Author: Jackie Wickham Smith

Incorporating Current Events into Online Course Content

by Aug 29, 2016

Because of Northwestern University’s quarter system, teaching the same course four times each year can start to feel repetitive! One way to keep your course up to date and interesting is to incorporate current events into your course content and facilitation. Current events can also be used to customize the course to each cohort’s interests and keep students up to date on the happenings in the field they want to work in. Below are four easy ways to incorporate current events into your online course. 1. Take advantage of the library’s E-Journal subscriptions. The library subscribes to 158,013 electronic journals!

, ,

Scaling Assessments Using Zaption and draw.io

by Jun 23, 2016

Recently, IMC Professor Judy Franks presented an interesting issue: her student evaluation feedback indicated that her students absolutely loved her course, but were overwhelmed with the workload. In addition, she was asked to teach three sections of the course in the upcoming quarter. Combined, these issues pointed to the need to streamline the assessments in her course to decrease student time spent completing them as well as faculty time spent grading. Professor Franks wanted to use technology to maintain the rigor of her assessments and make it easier to provide enough feedback to each student. We focused on two assessments

, ,

TCC Online Conference Reflections

by May 24, 2016

The Distance Learning Team recently attended the TCC Online Conference hosted by TCC Hawaii. Because the conference was virtual, the team brought Hawaii to their office in Chicago via decorations, Hawaiian music, and Hawaiian snacks while they enjoyed the webinars. Conference topics included connecting with students, providing constructive feedback, building faculty community, and using video and humor in online courses. A topic that resonated with me was the first webinar we attended, “Are We Connecting? Strategies for Online Student Success” by Marsha Morgenstern, Tina Miller, Amy Winger, and Louisa Fordyce from University of Phoenix. The presenters discussed scaffolding, tone, multimedia

,

Maximizing Your Synchronous Sessions – Part II: Agenda

by May 16, 2016

In the School of Professional Studies, most students are busy adult professionals who have to carefully carve time out to focus on coursework. This post is part two of a series on how to make the most of synchronous time, or time when all students in the course and the instructor are online at the same time. Part I focused on technology: how to choose an appropriate web conferencing tool, provide connection information to students, and give students the opportunity to test the technology prior to the session. This post provides three strategies to assist you in planning a synchronous

, ,

Maximizing Your Synchronous Sessions – Part 1: Technology

Apr 18, 2016

Online courses at the School of Professional Studies make use of a limited amount of synchronous sessions – where students and the professor are all online at the same time – to build community and reinforce key course concepts. All faculty are required to host at least one synchronous session per quarter; the majority host between one and four throughout the ten weeks. In this two-part blog post series, I’ll explain how to make the most of synchronous time. This post will focus on technology, while next month’s post will discuss the session agenda. The technology involved in meeting live

, ,