Eric Fuchs

I learned the reasons that students drop out of classes, which was helpful to me. The noisy, quiet, disruptive, intimidator, and procrastinator categories seem accurate, although I haven't had many disruptive students.

Artificial Intelligence is already being used by my students for discussions and written work. It's still easy to recognize, but as it gets better, grading will be more challenging. The Email section is outdated-most of my students prefer texts, DMs, and posts on social media. For them, email is for old people. Many say they don't check their school email accounts very often.

I'm going to have to increase the amount of asynchronous communication in my classes. For the most part, my impression was that they were of limited value, but changing the way I use them and putting the ideas in this section to work will improve my classes.

The Bergquist & Philips taxonomy of learning styles was interesting and useful. I might share the list with my students to see if it gives them some insight into their own learning styles. The handbook they wrote is available online, and although some of it is dated, it's got some good points. For… >>>

Comment on Cindy Stevens's post: I agree, but my teaching load has increased, so I'd be sending about 80-100 personal emails. I used Panopto to let each student post a short biography, and posted one of my own. I also found surveys helpful for learning my students' schedules and preferences. One of the reasons online instruction is so common is that it's inexpensive. Pay for online instructors continues to decline, and course size is always increasing. It's also more time consuming for instructors. Instead of saying something to an entire class, you have to answer 37 emails about requirements,… >>>

I learned to solicit biographies and basic information (their major, how they prefer to be addressed, best way to contact them, their schedule) and to share my credentials, accomplishments, and experience.

I learned the importance of structure. The online architecture of the course has to make the progression of ideas and assignments clear, and it must convey the relationship between different parts of the course.

The most difficult challenge for me is engaging asynchronous learners, especially younger students who are uncomfortable interacting with other people. They tend to do all of the assignments early, or all of them at the last minute. During class, they turn of their cameras and mute themselves, or have a game or the internet open for the entire class. They rely on the CMS for instructions, and pay no attention to feedback or the instructor's advice. If they don't see something on their screen, they don't look for it. They email the instructor and expect an immediate reply. 9 times… >>>

As Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message." Some F2F classes can't be turned into online classes, and that means some kinds of knowledge, learning, and interaction are going to die.

Students like highly structured courses with clear goals, assignments, and expectations. They also prefer information in brief, easily digested lessons about things with an obvious application. They see themselves as customers. The degree is the product they are purchasing, and the instructor is a sales associate helping them with the transaction.

Student evaluations bear this out, but the only meaningful course evaluations would be ones given five or… >>>

The module and the comments were useful. I'm going to work on these tasks:

Faster feedback, including queries to students who miss deadlines.

More positive feedback.

Greater use of blogs to encourage students to work together.

Most of my students prefer asynchronous learning. That's okay, but it means they tend to do all of their work at once, usually late in the term. They don't want to edit or revise what they've written, and they frequently ask questions about topics that I go over in class, and that are in the assignment instructions.

I prefer synchronous learning, but it's almost impossible to get some students to participate.

I learned that I lecture to much and for too long. I'm going to make short instructional PowerPoint clips about specific topics.

I also learned that I have a teacher-centered style, and that I should facilitate more.

The phrase "teaching process" annoys me. It's redundant because teaching is by definition a process.