Quality matters to UAF instructors. And now UAF CTL is happy to be bringing the proven work of the Quality Matters (QM) organization to UAF in support of continuous improvement of fully-online and hybrid courses.
New to online teaching? Your peers can help. This week’s Teaching Tip features recommendations from experienced online instructors on how to manage online classrooms. Best tip? Use the “Set Grade Center Due Dates' screen under Course Management > Course Tools to update all your due dates at once.
Flexibility is often a factor for students taking distance courses. Certainly, being able to attend class regardless of where or when it is happening can be a huge benefit for non-traditional students especially. Distance courses and programs at UAF inhabit a spectrum based on percentages of reliance on specified time and place.
A picture gives us a visual anchor that helps us navigate an online conversation, particularly one with many participants. Social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter are obvious examples, but did you know that Blackboard also supports profile pictures? Encouraging their use in your course could help increase student engagement in discussions and allow a learning community to develop more naturally.
FERPA, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, addresses education records and a student’s right to those records and to whom else sees them. As an instructor or faculty at UAF, you have a responsibility to adhere to the requirements set out by the Act. By being aware of a few key requirements, you can adhere to the act without too much effort.
Now, here we are at the beginning of the new semester. How time flies! In expectation of this new semester, this week’s Teaching Tip includes a handful of items to check off your list as you prepare your courses for the first day of class.
Whether you’re designing an all new course or revising and preparing an existing course for a new semester, it’s a lot of work. And work equals time, right? Yes, but that we’re not all necessarily organizing our to-do lists in the most useful way.
Course development is an ever-evolving process. We tweak and adjust for many reasons. Maybe we decide an activity didn’t quite work the way we intended, or we discover new content to share with students. Early planning can make the revision process more efficient and less stressful.
You read an article, hear a story or see a show that inspires you to work a new type of assignment or exercise into your course. You decide on an idea. It sounds interesting and you think your students will respond well to it. You spend hours researching and outlining your new exercise. You anticipate its implementation with excitement and hope. The day comes. And then...
As you prepare your syllabus for Summer or Fall semesters, why not give it a thorough critical look-through to make sure it looks great, functions well, that it meets all UAF requirements, and, for CTL-supported courses, that it has all of the components helpful for the online student that are included in the syllabus template your instructional designer provides.
If you mention group projects to students you will most likely receive negative feedback on the prospect of having to work with peers on a project that affects individual grades. Group work is beneficial because it mirrors workplace and career environments.
Today’s Teaching Tip, our 142nd, also commemorates UAF CTL’s third year of publishing weekly tips with only the occasional break for the holidays. It feels fitting to celebrate by sharing some of the interesting work being done by the outstanding educators we’ve had the privilege of working with.
