Many articles and workshops explore complex concepts and tools that may not be suitable for everyone. With this in mind, I asked our instructional design team at ASU Online, “What are some easy, non-technical, low-hanging-fruit-type enhancements for online courses that all instructors should consider? Here are the recommendations we came up with. Continue reading
By Philip Arcuria & Maryrose Chaaban
Rubrics have become a highly touted and ubiquitous tool in the proverbial assessment toolbox of higher education instructors. Rubrics can provide a wide range of benefits, from providing consistent feedback to students to decreasing overall grading time. Continue reading
Whenever student enrollment capacity dramatically increases for an instructor, there are a number of common questions and concerns: How will the increased grading load be managed? How can instructors facilitate a discussion among 100+ students? How will students receive meaningful feedback? Here are some best practices and considerations for managing high-enrollment courses that have been successful in our ASU Online courses. Continue reading
If you need a little background on what Yellowdig is and how to use it, refer to this: Yellowdig: A Social Learning Platform.
With a little poking around, you’ll notice the useful feature of pinning a post to the top of the board, ensuring students see the most important pin first. Did you know there are other ways to sort pins? Continue reading
Yellowdig is a social learning platform designed for higher education that integrates with any LMS. Many instructors use it instead of LMS discussion forums.
The best part is that it’s auto-graded and auto-populates grades to your gradebook in any LMS! Students achieve points through word count and participating with common social media behavior, like “liking” or “loving” a post or posting a comment on another person’s Pin. Continue reading
As instructors, we want to challenge our students, help them to learn and grow, and ensure they have a positive experience in our courses. We carefully develop and curate content that will engage students and help them meet our course objectives. One thing we may not consider are the challenges students with disabilities may experience when interacting with our content. Continue reading
The words “college student” evoke an image of a fresh-faced youth, eager to take in their first years of independence in the dorms of a university, and pursue their education to begin a career. Indeed, the description of a “traditional” student is a first-time college attendee under 25 years of age, financially dependent upon parents, living on campus and taking courses full-time (National Center for Education Statistics; Silver, Bourke, & Strehorn, 1998). Continue reading
This week is Fair Use Week, a dedicated time to promote and discuss the opportunities Fair Use gives us in our daily activities. Fair Use is probably the most powerful component of U.S. Copyright law, and the most misunderstood. Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act describes Fair Use as a limitation on the exclusive rights of copyright holders for purposes such as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.” Fair Use is often referred to as the breathing space for free speech, free inquiry, and the open exchange of ideas in copyright law – the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized this as a “First Amendment safeguard.” It’s what allows us to include quotations from published sources in our scholarship, share Youtube videos with our friends on Facebook, record episodes on our DVR for later, and read interesting fan fiction. And, it’s one of best tools to have in your pocket when designing an online course (see Fair Use in a Day in the Life of a College Student).
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Melanie Reyes, MSW Online Program Coordinator for the School of Social Work, in her Faculty Showcase video, “The Wide World of Videos” discusses how the School of Social work uses videos to introduce faculty and staff, present field internship expectations and training, build student engagement, and connect with subject matter experts to deliver course content. Ms. Reyes presented departmental best practices and considerations for using videos in online courses. Watch, enjoy, and learn!
Easy course navigation is a critical component of a great online course. According to Quality Matters (QM), an organization dedicated to improving online course quality, one of the requirements for a QM certified course is that the, “Course navigation facilitates ease of use” (QM Standard 8.1), adding, “Navigation throughout the course [should be] consistent, logical, and efficient.” Reducing the amount of scrolling, clicking, and searching means your students can spend more time learning the content and they’ll miss fewer critical details like assignment requirements and due dates, resulting in a better overall experience for both students and instructors. Here are nine ways to improve your students’ ability to get where they need to go. Continue reading
