It is very important for an on-line instructor to manage the facilitation process carefully. For many instructors, the student roster is comprised of non-traditional aged students. So, how can a balance be struck between proper, dynamic, engaged guidance and coddling or hand holding? If instructors provide clear objectives and a roadmap for completing the same, along with consistent feedback and encouragement, most students can be successful. Instructors should not, however, spoon feed information to students. Instead, instructors must lead the class on a road to discovery.

Often an email exchange can be derailed by simple formatting or punctuation issues. For example, using all caps can imply anger or frustration, when mere emphasis was required. Why not simply use underlining instead? Proper salutations in emails can set the best initial tone, e.g., "Dear Professor Schmitt" or "Dear Samuel." With today's prevalent use of texting and online chatting, basic rules of decorum and manners are being lost. Proper tone is essential, and students and instructors must be careful to explore not only the content of their exchanges, but also their mode and pattern of delivery.

In today's every-changing education landscape, new learning tools are created each day. While these innovative tools have opened new vistas for instruction, for some instuctors and learning, the options can be overwhelming. So, when is technology too much? I believe that using online tools can be wonderful, but the pace with which new choices and options are presented to both instructors and learners must be matched to the personalities, teaching styles and learning patterns of all involved in online learning. When the online tools become the focus, and the course content takes a make seat to the same, technology becomes "too much."

Learners who are intimidated by computer technology might find hardware and software problems they cannot fix so overwhelming that they might decide to discontinue the course rather than seek assistance. Once technical issues are identified with my students, I stay in the loop until the issues are resolved.

In today's economy, with competing interests of making a living, spending time with family, and trying to develop a career through schooling, students are in a high pressure environment. And in college they are expected to expand their learning by thinking in ways that they are unaccustomed to. At times this can cause a lot of frustration, especially when having to remember 20+ different aspects of the assignment they have never had to deal with before, such as word requirements, deadlines, days to post, what to include, citations, objectivity, how to respond to classmates, and the list goes on. This situation can create a confrontational student who acts out against other classmates and their instructor. Having a scheduled phone meeting with the student, I would attempt to take the student through the assignment instructions and compare them to the grading rubric and the student's performance. Since the student is being confrontational, this is a difficult position for a faculty member. On one hand, no person (especially a college instructor) should be subjected to violent verbal behavior from a student. This creates a harmful working environment. On the other hand, the instructor really wants to help the student and teach him how to succeed in academia so the student graduates and gets the job of his (or her) dreams. Facing this situation, I would be supportive, explaining to the student that I sympathize with his or her feelings and want to talk about it. But we must do so professionally, adhering to the standards of excellence required by the college/university. If we cannot, no progress can be made. If the student is still upset I would ask him if he would like to talk about this professionally. Then I would tell him that I would be happy to help him improve, but we have to follow the rubric because it is the college standard, one that must be held to every student. I can take him through the assignment instructions, his work, and the rubric to help him learn how to improve and perform well, but we must conduct this phone call professionally.

Use rubrics to promote scorer reliability as you grade students' responses. Share this rubric with students so that they understand the requirements for what you would consider to be a satisfactory answer, and how points will be distributed. I truly believe in rubrics.

The discussion board is my favorite place in the class. It allows me to directly interact with my students and engage in critical contemplation. There is a lot I could say here so let me just highlight a couple discussion board tactics I like to take. Map of the Week: At the beginning of the week I like to post a couple reminders to get the students started. They often forget APA Citations, word requirements, or how best to respond to other students. I will also post a "How I would answer this question" to get them started on the discussion topic. The rest of the week is responding to their posts with scenarios and Socratic questioning. Pro-Life or Pro-Noncognitivist? Having taught different humanities courses for a while I have noticed that students don't like to discuss theory. They are content to talk about how they feel about say abortion and their own personal experiences. But theoretical frameworks are avoided at all cost. My response then is usually something like: "Sarah, you have some great points! That is very utilitarian of you. Would you agree?". The student is usually propelled into the reading wondering if I am calling them pro-life or pro-choice. :) Online for the Holidays?: I also like to come up with fun posts that still relate to the course objectives. Every session tends to have a holiday at some point. During the week of the holiday I will post: Is it ethical to work on a holiday? We discuss the moral dilemma of celebrating a sensitive holiday like 9/11 but still having to make a living. Food for Thought posts will also call students to analyze critical topics in the media or even job issues like affirmative action and employee hiring processes that directly interest them. In the end... The great thing about academia is that it is holistic. Every field and subject can be related to teach the students. Statistics and anthropology can find common ground, as can physics and philosophy. It is as far as out intellect and introspection can take us.

Be sensitive to concerns learners express and questions they raise, and be consistent in the manner in which you provide timely feedback. This help you gain your students respect.

I have posted my cell phone number for my students to contact me. Being able to contact me has been really helpful for my students.

Hi Everyone! There is always a certain element of subjectivity when it comes to the discussion board and students often feel that they may not be getting their due credit. As a student I sometimes felt that my grade should have been higher based on the assignment instructions, but there was "the instructor is always right" philosophy at the university. Ironically, now that I am a student again, I often get myself in trouble for questioning a grade. :) I think the problem is that instructional design has taught me how to quantify even the most softest of the soft sciences in the form of grading rubrics. I guess instructors can make the worst students sometimes. :) But more to the point, rubrics protect both the instructor and the student. They allow for greater communication of knowledge between instructor and student. And provide a demonstrative, qualitative list of how knowledge and the course objectives have been passed from instructor to student and to what degree. In theory this is what grades should do, but grades are too vague, rubrics break it down to exactly what transpired. They also make for great educational diagnostics! Rubrics can help both the instructor and student determine where the student needs the most help. The ABA (or sandwich) method can really help here where we start off with what the student did right, explain what opportunities for improvement there are, and end on a positive note.

Student Support: There are two specific elements to student support that I would like to highlight here. The first is that student support is regulation, that is rules and laws in place to protect the student's rights and the long held integrity of academia. Two examples of these are the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects students' grades and records and Plagiarism, which ensures the honesty and academic professionalism that should be awarded to every author. I would like to make an insert here about FERPA. Many of the colleges I have worked at require FERPA training, yet it is an easy law to violate. Case in point, I had a colleague (another faculty member) call me up one time asking what her daughter received for her grade last quarter. This is an extreme situation, but, again, easy to do. Student support can also be the support and aid that we provide our students, such as office hours, additional resources, campus tutoring, campus advising, etc. I am very fond of the Online Tutoring and am constantly encouraging my students to take advantage of this. I find that it dramatically improves their grammar and sentence structure. Another vital student support aid is the syllabus. The Syllabus: As I tell my students on their first day, the syllabus is our contract, the written agreement between instructor and students. It tells the students what I will teach them, the toolkit the course will give them to help them succeed in college and the workforce (i.e. the course objectives). It also gives a detailed explanation of how they will be tested on their toolkit and how they will be graded (i.e. grading rubrics). As well as my availability to help them and so on. This is my end of the agreement as the instructor. For the students' end, it is their acknowledgment and understanding that this is what they will come out of the course knowing and will receive the grade according to that knowledge. There are many different elements to the syllabus (instructor bio, course description, course schedule, due dates, and various policies), but it is the idea and concept of the syllabus that I find the most significant to point out here. It is important to have this understanding between the instructor and students so that everyone knows what is expected of them. Expectations in the Online Classroom: Alight, I'll make this one brief with just a few examples. E-mails and phone calls are very important in the online classroom because students need that constant interaction with their instructor for success. Reasonably quick feedback and grading is also critical to keeping the students on schedule with both the course assignments and learning the course objectives. I also stand by my Tips for Success announcement that I put up at the beginning of the course which outlines what to focus on in the reading and completing assignments (such as citations, reading the syllabus, length requirements).

There are many forms of technology that can be used in in order to measure learning and understanding of the content of the online course.

I have had several students complain that my requirement to utilize external sources is unnecessary if they understand and can relate to the material via their previous experiences. I try to explain that the goal in the education is to learn and build upon their experiences and this is a worthwhile effort.

I have a question. What aspects of online teaching do you find would be most beneficial to the students to have recorded on video? For example, have a video introduction of the instructor? A summary on discussion topics? A summary of the chapter? Or any other areas? Thank you.

In our classroom live chats, I get the students involved by asking their thoughts on the topic before I go into an explaination. The students that participate in the chat seem to enjoy this. I will specifically ask for any student that has spoken up yet, to please do so. That normally works if we have a quiet student. The larger challenge in the live chats is not participation by those in attendance but getting people to attend since it is not required.

I always create a forum on the discussion board for students to submit questions. This way other students can benefit from the questions and answers also. I learned this when taking a class, and now use it in my classes also.

As a new faculty member who just finished teaching their first online course, I can say that support and responsiveness to me as a faculty member by other faculty was a critical component of my success in being able to respond to students in a timely manner. Responding to students in a timely manner is often discussed and stressed. This aspect of supporting new faculty so that they are successful in doing so is not always mentioned. I truly thank the other faculty that answered a seemingly unending stream of questions, especially the first 2 weeks.

I've been fortunate to note have too many problems in this regard, but it does sometimes happen that there are problems. I'm always interested in knowing what strategies work best to help other instructors deal with the aggressive and hostile student...especially the one who just won't settle down. It isn't a common occurance, but it certainly can take a huge amount of time away from the rest of the classroom responsibilities.

It is so important to be able to reflect on the courses that you have created. An instructor should always continue to be reflective. To be stagnant as an instructor is the worst thing possible. How do you avoid this?

I always use rubrics and even give my students the rubrics in advance so they know exactly how things are being graded and their are no surprises. Once an assignment has been submitted I always provide feedback. I always give my students detailed feedback about the positives and negatives that they have done in their assignments. It is important to refer to the rubric when deducting points and issuing points.