Yesterday, I wrote an article for the college newsletter that focuses on the "After the Degree, Now What?" conference. This was a very interesting way to reflect on last month's successful event. However, today I received a message on my RSS feed titled, "College Graduates Struggle to Repay Loans".

Many college students do not focus on their student loans until their last month of school. This is when students are required by the federal government to participate in online exit counseling. At this time in most students' lives (including my own), they are not focused on ANYTHING but their final exams and the graduation ceremony.

I think more students should know about the pros and cons of consolidating their student loans. In addition, it seems that many students do not know that they have the option to defer student loans if they choose to go back to school. Last, but certainly not least, if students experience a financial hardship or unemployment, they should know about the option to ask their loan company for a deferment.

My goal is to pay off my student loans in the next four years (before I go up for tenure). My family uses coupons, but I will definitely have to find more ways to save money repay our student loans!

Have a great day!

J. Edwards (Millennial Professor)

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)

Technology in the Classroom: Video Clips and Their Potential Impact on Student Thinking

This is a great example of professors using technology in their classrooms. Dr. Michael Mackert, Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising at The University of Texas at Austin, required his students to submit video links pertaining to health. He made the assignment very broad because he wanted to gauge the students' interpretation of "health on TV".

One of the students submitted the following video which is based on one person's negative experience with a flu shot.



But wait! She IS getting better! One of the professor's teaching assistants found an update video. Here's the interesting aspect, she stated that people have actually hacked into some of her social networking accounts. This prompted her to use another website to post updates on her illness.



The interesting aspect of this classroom assignment is that the students were able to see the "before" and the "current status" of the woman in the two clips. However, if the students were not exposed to the second video, many of them would make an assumption that the woman is not making any progress. Not only do we have to encourage students to dig deeper with news articles, but we need to encourage them to search for updates regarding youtube videos and other new media.

It would be INTERESTING to see if students would be less likely to obtain a get a flu shot after viewing the first video and then seeing if their thoughts change after seeing the second video. However, the changes of IRB board approval would be highly unlikely (at almost any institution). :)

What do you think?

J. Edwards (Millennial Professor)

"Social Networking Could Help Community College Students"

My colleague Lora and I are VERY interested in the impact of Twitter and social networking websites on the learning process. As a result, we are collecting ANY article pertaining to the subject. BTW - We have a practitioner-based article (regarding Twitter) that will be published very soon.

USA Today published an article titled, "Social Networking Could Help Community College Students", which focuses on the extended classroom. I wonder what impact will social networking websites have on the university and high school environments?

If you have any scholarly article suggestions pertaining to social networking websites and their impact on student learning, PLEASE let me (us) know!

Have a great day!

J. Edwards (Millennial Professor)