The idea of affordances has been used in the last few decades to capture the idea that the environment allows us to do certain things. Some environments afford some actions, other environments afford different actions. In this post, I consider the characteristics of virtual classrooms and what they afford students and teachers. First, technology has Read More
Category: Online Teaching
On Problems as Teaching Strategy
Merrill (2002) placed real-word problems at the center of effective teaching. The problems, however, must be judged “interesting, relevant, and engaging” (p. 46) to the lead to learners so they have a sense of caring that was labeled “ownership.” Such problems are also selected so that students understand the problems, care the problem be solved, Read More
Spinning Up Online Classrooms
Earlier this month, I presented “Spinning Up Online Classrooms” at a regional conference for community college educators. In this post, I summarize my presentation. For a number of reasons, educators are often in the position where they must quickly prepare an online classroom. Certainly, the pandemic caused this, but there are other situations as well. Read More
Reflections on Online Higher Education
Educators who surf the World Wide Web frequently encounter advertisements for online universities. The sales pitches are enticing for busy adults who seek a graduate degree; “learn on your own schedule,” “save costs,” finish quickly through accelerated schedules.” The advertisements come from diverse providers, including for-profit universities which have been in the news for unflattering Read More
Rate, Interaction, Place: Three Aspects of Education
We how work in education have been thrown into chaos this past year. The chaos has not been as bad as our reaction to it, but that is a topic for another post. What has become clear in the past year has been educators’ assumptions about teaching and learning and schooling. As often happens, my Read More
On Academic Freedom
One of the issues I’ve seen raised in recent months, and one that I expect will become more common as we move into the “post-COVID” era of education is academic freedom. Specifically, I refer to the argument by faculty that they have the “right” to teach in any manner they see fit and that any Read More
On Reducing Bias in Online Teaching
I found this short answer to the question, “How can we reduce bias in online teaching?” which I composed a couple of years ago. I’m curious about my suggestion that Standard English is a method whereby we can reduce bias. I’m not sure I would give that suggestion now. Is that inclusive language or not? Read More
Adding a Video Introduction to Your Virtual Classroom
The one feature of my online classroom that students always say they appreciate is the video introductions. (I teach completely online courses at a community college that offers face-to-face, hybrid, and online versions of courses I teach. My students typically are taking most of their courses in each of those three modalities.) There are three Read More
High-Quality Online Courses #4: File Formats & Devices
Instructors have many options when creating materials for students. They may have various operating systems, productivity suites, and media creation applications on their devices. Students may not have the same devices and applications installed on their computers and devices as their instructors have. As a result, students may not be able to open files that Read More
Naming Chunks and Items: Thinking About High-Quality Virtual Classrooms #4
The names given to chunks can contribute to the ease of navigating your online classroom. By giving chunks meaningful and descriptive names, instructors both make it easier to find materials and introduce organizing themes to the course. Consider these names that could be applied to a course in which students are learning to use various Read More