Khal Lahlou

I must agree with your comments about the challenge of implementing meaningful group projects in online courses. I teach asynchronous courses. Therefore, all students access their course at different days and at different times. Moreover, students do not live in the same time zone. Furthermore, they are on a variety of work schedules, shifts, and family obligations.

However, during our weekly live instructor labs, everyone has the opportunity to participate in our synchronous discussions. They ask questions, share comments, and learn from each other’s. 

I think meaningful group projects would only work in synchronous and traditional courses.

Any new ideas?

I teach online synchronous/asynchronous courses. There are many parameters to the course such as daily discussions, weekly one-hour live interactive labs using Blackboard, Collaborate, and phone, and weekly one-hour live instructor office hours so that students can have an opportunity to ask questions or make comments about their coursework. Additional instructional strategies include step-by-step video tutorials, video intro presentations, power point presentations, study guides, and learning objectives.

In this information age, educators have to be creative when sharing course related information with students. Some of the techniques I use online include short PowerPoint module video presentations, discussions with curious titles, colored text, and relevant clipart, step-by-step multimedia video tutorials, and humorous announcements.

I have never taught a pharmacy calculations course. In my opinion, as an educator, I believe that active learning can be implemented in all types of courses. I have incorporated meaningful and relevant learning strategies to promote active learning in Math, Computer Science, Desktop support, and History courses. Examples of learning strategies that I have used include step-by-step video tutorials, PowerPoint videos, interactive Q&As, connecting course content to current events’ or current technologies’ discussions, transforming study guides into puzzles, using case method teaching, and having students do in-class role-plays.