If you have not yet been "introduced" to Dr. Michael Wesch, you're in for a treat. I'll be posting more content around his work, but this is a great introduction both to him and to his perspectives on teaching and learning in the Digital Age, from the vantage point of a cultural anthropologist.
If you find him and his perspective interesting, check out his free open online course in Cultural Anthropology. If you decide to enroll let me know—I couldn't resist enrolling myself!
Monday, August 27, 2018
Monday, August 20, 2018
OLC Scholarship Opportunities & Awards
Applications are now being accepted for the Women in Digital Learning Leadership Scholarship and the Bruce Chaloux Scholarship for Early Career Excellence. The scholarships include OLC Accelerate 2018 conference registration.
The OLC Accelerate Conference will be held November 13–16 in Orlando, Florida.
Submissions are welcome until September 1, 2018. Winners will be recognized at OLC Accelerate in November.
Submit your application now!
The OLC Accelerate Conference will be held November 13–16 in Orlando, Florida.
Submissions are welcome until September 1, 2018. Winners will be recognized at OLC Accelerate in November.
Submit your application now!
And while you're at it, are you or your colleagues doing outstanding work in the field of online teaching and learning? Currently, five categories of OLC Awards of Excellence are recognized. Learn more about each award and start the nomination process. Nominations are open until September 4, 2018.
OLC welcomes you to share techniques, strategies, and practices in online education that have worked for you! Learn more and submit your effective practice. The deadline for submissions is August 30, 2018.
Award winners will be recognized at OLC Accelerate 2018 in November in Orlando.
OLC welcomes you to share techniques, strategies, and practices in online education that have worked for you! Learn more and submit your effective practice. The deadline for submissions is August 30, 2018.
Award winners will be recognized at OLC Accelerate 2018 in November in Orlando.
Monday, August 13, 2018
The Syllabus Challenge
It's finally fall! While it may still technically be summer and our sandals and shorts are still on our closet floors instead of being stored away, those in education as either students, faculty, or staff know that fall begins when the new semester starts. For those of us at UAH, that is this week!
As students file into classrooms and log into course shells, the first thing they typically seek is the syllabus—the blueprint to their success in our specific course. But rather than reading the syllabus in its entirety, it's often scanned, skimmed, or overlooked completely by students. You know the ones—they will email in a panic at 11:45 pm about a due date that was clearly communicated in the syllabus. They'll act surprised that you don't allow plagiarism in your writing course. They'll wonder why you're not in your office to answer the phone at 11:45 pm, forcing them to email you and wait for an answer.
For as long as syllabi have existed, there have been those students who refuse to read them. They are the equivalent of road maps and user's manuals for some people who simply can't be bothered to sit and read a linear course plan front to back. The good news is that it's a common enough problem that there are some really great ideas we can borrow from each other.
In the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Is Anybody Reading the Syllabus?" "Easter eggs" or "hidden gems" are offered as a solution for engaging students with their course syllabi. While I have found that Easter eggs work best if tied to a reward like extra credit or additional time on a deadline, there are myriad strategies for making them work in your course and gradebook.
The CHE piece also addresses engaging students by assigning them the task of designing or creating parts of the syllabus (thereby, course) such as assessment strategies. Professor Lisl Walsh details how she invited her students into the process of designing their learning experience by sharing particular choices to be made with each class of students. Their buy-in to the consensus-based syllabus meant a deeper engagement with the material, and better outcomes not only for students, but for her in terms of her SIEs at semester end.
With the syllabus serving not only as a blueprint, but also a sort of contract with your class of learners, it's worth considering how well your syllabus design is working for you. Do you get an inordinate number of emails from confused students? Do your students hurt their scores by not following directions or processes that were clearly delineated in the syllabus? Do they complain on their SIEs that you seem buried or confused by your own course content? It might be time for a syllabus overhaul.
Here are a few tips that are essential tasks for every single semester:
The 3 Essential Functions of Your Syllabus, part 2
As students file into classrooms and log into course shells, the first thing they typically seek is the syllabus—the blueprint to their success in our specific course. But rather than reading the syllabus in its entirety, it's often scanned, skimmed, or overlooked completely by students. You know the ones—they will email in a panic at 11:45 pm about a due date that was clearly communicated in the syllabus. They'll act surprised that you don't allow plagiarism in your writing course. They'll wonder why you're not in your office to answer the phone at 11:45 pm, forcing them to email you and wait for an answer.
For as long as syllabi have existed, there have been those students who refuse to read them. They are the equivalent of road maps and user's manuals for some people who simply can't be bothered to sit and read a linear course plan front to back. The good news is that it's a common enough problem that there are some really great ideas we can borrow from each other.
In the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Is Anybody Reading the Syllabus?" "Easter eggs" or "hidden gems" are offered as a solution for engaging students with their course syllabi. While I have found that Easter eggs work best if tied to a reward like extra credit or additional time on a deadline, there are myriad strategies for making them work in your course and gradebook.
The CHE piece also addresses engaging students by assigning them the task of designing or creating parts of the syllabus (thereby, course) such as assessment strategies. Professor Lisl Walsh details how she invited her students into the process of designing their learning experience by sharing particular choices to be made with each class of students. Their buy-in to the consensus-based syllabus meant a deeper engagement with the material, and better outcomes not only for students, but for her in terms of her SIEs at semester end.
With the syllabus serving not only as a blueprint, but also a sort of contract with your class of learners, it's worth considering how well your syllabus design is working for you. Do you get an inordinate number of emails from confused students? Do your students hurt their scores by not following directions or processes that were clearly delineated in the syllabus? Do they complain on their SIEs that you seem buried or confused by your own course content? It might be time for a syllabus overhaul.
Here are a few tips that are essential tasks for every single semester:
- Read your own syllabus front to back. There may be some surprises lurking in there even for you! Most syllabi are simply "rolled" forward rather than being written anew each semester. There could be information in your syllabus that refers to outdated policies or resources that no longer exist.
- Have a centralized syllabus and delete all other versions. Your syllabus can live in Google Drive and be linked throughout a course or LMS. By centralizing it to ONE version with links, your students will only see the most current version every time they click the link.
- If you make a change mid-semester, be sure to make an announcement. Students who read the syllabus as assigned don't like surprise changes after they've familiarized themselves with policies and due dates. It's okay to make a change, but give your students advance notice and an announcement to be sure everyone is on the same page.
- Delete all outdated or irrelevant material completely. Your online students don't need to know your policy for classroom behavior, and your on-ground students don't need to know your online policies.
- Keep it simple. A streamlined, well organized syllabus is easier to read and navigate. Adding graphics, Easter eggs/hidden gems, or opportunities for extra credit will make it even more engaging.
- Keep it current. All course schedules and due dates must be updated every single semester. And don't forget to check every link.
- Make it ADA accessible. You don't always know when you have students with disabilities who are navigating your course with adaptive equipment. Ensuring that your syllabus (and other course content) is ADA accessible helps ensure that every student has the same access to course documents.
MORE READING
The 3 Essential Functions of Your Syllabus, part 1The 3 Essential Functions of Your Syllabus, part 2
Monday, August 6, 2018
(Truly) Free photos and graphics
We are often so overwhelmed with the complexities of building courses that we don't take the time to make them beautiful and aesthetically engaging. A captivating graphic or photo can actually improve engagement of online learners with the curriculum.
Wading through general Google searches (even Creative Commons) looking for the right license (no copyright, no limits on usage, no need to attribute) can be burdensome. Enter sites like Pixabay and Pexels. There are over 130 sites that allow you to use freely any graphic in their collection. Pixabay and Pexels have so much I rarely have to look further.
Photos or graphics don't have to informational to help engagement. Even a few ornamental graphics can make learners more inclined to stick with the course.
As a reminder, we should never upload a graphic or photo without alt-text for screenreaders. This helps keep our content fully ADA accessible!
Wading through general Google searches (even Creative Commons) looking for the right license (no copyright, no limits on usage, no need to attribute) can be burdensome. Enter sites like Pixabay and Pexels. There are over 130 sites that allow you to use freely any graphic in their collection. Pixabay and Pexels have so much I rarely have to look further.
Photos or graphics don't have to informational to help engagement. Even a few ornamental graphics can make learners more inclined to stick with the course.
As a reminder, we should never upload a graphic or photo without alt-text for screenreaders. This helps keep our content fully ADA accessible!
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