Search Results for: motivation

What Do I Do Now? Remembering What It Feels Like Being A First-time Online Student

Can you remember feeling nervous, anxious, and fearful about the upcoming online course you registered for at the advice of an academic advisor? While the advisor gave you some basic information about the course and told you not to worry, the little voice inside would say, “Are you sure you can do this”? That little … Continue reading What Do I Do Now? Remembering What It Feels Like Being A First-time Online Student →

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Exercise Your Body and Mind with Pokémon Go

I have a confession to make. I confess that I jumped on the Pokémon Go bandwagon—and I am still riding it. My first introduction to Pokémon was when my son was little. He had a collection of cards, carefully curated in protective binders. He spent hours reading the cards and developing the perfect deck to … Continue reading Exercise Your Body and Mind with Pokémon Go →

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Create a Trailer … for Your Course…by Yourself

An intro, to let students know what will happen in the class; a highlight, to capture the meaning of the subject; a heads-up, on what to expect; and maybe, a rationale, for the format in which the course is delivered. To accomplish all of these in a quick and engaging way takes more than a … Continue reading Create a Trailer … for Your Course…by Yourself →

Agentic Engagement and Facilitating Discussions

My colleagues at FITS have already provided many helpful tips for developing and facilitating effective discussions in online courses. Josh cautions against teaching a correspondence course and explains, “the best discussion questions don’t have a clear answer, and sometimes they aren’t even clear questions.” He also encourages instructors to provoke debate and ask those pointed … Continue reading Agentic Engagement and Facilitating Discussions →

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Teaching Online…For Real This Time

Online and hybrid learning are so commonplace nowadays that many students have experience with them even before they leave K-12.  However, with the increasing ubiquity of this mode of instruction, there are certain challenges that we encounter along the road to “teaching a good class.”  Looking back to the beginnings of online teaching and learning, … Continue reading Teaching Online…For Real This Time →

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Seven Deadly Sins of Online Course Design

I took my first online course in 2004 while pursuing my MFA. It seemed like a novel idea at the time, and I had no clue I’d be spending the next ten years up to my eyeballs in online courses. Since then, I’ve helped faculty design dozens of online and hybrid courses, taught several of … Continue reading Seven Deadly Sins of Online Course Design →

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Becoming a Learning Coach with DESIRE

The concept of a “learning coach” was introduced by Dr. Jose Bowen during his keynote speech at the 2014 DePaul Annual Teaching and Learning Conference while discussing the new role of a college professor.  When the knowledge held in the brain of a professor can no longer compete with the phone that is in the … Continue reading Becoming a Learning Coach with DESIRE →

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Gamifying My Two Favorite Things: Running and Eating (and then Teaching!)

As a dutiful instructional designer, I’ve been paying attention to the concept of gamification. I’ve read some James Paul Gee, I’ve reflected on the time spent in my formative years (or *cough* last weekend) playing Zelda, and I’ve listened to our resident guru on the subject, Daniel Stanford, talk about how we could make the … Continue reading Gamifying My Two Favorite Things: Running and Eating (and then Teaching!) →

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How a Spreadsheet Helped 90 Percent of My Students Earn a Pulitzer

If you think keeping traditional students motivated is a challenge, try getting experienced, brilliant college professors to do their homework with nothing but passion and positive reinforcement at your disposal. That’s where I’ve found myself for the last few years as the lead designer and facilitator of the DePaul Online Teaching Series. On the one … Continue reading How a Spreadsheet Helped 90 Percent of My Students Earn a Pulitzer →

The Value We Bring to Students

Value creation. Differentiation advantage. Competitive positioning. What do those terms mean to you? Any MBAs out there? Anyone? I don’t have an MBA, but recently, those terms have come to mean more to me in the university context. If you read Online Learning for Free?, the blog entry my colleague Elizabeth Schinazi posted a few … Continue reading The Value We Bring to Students →