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Ask a question from your peers to help you in your professional work. Seek different points of view on a topic that interests you. Start a thought-provoking conversation about a hot, current topic. Encourage your peers to join you in the discussion, and feel free to facilitate the discussion. As a community of educators, all members of the Career Ed Lounge are empowered to act as a discussion facilitator to help us all learn from each other.

Authoring Online Course

When authoring your own online course, what do you believe are the three most important things to consider?

Interaction

I think it is alot of help to add activities for important info within the moduels.

Grammar and punctuation

What is a good strategy to encourage a student's proper use of grammar and punctuation in the forum setting? I have been trying to give effective feedback in my responses, but the bad habits continue. Docking points does not seem to have much of an effect on their performance either. Any comments would be appreciated.

on line cheating

I would perfer to think if a student signed up for a class they would be interested enough to complete the class on their own. Would I encourage some one that was having a difficult time to seek out some one else in the class for help or tutoring ? absolutely I generally take people at their word. Maybe this is a flaw in my way of thinking. I would rather see what I can do to help a student than try and catch some one cheating. I think what I want to say is I must have not taught some thing very well or I must not have made myself as available as I should have. If a student has to cheat to pass I going to take some of that responcibilty.

Plagiarism - Do students know the full meaning?

I have found that many students do not realize when they are plagiarizing because they have not been made aware of the many situations they put themselves in with research and writing. Are your students aware of these various implications?

Managing time

It is important that the instructor should keep checking his or her email now and then, and shold set up adefinite schedule for the students for their assignments. Alas

responsibility to teach online courses

I think the responsibility to teach online corses is very critical one. The instructor should possess the quality of authority, close relationship with the student and the presense of the teacher at all times. Alas

Picking the appropriate virtual office hours?

What is the best way to pick these hours?

Tips for understanding online student expectations

#1 Ask a series of questions (gentle probing) to get them to talk. Some students do not like to participate, even online. Some just want to listen. So how do we get more students to participate in the live chat discussion so we can get to know them. Some students will participate if you ask them to sent their questions via an email for discussion during the live chats. #2 - Another problem is many students do not read text books, course materials and etc. At best they just scan the information. How many times have we heard a student say, “I have read the material three times and I still do not understand it”? They will not tell you that they are the product of a poor educational system, or they came from a family environment that did not support their educational goals. You have to get to know them first. They still need to understand the contents so they can complete their assignments at a university level. Some of the things I do is teach them how to create a Mind Map, which is a flexible outline of the contents in a pictorial layout of the contents. Another thing they can do is create questions/answer Flash Cards of key topics and concepts. This way they can have their spouse or a friend, ask them the questions. Or they can take them to work and use them to remind themselves during the day which will help re-enforce the topic or content. Granville Jones

Student skill levels necessary for college success

Question? What is the skill level necessary for college success? I teach 5.5 week accelerated leadership courses, project management courses and computer courses. Most of the students understand the course platform, they understand how to navigate it, and most of them understand the instructions for how to complete the assignment and do a great job with the assignments. But every now and then there is a student was obviously adding more basic level than the other students. In most cases the students are at a very elementary level with English grammar, computer skills, and research skills (Library and Internet). Question? How do we help the students before they get to a point where they are for totally frustrated and want to drop out of school? What can we do as a university, as a faculty to help these students succeed in college? Granville Jones

Managing Time

The course mentions giving time management ideas to students. What would you consider to be some useful and more importantly, workable ones?

Facilitation Time of Online Versus Traditional Classroom Settings

In your opinion, does the facilitation of online courses take more time than facilitation of the traditional classroom?

Discussion Threads

Question: What types of threads work best -- multiple threads by topic or one super-thread for all to converse in? I have have tried both I prefer the multipe thread approach for discussion content purposes but the super thread is good for socializing.

Classroom Clips

Have tried adding or enclosing video clips etc many times the issue becomes the bandwidth avaible to the student. If they do not have the bandwidth the student becomes easily fustrated.

Online learning and Technical Support

The question how critical is technical support to online learning being a fulfilling and successful experience. I have found if tech suport is not top notch the learning experience can really suffer.

How important do you find using humor in the online classroom environment for establishing good student - teacher relationships?

I ask this because I have found that this is the keystone to many of my chats to make them enjoyable for the students. I encourage them to make humourous (British English spelling)comments too about what we are doing in the class in the chat box. I think it helps with participation and just basically showing up for class.

Mandatory Participation in Syncronous Discussions

Should participation in sycronous discussions be mandatory?

Demanding Students and Grade Expectations

Have you found that students are becoming more demanding and challenging when one earns a grade less than anticipated? If so, how should we use our authority to handle these students.

Keeping up on the CMS

I feel that my biggest challenge will be the technology support for my students. This will be my first online class that I teach, and since the program is different than the one I use at my present school, I hope I will be able to assist my students in a timely manner when they are confronted with a problem. I have already dealt with the technology group for gaining access to my class because they were having trouble for some reason in putting me into the system. I must say that the technical support has been very supportive; therefore, I feel pretty confident, I will be able to lead or guide my students in the right direction. I definetly need to look into the student orienation class for CMS.

Online Course Interaction

My experience has indicated the importance of the discussion threads within the online format. As a rule, I reply to every student within a given course at least once per week. The level and complexity of interaction is vital, but ensuring all students are recognized for their individual contributions is key to retention. Lisa