Technology Day
May 5, 2012
Dawn Cox
Best practices for new instructors
Greetings from the Great Pacific
Northwest
My introduction
Experience:
• Schools: Cochise College in Arizona,
Kaplan University (nationwide)
Wilmington University
Georgia Military College
• Instructional design experience
We all love the technology! But it is
also about the simple interactions.
Sometimes it is all about the relationships
• Instructor to student
• Student to student
Prompt and positive feedback it key to this
interaction. I am going to discuss this.
Course Design and set-up
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Be consistent
Be organized
Consider aesthetics
Be redundant
Set clear deadlines
Give great feedback
Be flexible
Save time!
Be consistent
Be Organized: Create a clear and consistent
“path” for students to follow
Be Redundant
Place frequently used documents in more
than one place or provide them through
various delivery methods. For example, a
due date document should be:
1. Emailed to the students
2. Posted in the “Start Here” section
3. Placed in each assignment area that
applies
Set clear deadlines
• The most common problem that students
have in online courses is time
management. Help them.
• Make a ‘due date” document with all of
the assignments and assessments
• Implement a late policy
• Send reminders. If a student is absent for
more that five days, email.
• Be flexible. If a student has
a situation, work with him.
Discussion Board Suggestions
• Create weekly discussions that might apply to real life
situations.
• Create a clear rubric for grading procedures.
• During the first week, respond to each student’s
introduction.
• Encourage students to be “positive.”
• Respond to each student’s initial post each week.
• Check the board at least once a day.
• Ask questions to encourage dialogue.
Email Suggestions
• Check your email at least once a day and respond
to each student in a timely manner. It is
suggested that 24 hours during the week and 48
on the weekend is the best policy.
• Create a data base of answers if it applies.
• Negative emails: If you are angry don’t respond
right away. I usually send a quick email telling the
student that I will respond within 24 hours.
• Email the whole class at least once a week. This
can be done through announcements in BB.
Assignment Suggestions
• If students are submitting in MSWord, use the
“track changes” tool.
• Create detailed, clear rubrics that explain the
grading procedure
• Address the student by name when providing
feedback
• Grade all assignments in a timely fashion
Track Changes
Rubrics
Feed
back
Examples of feedback for online
quizzes and assignments (MML)
• Perfect or close to perfect score:
• Wonderful! You almost earned a perfect score on your
MML practice problems covering the topics: the
advantages of the metric system, metric units,
converting units in the metric system, length, area,
volume, mass, and temperature in the metric system,
and dimensional analysis in the US system. Please
email me or IM me if I can answer any questions. Here
are the problems that you had trouble with: #5 mass in
the metric system, #9 US to metric conversion, and #12
relative metric amounts. Email address AIM:
dawnellencox
For a student who did not do as well
Below 70%:
It is great that you worked on your MML practice
problems which dealt with the topics: variation with
applications, graphing linear equations, and linear
inequalities. It appears that you might need some
help:). I would be happy to meet with you on IM or via
email. Don’t forget to use the Similar Exercise button
next time. This will give you extra practice on the
exercises you are having difficulty with. Here are the
problems that you had trouble with: #6,9,18 Venn
diagrams, #8 intersection, and #11,15 set notation.
Email address , AIM: dawnellencox
Save time!
Create a “FAQ” folded on your hard drive.
Since I teach math, I often get students wanting me
to work problems that are similar to the ones that
they have to work for their assessed work.
I work every similar problem and then I save it to
my hard drive. That way when another student has
the same question later, I can pull that up and send
it to him.
Hold virtual office hours
• Use your classroom chat area or AOL IM for
my office hours.
• Choose the time slots that you think most
students will have time to “drop by.”
I do encourage students to make appointments
as well.
Thank you for listening
I hope that you enjoyed the
presentation!
Contact information:
dawn.e.cox@wilmu.edu
dawnec@charter.net