-: One of the biggest challenges is student engagement
and building community within the classroom,
and having that online presence, not only myself,
but also creating it within the student body,
within the class.
When I first started teaching about 29 years ago,
I didn't know any better.
That's how I was taught by my professors.
And I was very instructive, and I was on autopilot
and I was ready to transmit knowledge.
And over the years, I've come to realize
that teaching in general,
whether teaching in the classroom or online,
it has to be interactive for the students
to really dive deep in and internalize the material
and get active and be engaged in it.
I read a lot about online teaching and teaching in general.
So several subscriptions,
"The Chronicle of Higher Education,"
of course, is the Bible of higher education.
So I read those articles all the time.
Then there is "Faculty Focus,"
a couple of newsletters on teaching,
and then they have online teaching components in them.
So one is "Free Faculty Focus."
The other one is "The Teaching Professor,"
it's a paid subscription.
Memberships in USDLA,
United States Distance Learning Association or OLC,
which is the Online Learning Consortium.
Working with instructional designers
and members of ECC is a must.
I would think not only for online classes,
but for any kind of teaching.
The instructional designers are great.
You need to use your instructional designers.
I use midterm surveys and end of the course evals
to improve my teaching,
and then technology, the use of technology,
not only what is available through the university
like VidGrid or Zoom or technologies like that,
but also just use of technology in the classroom
like blogs or podcasts or anything that you can use
to energize the course and content.
Using video capture technology,
I always create what I call Tour de Class with Dr. J,
and I literally take the students through
how to navigate the course, how to find their way around,
you know, where is everything so that that stress
of being in an online class can be alleviated some.
And then discussion, use discussions
and subscribe to them and tell your students
to subscribe to them
so that you can answer questions all at once,
rather than sitting in your office,
and one at a time students come,
you can have have a discussion going on.
And for every one question that someone asks you,
there's probably at least five or 10 other students
who have the same question.
So why not optimize time
and minimize unnecessary interactions?
Personally, I'm always trying to learn new things
when it comes to teaching,
when it comes to online teaching,
and when it comes to the subject matter.
So have that passion for learning
so that you can infuse that into your courses
and make your courses and your delivery
and interactions with the students better.
There is always new strategies that are created,
and those are all helpful.
So push yourself outside of your comfort zone
so that you can do better in the classroom
and you can be more effective.