Tag: building community

Promising Practices in Inclusive Teaching

by May 21, 2018

Learning designers Jeanne Kerl, Brian Runo, and David Noffs attended the Second Annual Teaching Forum on Promising Practices: Learning from Our Community held April 18, 2018 at the Norris University Center at Northwestern University’s main campus in Evanston. The plenary session speaker was Dr. Frank Tuitt, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and Provost on Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Higher Education at the University of Denver. His address was entitled, Making Excellence Inclusive in Challenging Times: Diversity Consideration for the Classroom and Beyond. Dr. Tuitt started his presentation with a review of the challenging times we are facing. Headlines

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Creating Community in the Online Classroom

by Apr 02, 2018

On Thursday, March 15th, I attended Dr. Lisa Cravens-Brown’s TeachXperts presentation, “Creating Community in the Classroom.” Although Dr. Cravens-Brown’s presentation focused on physical spaces, I was curious if some of her ideas could also apply to online learning; and was delighted to discover that they did. Dr. Cravens-Brown began her presentation by sharing two main concepts from research on community building in education. First, a sense of belonging to a community positively impacts several variables in education: task persistence, motivation, course success, and perception of the instructor. Second, environments influence perception – the structure of the classroom sends students a

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Best Practices for Communicating With Students in Online Classes

by May 30, 2017

Introduction A recent SPS student satisfaction study asked students to identify ways their academic program could be enhanced. Numerous students suggested making improvements to instructor-student communication and engagement. I know what you’re thinking. Communication should be easy! With digital tools to connect students and instructors, shouldn’t this come naturally? Actually, communication with students in online classes needs to be frequent, intentional, and multifaceted. As an online instructor, you will need to actively combat distance and silence to make meaningful connections with your students. Read on to discover tools and strategies that can make the process easier. Make sure your contact

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Connecting with Northwestern

by Jan 17, 2017

As a Distance Learning faculty member, you probably don’t have an office on campus where students can pop in or a lounge where you can chat with your peers. You could be in a different time zone–or even a different country!–from Northwestern’s campuses in Evanston and Chicago. It can get lonely out there, but luckily there are lots of ways to make that distance feel shorter. Here are some tips for connecting with your students, faculty peers, the School of Professional Studies, and Northwestern as an institution. Follow us and connect with us (and your peers) on social media. Is

Designing to Promote Instructor Presence and Instructor-Student Interaction

by Feb 09, 2016

Whatever our role might be in the course design process, we are charged with creating an exemplary learning experience for our adult learners. One way to ensure we create the highest quality and most engaging courses is by designing learning experiences that incorporate instructor presence and encourage student-instructor interactions.   Instructor presence is one of the three interrelated presences central to effectively applying the community of inquiry framework to online course design, in addition to social presence and cognitive presence. The community of inquiry framework, developed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer in 2000, focuses on creating “a group of individuals

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