One of the primary assets that leads to learner success in online courses is instructor feedback. I have heard from many online learners that if they have a respondent instructor they are able to move forward faster, utilized the instructor's feedback to continue, and they feel like they are not being ignored. Several people have told me about online learning with instructors who are not responsive and they had a very difficult time and felt like they had no support. From what I understand this is the one key factor that effects retention in online courses.

I entirely agree with the video clip of the instructor to introduce themselves to the students. Also, the idea of students posting a bio is a great idea. It is human nature to feel closer to something or someone when you have seen them and learned something about them. People are more comfortable discussing topics online if they have at least seen a picture of you. e.g. the small thumbnail images that people have in gmail or on LinkedIn. I always feel like I know that person in come capacity if I have seen their picture. In online teaching it is imperative to create that trust by letting your students know who you are, what your credentials are, and where you live in relationship to the learner. Any means that we have to be more personal with the distance learners is a great asset to their success.

Noisy learners, I have found, attempt to move the discussion away from topic to both register participation, while avoiding engagement. I have found it helpful to immediately note such posts as non-credit worthy. What are some other ways to reduce such behavior?

I know that this is a little off-topic as we are discussing online education, but when I was teaching on-campus I would incorporate online elements in the F2F environment at one of the institutions I teach for. It is very nice that the college offers the same online tools to on-campus instructors as it does the online instructors. Students are able to submit their papers online, take exams online, and participate in discussions outside of the classroom. Donnie Burnette

With regard to clear directions, for several of my courses I provide my students with assignment templates that lay out exactly how the assignment should be completed. Not only has this increased student performance on these assignments because the students do not overlook an element, but it makes the assignments easier to grade because I know exactly where the pertinent information should be. Donnie Burnette

I have been somewhat familiar with wikis, but I decided to investigate them a little more after they were mentioned in the this course because I feel they may be a good tool for group projects. The current system one of the institutions I teach for is a little cumbersome and it is not always easy for students to see the work other students have done. The one in particular I am going to research is Wikispaces. The only issue that I can see is the fact that this tool exists outside of the university's LMS and therefore is not easily monitored by the university, but I may be able to work around that. Donnie Burnette

Over the years, I have taught numerous history courses for a number of institutions and I have found that the material I use for these courses often overlaps. For some time now I have given thought to how I can construct such a database that will help me organize this material and make it easily accessible based on the learning objectives for a given class. I am hoping that as I continue this course, I will learn how to construct such a database as I have not been able to come up with a good way to do so yet. How can the variety of learning objects, i.e., URLs, videos, audio clips, jpegs, etc., be easily stored in an Excel spreadsheet, Word table, or other system?

As indicated throughout this section, using multiple evaluation elements is the best way to decide on challenges in our courses, however I find that student evals are minimal in many cases. With a 20-30% (or lower) student eval rate it is hard to make course modifications as there is such a small percentage responding. If I see the same insights over several terms, changes may be made, however it is unfortunate that the students that do take the time to do their evals are in very diverse groups [that I have seen], they are the students who completely enjoyed being in the course or those that did not. Either way, few "middle-roaders" get involved so it is hard to base changes on this in a term by term basis. Has anyone discovered a sure fire way of getting students to fill out their evals?

Though we can learn about feedback and its different methods, the biggest challenge I face is that students do not read their feedback. On a regular basis I have students inbox me questions that have been responded to in my feedback. In the past, I would reiterate the feedback but then realized I was not teaching the students to use this valuable resource. My current response to students is, "Please refer to your feedback for detailed information regarding your grade. If you still have questions, after reviewing this important resource, please be specific in your question(s) when you write back.". This has worked best for me thus far, as students will write back and thank me for the referral to the feedback, however it has also backfired where students will accuse me of not wanted to answer their questions. Has anyone found a way, to ensure students are reviewing their feedback fully, that works for them?

This section brought confirmation to my first comment (Forum 1, "The Importance of Discussion in Online Classes) that there is a balance that the instructor must find [for each class] of being involved, without stifling the conversation by participating too much. It was nice to see that I am not alone in knowing that this can be challenging, however as the "Using Effective Communication" section in Forum 2 indicates, "Online discussions can fail because the instructor is not involved or because he/she is involved.". Seeing that I am not alone in this challenge, reinforces my method of basing interaction on the class/students which will vary from term to term. Has anyone tried asking students, as indicated in this section, to see what they choose as the most effective? How did that work for you?

It is important to have students interact via online discussion, however this requires two elements to make it work. First, you must have the instructor involved in helping the conversation move forward. Second, the instructor does not want to "take over" the conversation, but just be involved enough to move it forward by asking pointed questions and ensuring the class response. Though, as an instructor, I ask many questions in hopes of moving the conversation forward I find too many times only the student who began the conversation responds. Has anyone found a way to involve more than the original poster?

How many post are sufficient enough for a Discussion Board assignment ?

How do you lay out and enforce rules for adult learners?

How does anyone from the thread balance a fulltime teaching position and part time teaching position ?

Which workload strategies have anyone in the thread utilized successfully ?

I support my students learning experience with media such as recorded replies to my students which I then upload to a special You Tube movie Channel that I created specifically for this reason.

In the courses I teach I attempt to promote community and try to motivate students to learn HOW to think and not WHAT to think.

I prefer asynchronous mostly because a believe in the anytime, anywhere learning environment. Having taught onground for many years I must admit I miss the face to face contact.

I use screen capture often for recording demos. It's an easy way to demonstrate a process and share a desktop. I can even record it and upload it into YouTube to refer the students to.

Synchronous learning should supplement the asynchronous learning approach. However, most students do not like attending synchronous sessions such as chat sessions and office hours. How would you handle such scenario?