COVID-19 has upended normal social connections that develop between students and professors. We are missing the connections that develop through casual interactions in office hours,
Because I teach online courses, I hoped—foolishly—that my own students would not suffer too much from the destabilizing effects of COVID-19 on higher education. I knew
Many community college students and employers have doubts about the quality of online education. New research with these groups raises important questions for the future of online learning, even as it quickly becomes part of the higher education mainstream.
The 2012 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group reveals the number of students taking at least one online course has surpassed 6.7 million. Higher education adoption of Massive Open Online Courses remains low, with most institutions still on the sidelines.
Community colleges saw a nine percent increase in distance learning enrollments in the 2009-10 academic year, according to a survey by the Instructional Technology Council (ITC), an affiliate of the American Association of Community Colleges.
We’ve all used them, first as students and now as online instructors: activities in a class meant to highlight, spotlight, underline, enhance, or explain some aspect of the subject we are teaching. Too often, not much thought or effort is given to these activities, resulting in outdated and unsuccessful activities. With the right approaches and a bit of knowledge, online instructors can create activities that are dynamic, effective, and interesting.
The rapid growth of online education, coupled with instances of lax academic integrity and cases involving questionable instructional quality, has put the entire industry under the microscope. As a result, today’s distance education programs are looking to not only prove the quality of their programs, but improve them as well.
In its early days web-based instruction was seen as a solution to a problem: students who were separated from campus either by geography or schedule would be able to take advantage of web-based instruction to get the training or degree they desired.
A survey of senior campus officials responsible for managing online and distance education programs revealed some interesting findings, including almost half of the participants not knowing whether their program is profitable.
How do you motivate online learners?
It’s an age-old question that continues to stump online instructors as well as the managers of distance education programs trying to solve the attrition problem that continues to drag down this otherwise thriving segment of higher education.
