1. Sandy Johnson RETA Instructor NMSU

2.  Communication is the most important element  Discussion Board  Email  Chat Rooms  Conferencing  Face to Face Intervention

3. Through communication we have the opportunity to know our students through their responses, opinions, questions, and feedback.

4. Announcements and Discussions Let students know that you are-  Present  Interested  Paying Attention  Available

5.  Expected time required by you and the student  Respond to all questions, emails, or postings within 24 hour  Grading of assignments and assessments within 48 hours

6.  Participation works well when there is a variety of activities and assessments  Provide opportunities to work in small and large groups  Realize that some students learn best while working alone. Build in options!

7.  Wimba is available for “real time” conferencing  Use Wimba to show students how to move within the Blackboard environment  Wimba provides chats, blogs, and wikis  Don’t forget-you have your students face to face-talk to them!

8.  Find ways to engage your learners  Offer collaborative and more reflective activities  Offer time to think, plan, write and summarize

9.  What can be done to increase participation?  What adjustments need to be made to facilitate learning?  What is working well for students?

10.  Great way to provide students a voice in their own learning  Leaves time to make necessary adjustments to delivery of content  Helps to identify areas to modify to meet student needs

11.  Provide an open question and answer forum  Encourage critical or creative thinking  Reinforce domain or procedural processes  Achieve social interaction and community building-- have the students get to know each other personally and intellectually  Validate experiences  Support students in their own reflections and inquiries

12.  Focus on content resources and applications and links to current events and examples that are easily accessed from learner's computers  Tutorials, simulations and content specific material can be found online  Link material learned to current events and to student’s lives

13.  Teacher identifies the core concepts to be learned in a course  Performance goals should be set and SHARED with the student  Build in options and choices to address the same performance goal reached in a different way (Differentiated Instruction)

14.  Remember- concepts are not words  Concepts are organized, intricate knowledge clusters  Effectively learning concepts requires a focus on patterns and relationships - not individual facts or vocabulary

15.  Students need to create, talk, write, explain, analyze, judge, report and inquire  Moves from concept awareness to concept acquisition  Discussion forums, blogging, journals and small group work are all excellent strategies for engaging learners in clarifying and enlarging their mental models or concepts  Helps to build links and identifies relationships.

16.  Planning ahead can help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere  Provide a “To Do” or checklist for students during the last few weeks of class  Help students by reminding them of “What’s Next”  Well-designed ending of a course provides opportunities for reflection and integration of useful knowledge  Provides a time to wrap up positive social and cognitive experiences

17.  End-of-course experiences often include student presentations, summaries and analyses  Reports and presentations provide insights into what useful knowledge students are taking away from a course  Provides opportunity for faculty to remind students of core concepts and fundamental principles

18.  Focus on your learners  Communication tools are the heart and soul of the online course  Be available  Above all-model what you want your online students to do

19.  Boettcher, J. V. (2006). "Ten core principles for designing learning -- The jungle brain meets the tundra brain." Expanded version of Boettcher, J. V. (2003). Course management systems and learning principles ---- Getting to know each other. Syllabus. 16: 33-36. campustechnology.com/articles/39412/. (Accessed August 27, 2007). Another version is at www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=54. (Accessed August 27, 2007).  Boettcher, J. V. and Conrad, R. M. (2004). Faculty guide for moving teaching and learning to the web. 2 nd Edition. Phoenix, AZ, League for Innovation. Pp. 247.  Conrad, R. M. and Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction, Jossey-Bass Pp. 123.  Fischer, K. Reiss, D. and Young, A. (2005). Ten tips for generating engaged online discussion. Austin, TX, University of Texas. http://wordsworth2.net/activelearning/ecacdiscustips.htm (Accessed August 27, 2007) A helpful set of concise tips that offer ideas and suggestions for being effective at facilitating discussions in electronic environments. More tips on getting started in online active learning are at.  Goodyear, Peter. (2002) Psychological foundations for networked learning." Networked learning: perspectives and issues. Pp. 49-75 2002. Springer-Verlag. New York, Inc.  Grogan, G. (2005). The Design of Online Discussions to Achieve Good Learning Results