eLearning Program Offers Bootcamp Version of Training Institute

We are very excited about the start of the eLearning Program Training Institute Bootcamp which begins on Monday. More than seventy of our full and part time faculty are going through this new experience. I say new because we have modified the time to completion without losing the quality of the training. In addition, we will be offering a Community of Practice (CoP) to assist with the training process. A CoP is a group of people who share a concern for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.  CoPs are particularly useful for online course development because they "provide ongoing support that can alleviate many of the curricular and institutional challenges online instructors face." (Melancon & Arduser, 2013, p. 74) . Our team will include the faculty member (as the subject matter expert), the Dean of Innovative Learning and Academic Support, the Director of Innovative Learning, the Director of the Academic Learning Center, and the LMS Administrator.  In addition, we will be using the Learning Environment Modeling (LEM) curriculum created by the University of Central Oklahoma, which has been used by numerous colleges and universities as part of their faculty certification programs. UCO explains the process as, "Learning environment design is technically an architectural process. Think about how an architect envisions and designs buildings. Learning architects design and build learning environments in much the same way. They often do this without many of the foundational tools used by building architects such as common, uniform practices and models that assist in the understanding, decision-making, and collaborating on the design of the learning environment.Learning Environment Modeling, or LEM, addresses this issue by providing a simple system for designing learning environments that uses an easy-to-understand language combined with a visual modeling process. LEM is used for improving understanding, decision-making, and communication within learning environment design experiences." What we learn in this bootcamp version will be used to enhance the training institute to be held this summer for faculty wanting to teach an eLearning course in the fall semester. This is definitely an exciting time to be involved in the eLearning Program at BRCC.

Don't Worry, We Will Get Through This Together

The move to digital delivery has gotten us to this point and we can see the final exam period at the end of the tunnel. Now the real work begins. How do we take the classes that we taught onsite, that were then altered for distance learning, and create a robust, engaging, and interactive elearning course that will provide the deep learning our students need to compete in the new career landscape (Maloney and Kim do a good job of explaining the various stages of where higher ed finds itself). Recent research indicates that a well designed online course can have the same or better completion and retention rates as an onsite class. Another benefit of our current situation is that as our students become better at navigating online and hybrid classes, the larger their skill set becomes in tech literacy, one of the key abilities employers are looking for in new hires. We are certainly not alone in this transition but luckily we have a strong history of providing the training and support needed to create elearning courses of excellence. As we prepare for the summer semester, the eLearning Program will be offering a Training Institute Bootcamp. As in the past, the eLearning Training Institute will be conducted fully online. New for this next iteration is training that will combine what is needed to teach either online, hybrid or both. This multimodal training will essentially set us up for whatever comes next. Any faculty who plan to teach in the summer semester that are not currently certified to teach eLearning courses should notify their department chairs that they would like to participate in the Training Institute Bootcamp. For those looking to begin teaching eLearning courses in the fall, there will be another Training Institute in the summer. For those looking for resources  now, check out the on-demand webinars on the Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement events calendar.

Take a Moment for Some Humor

In this brave new world, one of the things we may be losing is our sense of humor. It is easy to do because this pandemic is a very serious and dangerous situation. Will we return to normal? What does the new normal look like? Will we ever go back to our classrooms? When will all of this be over? In the middle of all of our questions, one thing we may all agree on is how resilient we and our students are. The Zoom meetings that allow us to engage with students and colleagues are also a window into our worlds away from BRCC. Are you brave enough to go live with your video? How many times did you move your computer to get the right background? Some of us have decided to just put a picture of ourselves on the screen. Even that comes with anxiety. Which shot do I use? Should I create a new shot just for my courses? Wait, where did this all start? Oh yes, with some levity. Take a look at Kristie Kaiser's blog post about teaching online. Her message is on point but she also remembers to bring the humor in at the end.

Recovering the Joy of Teaching in the COVID Era

As we end the first day for all of our onsite classes to be delivered remotely, I wanted to share a well done essay recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The author, Flower Darby, has taught using the online environment for the last 12 years and is an instructional designer at Northern Arizona University. Her comments may not come into play for many of you until about two weeks and for some of you it may never appear but the advice is sage and important. She notes, "In the first few weeks of the pandemic, a lot of faculty members were rushing out of their comfort zone, moving their face-to-face courses online, and figuring out how to teach from home with kids and pets. As head of a teaching center on my campus, I am seeing many of my earnest colleagues overcome their nerves and experiment with unfamiliar modes of instruction. They are excitedly posting their first attempts at recording mini-video lectures and drafting syllabus statements of flexibility and support for students. But how long will that fizz last? After all, many faculty members are sacrificing much of what they love about their chosen vocation. At some point, they will need time to mourn the loss of spring 2020." Continue reading here.

Remember to Update Your Syllabus for Online Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly caused a major disruption for colleges around the globe. As BRCC works to move all of our onsite (face-to-face) courses to be offered using Canvas, it is important to remember to look at your syllabus. Some of the information students may now need may not be part of your current version. Dr. Danielle Geary wrote a straightforward article complete with a list of important items back in 2018. It is very relevant to us now as we transition and I encourage you to take a look at it as you redesign your course including your syllabus. We will continue to post relevant information and updates to the Teaching and Learning Faculty Development Canvas class as well so remember to check that resource at least daily. Finally, if you are looking for some assistance, send an email to elearning@bears.mybrcc.edu along with a brief description of your needs.

Yes, I Agree and...

We all know the drill. We have decided to use the discussion board feature on Canvas to engage with our students and have them increase their peer-to-peer interaction. We determine the topic and issue an assignment with directions asking students to begin the topics. Once that is done, they are also asked to comment on the topics started by their fellow students. We sit back and wait and nothing happens. Well, to be fair, some students post and then other students give one to five word responses that do not move the conversation forward at all. So what went wrong? Dr. Beth René Roepnack has written a concise article on how we can improve online discussion by simply changing a couple of things. Her article appears on Faculty Focus and she offers the following suggestions. " I adjusted the structure of my online discussions from students starting threads (you know the drill, post-and-reply-to-two) to the instructor starting them, which creates a more organic discussion structure similar to classroom conversations. This simple modification, along with asking open-ended questions from the deep end of Bloom’s Taxonomy, creates discussions that support student learning and engagement with the material and each other." You can read the entire article here. If you use her suggestions, let me know if you experienced the same results that she did.

As elearning program (online, distance education, hyflex, etc.) enrollments continue to increase around the world and locally (BRCC's enrollment doubled from summer 2017 to summer 2018), certain issues continue to impede student success. We know that student engagement is very important to motivation but how can we promote interactions between and among students and the instructor? In addition, students using the eLearning delivery mode need to have good time management skills in order to stay focused and meet deadlines. Dr. Danielle Geary suggests that it all begins with our syllabus. "Structure and communication. That’s what I’ve found to be the keys to an effective online course syllabus. Well, that, and something I call a chapter checklist, to go along with the syllabus. I’ve discovered both to be essential to my asynchronous online foreign language course," she writes. She goes on to describe how taking the time to explain the effort needed to succeed in an elearning course (i.e. tips for studying) can be very beneficial to students as they enter the semester. You can read her entire article here.

Attending a conference is always a good thing for numerous reasons but one of the best for me is learning about new resources or getting reacquainted with old favorites. While attending the Louisiana Board of Regents annual eLearning conference last week, Dr. Curtis Bonk of Indiana University shared a number of new resources. I spent some time each day this week and last week taking a look at the many ideas he shared with us. I found Flipgrid (which can be embedded in Canvas) to be something I could easily use to encourage more participation in pre-class discussions. Using Vocaroo to give audio feedback to students was also very useful and you can even encourage them to use it for peer critiques. Finally, Polleverywhere came in handy  with the various questions I usually ask during a class session but you are limited to forty free responses. As for getting reacquainted, I spent some time on the Merlot site after being reminded by Dr. Gerry Hanley of all the wonderful (and free) resources there. If you use the Stop-Start-Keep Doing student feedback survey during the semester, you might want to look at FAST (Free Assessment Summary Tool) instead. You know that students like to do things online and the app does a lot of the work for you. Want to teach your students about information literacy? Try the University of Idaho's Merlot contribution. You can spend hours on the Merlot site alone so be careful and set some time limits for yourself. Better yet, share resources you have created that worked best for you.

Economist James D. Miller now thinks online education could increase demand for instructors, not destroy their jobs. He posted an op-ed in 2011 sounding the bell that online education would replace instructors with technology. He writes, "In 2011, I thought that much of online education was boring, but I expected content creators to eventually succeed in making their material interesting enough to hold the enthusiastic attention of most students. I further forgot to take into account that teachers have, for literally thousands of years, tried to make their lectures more interesting and yet, as most of us can attest, we have still not succeeded in consistently producing lectures that most students find more enjoyable." One of the benefits we are seeing at BRCC is that faculty teaching eLearning classes are using the tools and technology from their online classes and applying it to their face-to-face courses. Next week, there are two additional professional development opportunities. Join us on Monday at the N. Acadian Instructional Site to learn about some new active learning methods. On Tuesday, the session on overteaching is at the Frazier Instructional Site. You can learn more about both events and register here.

Have you ever considered teaching an online class? The eLearning Program at BRCC offers online and hybrid class delivery as options for our students. One of the next options could be a synchronous course taught live from wherever your internet, camera, headphones, and mic will allow you to broadcast. Is that something that excites or creates anxiety for you? Dr. Devoney Looser recently posted a very revealing essay on this topic. Initially she was very nervous about teaching online but a family situation challenged her to take another look at online teaching. She writes, "The stereotype that online instruction is less rigorous, or that students cannot be engaged in it with appropriate rigor, isn’t borne out by my experience. Anyone who’s taught an on-the-ground class has looked out into the classroom and seen boredom or disconnection. By comparison, my online students were choosing when to log on to do their work. They seemed very tuned in when they did. It’s possible I’m just not as skilled at recognizing online students merely going through the motions, but I found them, as a group, exceptionally dedicated, motivated, and talented." If you are interested in becoming certified to teach in the BRCC eLearning Program, contact Susan Nealy. You can continue reading Dr. Looser's post here.

Stephanie Kumi is a second year graduate student studying Information Security Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University. She asks a very relevant question, "Who is responsible for teaching students about cyber-security?", in a recent blog post. I think that it is one of a number of topics that we as faculty assume our students know but to be honest, as computer systems become more and more sophisticated, I think even those of us who consider ourselves tech-savvy may not be prepared to help our students. At BRCC, we have adopted an eSkills Orientation that is required of all students before they can register for an eLearning course. The pre-requisite was developed in response to faculty feedback about many of their students enrolling in eLearning courses without understanding just what was required of them. Recently the eSkills Orientation was revised and a much more concise version is now required of students wanting to register for eLearning courses. The new instrument was developed using feedback from faculty teaching eLearning courses (both online and hybrid). In addition, this semester the faculty who teach College Success Skills 1023 adopted the eSkills Orientation as a technology literacy learning experience. The expected outcomes were twofold: first any student taking a CSSK class would then be eligible to register for an eLearning class and second, it was hoped that the experience would improve their technology literacy skills. Preliminary feedback from CSSK faculty has been very positive and our students are expressing that the learning experience really helped them to learn about Canvas and how to use all of the available tools more effectively. So back to the question at hand, who is responsible for teaching our students about cyber-security?

ARE YOU STRESSED OUT?
Instructors who regularly use stress-reducing strategies increase their abilities to cope with the demands of the career and are positioned to do a better job educating students, according to results from a program administered by the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. Want to learn more? Register for the upcoming professional development session sponsored by the Center for Teaching+Learning Enhancement. You can view other professional development opportunities here.

MOVING TO HAPPINESS
It’s helpful to know that the brain is plastic and can adapt to challenges. And when it comes to learning new things, we can build up mental resources through intentional effort. People can get better at realizing self-regulation, executive functions, a sense of perspective or meaning, positive emotions like gratitude, a sense of strength and the feeling of being cared about. “Any kind of mental activity, including experiences, entails underlying neural activity,” said Rick Hanson, a psychologist and senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, at a Learning & the Brain conference. He has developed practices to help people build up their mental capacity for happiness by creating patterns of neural activity that with time and repetition become neural pathways. Read the entire article here.

KEEPING THE HUMAN ASPECT IN ONLINE COURSES

“Wow. I always thought my online instructors were computers.” An online student shared this comment with his instructor after receiving an email from her that included feedback on an assignment. This story, shared with me by the student’s instructor several years ago, resonates with me on an emotional level each time I reference it. It motivates me to ensure online instructors understand how vital their authentic, human presence is to their students, and it conveys how deeply meaningful online classes can be when they are facilitated and designed with a focus on the student experience. To continue reading Michelle Pacansky-Brock's post click here.

RETENTION, PROGRESSION AND THE TAKING OF ONLINE COURSES
As the amount of students taking an eLearning course at BRCC continues to grow, our focus on student success in courses offered online also grows. Scott James, Karen Swan and Cassandra Daston conducted some interesting research in the area of student success in face-to-face (f2f) and online classes. What they found was there really is no difference. Just as students experience success barriers in f2f classes, the same can happen in online classes. One of the more interesting findings is that older students typically have higher retention rates than younger students in the online environment. They conclude the article with the validation that online courses offer the best access to the widest number of students. You can read the entire article here.

MORE SUPPORT FOR STUDY GROUPS
By now we are used to hearing about issues related to student success and persistence. We also know that it is rarely one issue that causes a student to fail. Elizabeth J. Krumrei, Fred B. Newton, Eunhee Kim, and Dan Wilcox took a look at the various factors that can assist student success. Their findings are useful because they specifically sought to identify real solutions that could be implemented to help students succeed. They write, "An initial strategy is to help students increase opportunities for successful performance. Professionals can aid students in selecting courses in which success is probable. Second, finding role models in the domain where the student lacks efficacy is a helpful strategy for increasing self-efficacy. Students can be encouraged to observe peers who are performing successfully (this is where our Spring 2017 Student Success Initiative: Study Groups can play a big part). You can find more solutions in the full article here.

ARE YOUR READY FOR YOUR STUDENTS AND ARE THEY READY FOR YOU
I find it fascinating to look at lists and I can say with confidence that most of us do. If not, why would so many of the websites we browse provide lists of things like most viewed article, top story of the day, or other articles you might be interested in? The most read article from the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice is "Are College Faculty and First-Generation, Low-Income Students Ready for Each Other?" Now I think we can all understand why it would be popular. Doesn't the title just draw you in wanting for more? So I did take a look at the article and found it to be useful. Three major findings that emerged from the study are: (a) faculty beliefs about student readiness impact the degree to which faculty serve as cultural agents for First-Generation Low-Income (FGLI) students, (b) faculty who serve as cultural agents enact particular practices and dispositions that enable students to become more academically prepared, and (c) FGLI students arrive at college with diverse forms of readiness that require varying forms of nurturing and support. Read the entire article here.

NEW CANVAS CAPABILITY
Canvas, our open online learning management system, recently announced the immediate availability of a new annotation feature in its mobile application. This new functionality allows students to open, annotate, and submit an assignment directly within Canvas. Historically this has been accomplished through a third-party app, which can create an additional expense for our students. Providing one platform where all of these capabilities reside eliminates the need for students to buy additional software and reduces the need for paper, both cost saving actions. The mobile annotation feature allows instructors to spend less time demonstrating procedures for moving and transitioning digital assignments and more time teaching. Digitizing assignments inside Canvas also allows instructors to grade assignments using the Canvas SpeedGrader. Read more here.

ENGAGEMENT IN THE ELEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Learning is about personal relationships. Deep learning doesn’t happen through reading or rote memorization online any more than in the physical world. It is the experiences and meaningful conversations (or maybe human interactions) within a course that enable students to critically reflect, and deepen their learning. All too often, online students feel isolated, which can decrease motivation and increase attrition. When learning occurs entirely through computer-mediated instruction, professors often overlook simple steps like asking participants to introduce themselves. Details like asking your students to create a video introduction to a class can have a powerful impact. Video-based introductions can help develop a community of learners more quickly than simply posting text on a discussion board. Students who are in courses with introductory videos have been shown to actively participate in online discussions very early in the course. And research shows that learners who are more engaged and have higher levels of interaction, have higher success rates. Read more here.

THE FEEDBACK IS FOR YOU
The classroom is a non-stop hub of feedback: test grades, assignment scores, paper comments, peer review, individual conferences, nonverbal cues, and more. Feedback is essential for student learning. Still, students’ ability to process and use feedback varies widely. We have some students who eagerly accept feedback or carefully apply rough draft comments, while many others dread or dismiss their professors’ notes or reject exam grades as “unfair.” Although feedback is integral to our classrooms and work spaces, we often forget to teach students how to manage it. Two Harvard law professors, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, argue that identifying different kinds of feedback is a good place to start. Continue reading here.

AN ARMY OF ONE
Karin Fischer says if you want to find a model that works for low-income students, look no further than the armed services in the U.S. Was Daniel M. Piston college material? A decade ago, as a high-school student in Syracuse, N.Y., Mr. Piston didn’t think so. He lacked focus. His grades were so-so. And it wasn’t like he was surrounded by college graduates; of his family, only his mother had earned an associate degree. "The truth is," Mr. Piston says, "I didn’t think I was smart enough for college." After finishing high school, he signed up for an automotive-technology program at nearby Onondaga Community College — a similar course his senior year was the first thing he had been any good at, he says — but, still unmoored, he dropped out after two semesters. He found himself on the doorstep of the local Navy recruiter. The Navy promised excitement, and it offered something else: a life path. Continue reading here.

PLEASE SEE ME
It all began with a simple message that I wrote on the tests or assignments of students who were struggling: “Please see me so we can discuss your performance on the test (or assignment). Let’s see what we can do to improve your grade.” Although initially I was not collecting data on the effectiveness of my “invitation,” I soon realized that most of students—about 80 percent—responded to it. Notably, those who met with me began to do better on future tests; their assignments improved as well. When students did not respond to my invitation, after about a week I reached out to them with a simple email. Some responded, some did not. Over time it became difficult to ignore the benefits of having those meetings with students who were struggling. I think the most important message of these meetings was to convey to them that they were not simply a name in my gradebook but that I really cared about their learning and their success. Continue reading here.

STUDENT SUCCESS IN INNOVATIVE LEARNING
As we continue to broaden the innovative learning opportunities, it is always important to remember that student success is as important as providing scheduling options for our students. Rob Kelly has written an interesting article on this topic. He says, "Offering different kinds of courses is not a simple matter of taking the content and dividing it in ways to fill an unusual time slot. Imagine converting a lecture-based course that normally meets three times a week to a block format that consists of a single four-hour session. The instructor might be a great lecturer, but it’s unlikely that he or she could engage students for hours at a time. “There is a world of difference, or there should be a world of difference, between teaching a class that meets three times a week for fifty minutes, teaching that same class that meets once a week from eight until noon, teaching that class in an accelerated format that meets three or four days a week, or teaching it online,” Glenn says. “As we get better at offering these different formats, hopefully we get better at delivering the instruction in these formats.” Continuing reading here.

Joshua Kim's post on where our focus should be in college classrooms is very insightful. Of the three recommendations he makes, I am happy to say we are actually working on all three. Not as efficiently as we could if we had more resources but nevertheless all three are foci. Kim writes, "Teaching and learning are core to the mission and operation of (almost) every college and university. An erosion of the relative quality in teaching and learning, (as compared to peer schools or emerging competitors), will eventually result in an inability to compete for students, faculty, and funding." Continue reading here.

Ready for the semester to begin? No really, we are starting August 22. Did I just hear a few screams? The first day of the semester always seems to sneak up on us. Sims Wyeth has a good post on how we can increase the impact of our opening remarks. You know, the stuff you say every first day of class. It turns out that students form a really strong opinion of us on that first day and it may not change much over the course of the semester. He writes, "It turns out that our first impressions are not altogether accurate. Scientists call our tendency to leap to judgment the Fundamental Attribution Error. Nevertheless, as speakers, we can take advantage of this human frailty. When we step to the front of the room to deliver a presentation and all eyes are on us, we can take control using the tools at our disposal: physical, vocal, and verbal skills meant to capture the mind of the listener." Continue reading here.

Traditionally we make resolutions around the first of the year. But what if we made resolutions tied to each of our new semesters. Adjustments and corrections based on critical self-reflection are what I am talking about. David Gooblar provides us with a good start and writes, "The real new year in academe— the time for new beginnings and fresh starts — comes now, in August. I’ve had time away from the classroom to recharge my batteries and to forget about teaching for a while. I want to be a better teacher this year than I was last year. August is my month of big plans, of good intentions, of new leaves ready to be turned over." Continue reading here.

TECHNOLOGY PROMOTES REAL WORLD SKILLS
Meg Conlan has a good article about how using technology in the college classroom (F2F and virtually) is preparing students for the real world after graduation. She writes, "Landing that first post-grad job may be difficult, but many college seniors think they’ve got the digital skills employers want, thanks to their time on campus. That insight comes from McGraw-Hill Education’s third annual Workforce Readiness Survey, which states that 52 percent of students surveyed believe that their use of technology during college classes and study sessions will help them secure a job."

HOW TO WRITE THAT PERFECT TEST QUESTION
Assessment tools offer tremendous advantages to both the instructor and the learner, and are thus an important part of instructional design. Despite their importance, developing quality assessments is not as simple or straightforward as one might think. A great deal of care needs to go into developing quality assessments to ensure that the question actually assesses the target knowledge rather than something else, such as test-taking skills. Additionally, the instructor needs to remain open to revising questions based on learner performance—if all students get a single question wrong or right, both are considered poor questions and both should be removed from the test because they’re actually not testing anything. Thus, instructors need to pay attention to student performance on each individual testing item to ensure each one is doing its job of actually assessing the target knowledge. Are you looking to improve your test-question writing skills. Here is an article with some basic tips.

GROUP WORK PROVIDES GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Dr. Lindsay Doukopoulos notes, "Teaching first-semester freshmen presents some unique challenges. You are teaching them not only your subject, but also how to be college students. One of the best strategies I have found is to begin with a collaborative project that asks them to research their new home: the campus." Read the entire article here.

MOTIVATING ONLINE STUDENTS
It seems that we talk a lot about motivation but it truly is such a complex topic that it needs lots of study. Michelle Pacansky-Brock provides the latest bit of thought on this topic and how it specifically impacts students taking courses online. She writes, "It’s not a fixed trait that some humans either have or don’t have. Rather, motivation is more like water; its qualities are impacted by other forces. Water can be serene and glass-like one day and rough and choppy the next, depending on factors like the weather or the number and type of boats in use. Motivation is similarly influenced by outside factors." Continue reading here. 

PREPARING STUDENTS FOR THE MIDDLE SKILLS WORKPLACE
In the next year alone, an estimated 2.5 million middle-skill jobs will be added to the workforce, accounting for a whopping 40 percent of all job growth. These professions — welders, pharmacy technicians, paralegals, automotive technicians, and aviation workers— offer a solid pathway to the middle class yet require less training than a traditional four-year degree. Still, these jobs require a specialized skill-set which is usually provided by community colleges. Dawn Gerrain has written an article for Educause Review on this topic. Read more here.

USING GAMIFICATION TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Gamification was one of the topics we discussed in the Creating Self-Regulated Learners Faculty Learning Community today. Many faculty have successfully implemented gamification techniques and the research shows that it can be highly effective. One of the areas that has shown improvement is student engagement with the course material and participation in discussions. Barata, Gama, Jorge, and Gonçalves provide some good examples in their Improving Participation and Learning with Gamification article. Stott and Neustaedteris provide a good review of existing literature on the subject as well as a case study on three different applications of gamification in the post-secondary setting. As in all course redesign it will take some time to add gamification, but the research literature seems to be demonstrating that it can improve student success.

PEER FEEDBACK IS A TWO WAY STREET
If you were ever dissatisfied with the quality of peer feedback in your classes, Christina Moore's article can definitely help you and, most importantly, help your students offer and receive better feedback from their colleagues.She writes, "I started teaching students that peer review is a two-way street. Getting useful feedback depends on how students frame their requests for it. Developing this skill not only teaches students how to receive effective feedback, but also gets them in the habit of reflecting on and analyzing their work."

MAKING LEARNING RELEVANT
Are you considering how you can create opportunities for students to apply course content outside the classroom? The IDEA Center has a great paper on this topic. Here is a brief excerpt. Although there are many examples in academia, nursing education offers one of the clearest examples of applying course content outside the classroom. Learning content in the classroom is supplemented with field-based application, in some cases, from the very first courses in a nursing program. Nursing students complete many hours working in hospitals alongside licensed nurses to apply their learning and sharpen their skills. And it doesn’t take a nurse educator to understand that this learning outside the classroom is vital to a nursing student’s education. No one would want to be treated by a nurse that only had classroom experience!

CREATING ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES ONLINE
Creating online courses doesn’t end at uploading videos to your site and getting enrollments. As an online educator, you need to ensure that your students are actively participating in your course and getting real value out of it. This will pay off in the long run as people come to recognize your course as the most valuable in the market. In this post, Dr. Eileen McGurty, an expert in online education, shares her strategies for boosting participation in online courses.

BEST PRACTICES FOR ONLINE RESPONSE RATES
Now that you have finished posting your grades, it is time to take a look at your student rating report. This can be accessed using your Canvas account. As I have said in the past, taking a look today and then putting it away for a week will help give you some perspective. The next time you take a look, really open yourself up to "hear" your student's perspective. The IDEA Center also has some sage advice ON THIS TOPIC in this paper.

ACTIVE LEARNING WEBINAR MAY HELP YOU GET STARTED
Implementing active learning is a fantastic way to liven up discussions and encourage higher-level thinking. But what does active learning look like in practice? Shawn Orr, Manager of Faculty Training & Engagement at Cengage Learning, recently led a webinar on this very topic, in which she shared strategies she uses to get her students enthusiastically participating.  You can access the webinar here.

TAKE A RISK TO INVIGORATE YOURSELF
Do you consider yourself a risk taker? Some of us would like to try new things but assume that it may be overwhelming or not worth the effort. Karine Veldhoen has a blog post that encourages us to take the risk. She writes, "Pedagogy is the method or practice of teaching an academic subject or theoretical concept. We are pedagogues, yet we can always try new methods or practices and take risks. It will be out of our comfort zone and might even be scary. We won't feel like an expert, but it might be exhilarating, and who knows what our potential is? What new pedagogy can you risk? Project-based learning? A new technology? A different assessment method? Student-led conferences?" Read the entire post here.