In "The Shallows" Nicholas Carr states we are: "trading away the seriousness of sustained attention for the frantic superficiality of the Internet."   OK, if I accept that as true (and I do observe it both in F2F teaching and in the little "chat" box during online sessions) then I must adapt to that short attention span.  What techniques do YOU use to keep students engaged?

A growing number of books, including The Shallows, argue that the internet and digital gadgets are making it harder for us to concentrate. The Pew Research Centre in America recently surveyed almost 2,500… >>>

Greetings. I really appreciated taking the 105 course. It enhanced my teaching skills. Best, Eric Freeman

I found this course to be informative.  And while I consider myself "open minded", I have to admit I didn't come into this course with much expectation.  It was, therefore, a pleasant suprise to find a few tid-bits that I will be taking away from it.  I plan on using a few things I learned moving forward. 

I found this course to be interesting. It had some good ideas. Some ideas I have been using for a while now and some I just forgot over time and will incorporate them again in my class.

I am happy to see emphasis placed on value-added learning. I use this when demonstrating to students the importance of frequent source citation in their papers. 

For instance, early on in the term, when students do not cite frequently, I dock points substantially, so that they become aware of this critical factor. As they progress throughout the course, though, and learn how to cite properly, I apply the value-added approach, realizing that, had they been given their Week 1 assignments now, they would have cited sources frequently and otherwise properly.

The concept of value-added eduation, one of many examples of… >>>

As someone who has been involved with online education in its very early iterations, I have seen the process evolve and was, and remain, a big fan overall. 

It is important, however, to note that, although replicating the face-to-face classroom experience as much as possible in the online setting is optimal, there are some obvious disadvantages that will not go away.  

One of them is overcrowding - not just of classes, but of faculty. It is very hard to maintain quality control, and too often, the emphasis is not on actual teaching ability, but rather on satisfying administrative minutiae. … >>>

I just completed Questioning in the Classroom. This was great information that was simple to understand and I believe I will make sure to write down questions I will use in class from now own, and to watch the clock for the wait time skills this cousre gave.

New phlebotomist are popping up everywhere.... and that's good.  It's so needed and you can only appreicate this statement if you had a bad experience with needles.

In many colleges and universities they are removing remedial classes as far as mathematics and reading. Currently, the scores for the entrance exams are going up every year, and the rate of college students is slowly decreasing. The concern that I have is we are training a generation of test/assessment robots online for the minimal requirements, but when it’s time for them to internalized that information to get in post high arena, they are falling short. What can we do to bridge this gap of the assessment generation.

New students need to feel connected from the very first day.

Students who are challenged feel the worth of accomplishment.

New students need to feel welcome and connected to engage in classroom activities.

Completing the ED115 course I am reminded of the importance of recognizing the role emotions play in the success in a classroom.  With class sizes increasing and content using a vairety of mediums for delivery, I find that sometimes I forget the "emotional card" in how people respond and learn when EQ and self-realization of one's emotions vary greatly from person-to-person and situation-to-situation.  The course helped reel in the necessity for considering emotion to successfully instruct a course in today's complex landscape.....

Education is very important

This online course was so well organized and well delivered begining to question the need for live instructors in the future- just kidding. Seriously a great adjunct to in class curriculum.

How do you keep your students engaged

What motivates you when you run out of ideas?

I love this workshops

I enjoyed myself in this class. I learned alot of new things to help my instructors to motivate the students. I always try to motivate them by giving them a pep talk and tell them they will do fine and to find the confidence within themselves. I should know this because I was just as nervous as they were when I was in their shoes in school.  I just had to built up my confidence wiithin myself instead of being scared. This program for medical assisting, I have found very interesting because I never thought I would ever be a… >>>

Interesing refresher for me.  Was already familiar wit the content from my Masters and Education experience.  The appication of the content will continue to remain learner-focused and program -specific.