This is a short (and somewhat embarrassing, but instructively useful) post that reflects on a recent development in my work designing online courses… and shows how easy it is to assume that something is “obvious” (when it’s not).
What’s the best approach to get grad students to read complete books, without overwhelming them with work? Here I explore a solution inspired in one of my favorite phone apps, Blinkist, and merging it with an old-fashioned book-club idea…
Did you tell your students to just “watch the video”? 😦 Luckily, there are many ways in which you can turn course videos into worthwhile activities… Here are just seven ideas to get started…
Create a calendar with a focus on rhythm for most of the course. Setting the rhythm is one of the most important factors – people are creatures of habit a repeating pattern will help students plan better, and – consequently – be successful.
This is a short (and somewhat embarrassing, but instructively useful) post that reflects on a recent development in my work designing online courses… and shows how easy it is to assume that something is “obvious” (when it’s not).
To get the best results and not make your department go bankrupt in the process, separate course-content videos from occasional videos. This useful distinction deserves to get much more attention…
What do you do when it turns out that the almost dogmatically orthodox approach to instructional design, the intensely popular, and rarely questioned “backward design” is not going to work for you? Find out…
Most recent decade has seen increased interest in conducting well-designed studies that provide actionable guidelines for the design of online activities, based on measurable change in student knowledge…
What’s the best approach to get grad students to read complete books, without overwhelming them with work? Here I explore a solution inspired in one of my favorite phone apps, Blinkist, and merging it with an old-fashioned book-club idea…
Did you tell your students to just “watch the video”? 😦 Luckily, there are many ways in which you can turn course videos into worthwhile activities… Here are just seven ideas to get started…
Create a calendar with a focus on rhythm for most of the course. Setting the rhythm is one of the most important factors – people are creatures of habit a repeating pattern will help students plan better, and – consequently – be successful.
Cheating is a major concern when it comes to remote exams. Many people believe that throwing $$$ at the problem, is the way to go (cameras, cameras everywhere, and not a thing you’d like to see!). But is this the only option?
Reading complex, information-packed content that includes many completely new concepts is challenging: students may be tempted to breeze-through the text too fast, half an hour before class for which it was assigned, or late at night, twenty minutes before the submission deadline…
This is possibly the easiest online discussion type or “template” to implement. It is indispensable in any new or redesigned online course. I call it “see the forest discussion,” but most people call similar activities “exit tickets.” The interesting part is that it isn’t really a “discussion” in the strict sense, but is worth considering, if you don’t use it.
This is a really simple “template” for a week-long, time-sequenced online “jigsaw-type discussion,” and its potential effectiveness in promoting recall, and transfer of knowledge, is based on fairly basic, but solid, and well-established research evidence summarized at the end of this post.
Online discussions in some ways they are better than traditional face-to-face synchronous discussions. They are more equitable, giving everyone time to think, and leveling the playing field for intro- and extroverts (who are always guaranteed to win in face-to-face discussions!).
Every year hundreds of new T&L books are published, and 90% of them are not very useful (I call these edu-junk). Some are quite useful, but could have worked much better as an article or a blog post instead. Here is a very minimalist, curated super-short list of long-time favorites, and a few new acquaintances with a lot of promise (click the covers for amazon.com link, or click “more info” for… more info!).
Future-Proof Your Videos: Occasional vs. Content Videos
To get the best results and not make your department go bankrupt in the process, separate course-content videos from occasional videos. This useful distinction deserves to get much more attention…