Lessons Learned from 13 Years as a Director of Online Education
Back in 2004 I made the decision to develop my first online course. I was using online discussions in one of my face-to-face classes and having success with them—really, my primary motivation to teach fully online. So in 2005 I took the leap and offered my first online class. No...
Recruiting Subject Matter Experts for Curriculum and Course Design: Three Nonmonetary Strategies
For many institutions, attracting quality subject matter experts (SMEs) for curriculum and course design is challenging under the best circumstances. Budgetary constraints often compel institutions to pursue nonmonetary recruitment strategies. Furthermore, money is not always the deciding factor in an SME’s choice of opportunities. Successful, passionate practitioners have many options...
Bridging the Generational Gap
A while back, an image went viral of a group of school children sitting engrossed in front of Rembrandt’s famous painting, “The Night Watch,” in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Only, seemingly instead of drinking in the influence of the old master, their heads were bent over their cell phones, opting...
The Importance of Non-Cognitive Factors
The last few years have brought an explosion of interest in the role of non-cognitive factors in education, those behaviors outside of course content that make a real difference in student success. Educational researchers have begun to examine the ways in which colleges and universities can encourage students to develop...
Hearing the Call: Helping Students Find a Vocation, Not Just a Job
Ask any potential student or their parents about their top concerns when choosing a college, and “employability” will likely be on the list. A host of societal factors have combined to make this true: First, the Great Recession of 2008 made families much more concerned about the cost/benefit rationale for...
Closing the Skills Expectations–Performance Gap
A Google search for “college graduate employment readiness” produces over 2.5 million hits. Unfortunately, the top results have titles such as, “Study Finds Big Gap between Student and Employer Perceptions” (Inside Higher Ed); “Why Are So Many College Students Failing to Gain Job Skills before Graduation?” (Washington Post); and “2015...
Improve Your Teaching with a Teaching Toolbox
Teaching online can become closer to the ideal of a one-to-one meeting of minds where the instructor connects with students on an individual basis by providing each with the specific instruction needed to elevate his or her understanding. Developing a teaching toolbox will facilitate this meeting of the minds.
Curt Bonk Talks about Open Education
Open education really breaks into two forms: open courses and open resources. Open courses are the MOOCs hosted on Coursera, EdX, and elsewhere. Open courses allow higher education to advance its fundamental mandate of serving the public good by making its faculty expertise freely available to the world. By contrast,...
Friendship as a Teaching Strategy for Graduate Students
As graduate students, we find that developing friendships with professors results in increased learning and performance. In such an environment, one is not afraid to reveal weaknesses or academic shortcomings, and it erases (or minimizes) any insecurity that could result from unequal content authority. We feel secure in asking questions,...
