Strategies for the first six weeks of class
The first six weeks are critical to student success (and UAF’s retention goals). Here are three small things you can do to help your students succeed this semester.
Four things to do before the semester starts
A new semester is starting in just a few days and there’s so much to do! Start here with these four step-by-step priorities.
Remove distractions from your class
Taking an online course can sometimes be like walking through an airport — distractions everywhere. Here are some simple and not-so-obvious ways to remove distractions from your course content.
Teaching Tip: A gentle reminder to take a pause – and a breath (or two)
A default answer to ‘How are you?’ is often currently ‘Busy!’. In addition to forces beyond our control, we take on so much right now and sometimes feel overwhelmed as a result. This year has been unsettling for most of us on some level and many of our workloads have...Are you ready to be Googled?
It’s probably old news to you that it matters what appears when people Google you. However, the pesky thing about managing your web presence is that it’s a continual practice. Here are tips to help you spruce up your online image.
Quick communication with students
A few ideas on how to easily increase your communication with students while possibly reducing your time performing course management.
Practicing project management
As the semester settles into a rhythm, the more daunting but less urgent projects that we’ve put off are beginning to demand attention. But where to start? Make a plan, commit to a practice and voila, the only work you’ll have to do is the work, not the managing of the anxiety about the work.
Find and create media for your course
In the online learning environment, instructional videos can go a long way in enhancing student understanding, building community, and creating lasting learning experiences. There is no shortage of research pointing to the impact of educational media (Hibbert, 2014...Support students’ basic needs
If we learned anything this summer, it’s that working under conditions of uncertainty and crisis makes it hard to get the work done. This is equally true for students, and it is true at the macro-level of statewide budgeting as well as the micro-level of individual...Ways to support your military students
You may see an increase in the number of service members in your online courses, the result of a new UAF program for deploying military. Here are suggestions for supporting these students and their unique needs.
Accessibility round-up for next semester
Come join us for a round-up of eCampus’s resources on accessibility and learn how to assess the accessibility of your course by considering three major categories.
Help students overcome public speaking anxiety
Speaking in public can induce anxiety. Whether it’s an instructor lecturing or a student making a presentation, this teaching tip describes causes and remedies that can be used in your class.
What is an instructional designer?
Instructional designers are masters in the science and art of education. When faced with teaching and learning challenges, we know why a particular design choice makes the most sense. We also know that we are not an expert in your discipline. You are.
Creating your own course videos
While instructor-created video can greatly enhance the quality of a course, it can be intimidating to take the leap. Here are some tips from an experienced faculty member and media professional to help you get started.
How course design can help students succeed
You may or may not know about all of the challenges your students are facing. The pedagogical framework of Universal Design for Learning can help accommodate these needs and provide more flexibility while maintaining academic rigor.
Reflecting on your teaching
With all the logistics that go into wrapping up the semester, it’s hard to think about almost anything else — painful to think about the whole semester that you’re just trying to move beyond. But of course, as teachers we know that there’s great value in...Designing effective online labs
A strong laboratory component is at the heart of any science program, but it is also one of the most challenging features to do effectively at a distance. As more science courses in higher education are being redesigned to move online, there is growing interest in successfully handling required practical components such as teaching laboratories and field work.
How UAF instructors are improving accessibility
What does it mean for an online course to be accessible? How do you begin to make it accessible? Many UAF instructors have already gone through the journey of addressing accessibility in their courses. Here, several of them share their experiences on the challenges and benefits.
Sharing the responsibility of accessibility
If you are teaching an online course at UAF, you have a clear support structure to provide reasonable accommodations for students. Here, UAF eCampus and UAF Disability Services detail available resources and the responsibilities that are shared with instructors.
Complying with FERPA in online courses
This teaching tip briefly reviews FERPA and how it’s applied in the digital age.
Looking back on five lessons learned
I can’t say that I’ve mastered the art of a balanced life, but I do have some tips for those new to teaching. These are some hard-won lessons I’ve gathered over the last two decades teaching at UAF.
Our journey with Quality Matters
UAF’s Master of Education in Special Education program became the first online special education program in the nation to earn the Quality Matters’ Online Program Design Certification. Here’s how they did it and how you can earn Quality Matters certifications for your course or program.
Three courses embracing distance students
Nov. 5-9, 2018, is celebrated as National Distance Learning Week. UAF instructors employ a variety of ways to not only include non-local students but to actually use their differing locations to enhance a course. These three classes, in particular, are strengthened by students outside of Fairbanks:
Apply Universal Design to your course
Universal Design is a collection of principles for making an experience inclusive for a range of users with consideration to age, ability, size and any other condition that causes them to be more or less successful interacting with the world. It is an approach to design that intentionally means to benefit many individuals and it can be applied to course design.
Previous teaching can power current course modifications
The first day of fall semester is right around the corner. This is the first in a series of four Teaching Tips that provide ideas on readying your course for opening day and covers items that require a longer time for planning and communicating to your incoming roster of students.
Improve your course with help from a review rubric
As a new semester approaches you should be thinking about making some improvements to your course. There are many review rubric resources available that will help prompt you into making revisions that will better support your students. This week’s tip will share information about some of these helpful resources.
Three ways to set up your course more efficiently
Teaching online since 2011, Janene McMahan has learned some things along the way. In this tip she shares three ideas for making the best use of your time: set expectations, set up your workspace for good flow, and prep a layout once then replicate it.
Creating a communication plan for engaging students
The summer semester is short. Keeping students engaged and thinking about your course can be helped by creating a regular plan for communication at the beginning of the semester. In this Teaching Tip, we’ll discuss how to create a plan and provide considerations for using Blackboard Announcements to push your notifications out to students.
Designing your effective library resources assignment
Getting students to use quality information sources for term papers and projects can be a challenge; the library offers suggestions to make it easier for both instructors and students.
Improve your online course with Quality Matters
Two online workshops are available in April and June to instructors with existing courses online. The training introduces a subset of the Quality Matters rubric standards which have the greatest impact on course design. Faculty decide and prioritize which sections of their course to improve.