One of the things we discuss in our popular Fundamentals of Online Teaching (OT 101) certificate course is how some schools will provide their online adjuncts with everything they need to teach a course up front. They will give you a syllabus and assignments and even early messages to students and all you do is plug-and-play. Other schools… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Online Teaching Resources
Engaging Students with Weekly Video Announcements
Last week, we discussed three techniques to use to “invite” your students to an online discussion – a means of increasing engagement, an essential variable in online student (and teacher) success. This week, I’ll add another tip for increasing engagement, as reported on the Blackboard Blog (2016): Increase student engagement by posting weekly video announcements…. Read more »
5 Creative Icebreaker Assignments for the Online Classroom
Time and time again, research is telling us that a sense of community is vital to the success of the online classroom. Setting the stage at the beginning of the term is a great way to help establish this sense of community. Thus, any “let’s get to know each other” activity is more than just… Read more »
Relationship Between an SME and and Instructional Designer
A web article out of Brown University describes this relationship quite succinctly and well. I’ll summarize the high points here and add in a few others from my own experience as an SME. I’ll also direct you to the article, titled Best Practices in Online Teaching for additional helpful information. Defining the Roles. Faculty and… Read more »
Crafting Good Discussion Questions and Facilitating Fruitful Conversation
We know that the discussion board is the heart of any online classroom. One of our responsibilities as online instructors is to craft and facilitate quality discussions that will help students meet the learning objectives of the course. But what types of questions make for good discussions? What are some ways to ensure that the… Read more »
Components of Online Teaching Presence: Facilitating and Direct Instruction
Hello! Here on the AdjunctWorld blog, we seem to ping pong back and forth between brief articles about finding online teaching work and those regarding honing one’s craft as an online instructor. This week, we will focus on the latter. Even if you aren’t teaching online yet, when you do land an interview ideas such… Read more »
Two Cover Letter Tips for the Online Teaching Job Application
The cover letter can be a very important part of the application packet. It details your interest and qualifications and also makes the match between those qualifications and/or experiences and the job you are applying for. I have two tips to share concerning cover letters. The first comes from my own experience in applying for… Read more »
Hosting Contentious Discussions Online
As a social science online instructor, I’ve seen my fair share of politically-charged discussion board posts. Especially these days. Hotly debated topics are welcomed by a lot of in-class instructors, as it livens the classroom environment and may help drive home some important learning objectives. However, hosting such discussions online can be a bit more… Read more »
The Role of the Online Teacher’s Personality
I just finished reading an interesting, brief article on the role of the online instructor’s personality in the virtual classroom (Oregon University, 2016, article has since been archived). The author makes the point that we’ve long understood the role of instructor personality in the face-to-face classroom (with dynamic, humorous, “fun” instructors often receiving higher student… Read more »
Ending an Online Class – Facilitating Self-Reflection
I’m just finishing up facilitating an online Field Experience course. In this class, students who were actively engaged in supervised human service field experiences kept track of their hours, reflected on their experience in weekly journals, read relevant text materials, and participated in discussion forums all in an effort to help them get the most… Read more »