Sharon Lawson

To manage an e-learning environment, an instructor must  monitor students who feel alienated, have an excessive workload, competing responsibilities, and struggle with technical issues. Also, he/she must monitor the discussion threads to keep everyone on target and send personal emails when needed. 

It is important to engage students in the discussion posts to keep them active and interesting. The posed questions for the discussion post need to be clear, concise, and not overly wordy. It is important to make sure the students post mainly on replies to the individual student and not overly on threaded replies. 

I love the idea of posting an BIO of the instructor either by way of written or video format. I would like to add that the students each post a short BIO answering a few questions in the reply. I will respond to each student and then save the students BIO in a file for further use as I interact with the students through the course of program. 

Both learner and technical support are paramount for online courses. The instructor should be familiar with the entire online course before the class begins. 

It is important to use a variety of teaching methods to keep the students engaged and to enhance learning. The 20-20-10 plan allows for 20 minutes interactive lecture, 20 minutes of collaborative learning, and 10 minutes of review using a Kahoot game or Q & A. 

Great ideas for the first day meeting. Start with a meet and greet, Then, instructor introduction. I like to show a PPT of my animals, family, and some of my vacations sites. I love playing a getting to know you game with the students.

I like the statement for my students and myself for both preparation and attendance: Early is on time and on time is late.

It is important to have technical, professional, and personal competence. But it is paramount for an instructor to model professionalism in all aspects of teaching and relating to students and other faculty. When a student sees faculty gossiping or treating a peer disrespectfully, this professional modeling is broken. I have seen this before, and it causes the students to lose respect for the faculty.