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Tips to Create Engaging Live Sessions
[First published Feb 7, 2017 at Engaged Learning blog.] Live sessions (LS) offer opportunities for interaction between students and with the instructor in an online learning environment. Download PDF 7 Things to Know When Facilitating Live Sessions (text-only format) Acknowledge your students’ presence. Call them by name. Cultivate a sense of community. Start and stop the session on time. Show how the live session topic is relevant to the course and students’ work. Don’t repeat what’s in video lectures. Provide real life, current examples / cases / situations. Help…
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How Do I Know My Students Are Actually Learning in an Online Class? [draft]
[This is a first draft of some of my preliminary thoughts] I was asked this question during a consultation with a new online instructor. Sounds simple but I was somewhat stumped. I recall recovering in time to furnish a response. In hindsight, I want to put together a more thoughtful response. Essentially, this concern confounds most first-time instructors of online courses. They fear that they can’t engage with their learners and will not know whether these learners are keeping up with the class. The gap in space and place, the asynchronous…
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How to Turn Off Subtitles or Closed Captioning in Amazon Fire TV
Recently, I have been watching French movies on Amazon TV as part of my self-directed French studies. I turned on Closed Captioning (CC) for one of the movies last week because it didn’t have English subtitles. When I watched the French movie (Roman de Gare) today, I was saddled with both the movie’s subtitles and Amazon’s CC texts. Figuring out how to remove CC (or Subtitles) from the movie drove me crazy. I googled and didn’t find any “solution” I could understand or that worked. Amazon’s instructions were of no help.…
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Wanna Go to SXSWEDU 2019?
With a click of the mouse, I selected the last radio button on the SXSWEDU 2018 evaluation form and hit “Submit.” The conference evaluation form was merrily on its way to the organizers. There were the usual questions about takeaways, the learning experience, about what would make me want to go back again, and what would stop me from doing so. I would go to SXSWEDU again because … The values of SXSWEDU resonate with the core of who I am. I value access and equity, social justice, arts for learning and…
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SXSWEDU 2018: Things I Remember
Check out the following padlet for things I learned at the conference. Padlet URL: https://padlet.com/ywbkreher/6qk74qw8wvbb
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Creating Online Assessments for the First Time
This is a post that needs to be written as it is a F.A.Q. — one that I often get. Even when I’m not directly asked to address this, many instructors would appreciate having this range of assessments upfront when they are creating online assessments for the first time. Some of the questions I get asked are: What type of assessment can I create? How should I create them? Why should I create this assessment and not that? How do I measure …? So, I’ve put together some information, especially for first-time online instructors,…
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Instructional Design Consulting: Teaching the How and Not Just What
Scene: Dental Clinic Not one to enjoy dental trips, my anxiety grew as I waited to be worked on. The dental assistant had me x-rayed (again, to ensure the insurance company would pay for it) and inserted a tent-like contraption into my mouth. The dentist arrived, injected the gums near my ailing tooth with novocaine, and proceeded to drill and probe while her assistant poked different pieces of equipment into my mouth. Gosh, how could one’s mouth hold up to so much prodding and stretching? Overwhelmed, I raised my left hand to signal to them…
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DesignFix for the Week of 9-11 to 9-17-17
This weekend, I took time off to do the important — sharpen the saw (Covey’s 7th habit of highly effective people). Here’s what I found on the internet on productivity, designers and design ideas. Why Deep Work Helps You Get More Done in Less Time As a fan of Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital World, I’ve come to appreciate more and more the need to disconnect periodically. Srinivas Rao, author of Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best, discusses the importance of intense focus. Try…
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How I Manage Multiple ID Work Projects
Today, I’ll answer a question I’m often asked as an instructional design (ID) professional: “How do you manage multiple course projects under your charge?” If you are looking for a panacea, there is none. I believe everyone figures out a way that works best for him/her. When I have limited time, I simply tell the person asking that I have to be very organized. With a bit more time, I’ll elaborate on my response to this question. Here’s what I do to become very organized in order to juggle multiple projects of high…
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Crafting a Learning-Centered Syllabus
Every course design is philosophy and belief in action. –Manifesto for Teaching Online, written by teachers and researchers in online education, University of Edinburgh 2011 [This was first posted in Engaged Learning blog, another blog I maintain for work. This is a companion blog post to the eLearning Bulletin Board Poster on the 4th Floor of Wohlers Hall, College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The poster is an abridged version of what a motivational syllabus looks like. It is intended to serve as a discussion stimulus only.] As instructors,…
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Quick Tips to Writing Effective MCQ Items
Writing MCQs or Multiple Choice Question assessment items is a regular part of my professional life as an educator and learning designer. In working with many TAs (teaching assistants), instructors have asked me questions about writing MCQs, guidelines that could help these budding teachers write better MCQ items. I knew that there was a need for me to document some tips on writing effective MCQs. In February, a POD Network listserv subscriber asked for resources on writing effective MCQs. Several subscribers generously shared some very helpful resources. It’s the end of June, almost, I’ve finally found the…
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“Beautifying” Slides
I have some resistance to that phrase, hence the inspiration for my reflection today. It carries some connotation that the work is meaningless (this may not be the intent of the speakers) and that is not what I’m doing or my intent. Part of my job as an online ID involves reviewing slides that instructors use in their videos. My review entails looking at all dimensions of slide design, not so much the content, but I try to check if the phrasing is understandable to me, the outsider. At times, I create icons and graphs that don’t…
