Some professors use online resources during classroom instruction. Some give online learning materials and assignments, and then reduce class seat time requirement. Some do not require class seat time at all although students can choose to come to the class. Some give instruction in the online environment only and do not hold class meetings.

Jaesoon An, Ph.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Ask your students if they use Facebook and the chances are most of them do. Maybe it's time to take advantage of that and integrate Facebook into your course.

This post on the Online College blog can help you get started. It lists 100 ideas to use Facebook for class projects and for engaging your students in a new medium. Here are just a few:

• Have students follow news feeds relevant to course material.
• Create Apps for Facebook.
• Keep up with politicians -- especially for political science students.

Sam Eneman
Center for Teaching & Learning

Are you tired of writing extensive comments in the margin of a student paper during grading?  Do you wish you could just talk to the student instead?  Well, professor Jim Glading at SNHU has an innovative practice for you: he uses Jing to record audio and then put a link right there on the student's paper.  This sounds like a time saving device but also one that will provide students with richer feedback. 

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Online learning is different from traditional face-to-face instruction. Online learners must possess certain characteristics to succeed in a virtual classroom. According to the Illinois Online Network, online learners should be self-motivated, self-disciplined, and think critically among other criteria. However, the following question arises: How do you help students learn online? Janet Moore provides a variety of ways to help students learn online. Some strategies include:

• Set the tone for engaging students as a learning community
• Emphasize the relevancy of the course to students
• Make the structure of the course and expectations for overall flow explicit
• Encourage self-direction and diversity

For more strategies to help students succeed online, visit Janet Moore’s blog.

Melanie

Melanie Smith | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Are you looking for ways to incorporate active learning strategies into your teaching? Service learning is one effective way to do it. By having students participate in real-world projects pertinent to your subject area as service activities for community organizations or events, you can give them chances to practice what you are teaching and reflect in the process of the experience. Campus Compact provides resources on service learning.

Jaesoon An, Ph.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Google has recently added a nice new feature to Google Docs. I think you'll like it. I know I do.

Until now, you could download only one file at at time. With the new export feature, you can convert, zip and download multiple files. And you can convert them to Microsoft Office file formats.

First, select the files you want to download. Then, click the More Actions tab and select Export.

In the "Convert, Zip and Download Files" window, select the format to convert to (in the example, I've selected Microsoft Word and Excel). Click Continue (not shown).

In a few minutes, a .zip file will be created and downloaded to a location on your computer that you choose.

If you use Google Docs, this will save you a lot of time. Give it a try!

Sam Eneman
Center for Teaching & Learning

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, pronounced "Nessie") is now ten years old.  UNC Charlotte students have been participating for years, and the results have been circulated on campus.  According to Molly Broad, former UNC system president and current head of the American Council on Education,

...higher education is “not moving fast enough” right now to have in place accountability systems that truly answer the questions being asked of higher education. The best bet for higher education, she said, is to more fully embrace various voluntary systems, and show that they are used to promote improvements.

The danger, she said, is that without such a shift, government entities will set their own standards. She said that right now she sees that potential coming less from the federal government than from states. Those with very high levels of unemployment, Broad warned, “may be tempted to tie their level of support [for higher education] to very specific outcomes tied to job creation.” [h/t Inside Higher Ed]

Point taken.  There is definite value in using our universities to help develop the workforce, but this is not the usual approach we take towards assessing student engagement while they are on campus.  The NSSE could then turn into something very different, I suppose.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

One of the major projects in the Center for Teaching and Learning for the past two years has been to collaborate with and assist the Spanish department in redesigning their elementary Spanish program (1201 and 1202) to be a hybrid course according to the methodology provided by the National Center for Academic Transformation (a hybrid courses replaces a portion of in-class seat time with online activities).  During this process, we have met with colleagues at Chapel Hill, who had completed a similar project already. 

I now see in Inside Higher Ed that UNC-CH is changing their hybrid course to go fully online.  The driving force is to save money.  They also rebut student objections, saying that the evaluation "data revealed that while students in traditional courses said they thought they mastered the material better than their peers in hybrid courses, a comparative assessment of learning outcomes showed no difference between the two."  [Hmm...no significant difference, you say?  Interesting.]  They expect the evaluation data of the fully online version to closely mirror these results. 

So do I.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Here's an interesting idea from Elliot Masie, whose professional focus is on organizational performance and emerging technology. Although he works mostly in the corporate and organizational world, his idea of scouts for learning might have some value for us in higher education teaching and learning.

He suggests that we find two people very different from ourselves to serve as "scouts." One might be a person of a different generation who can give us insight into how others look at learning and collaboration. Another one might be technical or not technical at all to provide fresh perspectives.

This might be a relatively low effort way to keep fresh and challenged. Let's add some scouts to our outlook on teaching and learning.

Sam Eneman
Center for Teaching & Learning
UNC Charlotte

Trends in education show that majority of students today are digital learners, or digital natives as it was referred to in the September 11, 2009 blog post, “Learning On-the-Go.” Our students expect the use of technology in the curriculum; however, are we listening? Are you paying attention to your students? “Pay Attention” is a YouTube video developed to motivate instructors to more effectively integrate technology into their classrooms. Are you engaging or enraging your students? You are encourages to view “Pay Attention” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEFKfXiCbLw (video length 7:42).

Melanie

Melanie Smith | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte