Wednesday, December 14, 2011

December 14, 2011

Good Morning Online Instructors,

It is hard to believe we are already in Unit 11 of the quarter and that 2012 is just around the corner!  As you are working to finish up the quarter with your students and begin to look toward 2012 and winter quarter, I encourage you to take this opportunity to check in with your students to get their thoughts on your class and your overall teaching style.  It is the time of year many of us begin to make New Year's Resolutions, so what better time to make New Year's Teaching Resolutions too; having our students' perspectives to help us make these is even better!

I encourage each of you to create and share with your students a brief online survey to gauge their thoughts on the course and your teaching style using SurveyMonkey.com.  You can assure them their responses are anonymous and will simply help you to improve your own teaching in the future.

Some possible questions to include in your survey could be:
  • What was your favorite part of the class?  Why?
  • What was your least favorite part of the class?  Why?
  • Did you find the assignment feedback I provided helpful?  What would you have liked to have seen me offer differently?
  • Did you find the assignments beneficial to your overall understanding of the course concepts and objectives?
  • If you were to change one thing about the class, what would it be and why?
  • Was there enough variety in the course?
  • Was there enough interaction within the course?
  • If you were to describe the course in one phrase, what would that phrase be and why?
Not all of these questions would need to be included, these are just some ideas to help you get started.  I strongly encourage you to give it a try.  Your students appreciate the opportunity to share their feedback with you.

And in the spirit of creating professional New Year's Resolutions, I have created my own survey that I would love for each of you to participate in.  I would like to hear from you what types of training topics and courses you'd like to see offered in 2012 and what types of online instructor training gaps you believe might be present.  Please click here to take the survey.

Thank you and Happy Holidays!
Heather Thomton-Stockman
Online Instructional Specialist

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

December 7, 2011

Good Morning Online Instructors,

Last week I shared with you resources for creating and facilitating online flashcards to help your students study from and end the quarter strong.  Another great resource available to our students that I like to remind instructors of at this point each quarter is our free online tutoring center, Smarthinking.com!  It truly is an excellent free resource we should be reminding our students about, especially as they work on final projects and prepare for final exams.

Please feel free to share the following tutorial with your students so they can take advantage of this great studying and writing resource:  Smarthinking.com tutorial 

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks,
Heather Thomton-Stockman
Online Instructional Specialist