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The Best Technology for Engaging Students in Online Classes

Teaching online can get a little stale when you’re just using the basics: Blackboard, Canvas, Pearson products, Adobe Connect webinars, etc.  However, the article Building Real Community Online with Free Apps by Dian Schaffhauser offers some options for ‘meeting’ with online students that may build more of a community in your classroom, and may help…

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How to Start the Upcoming Semester on the Right Foot

Every Instructor has certain icebreakers they like to use on the first day of face-to-face classes, and a preferred way of discussing the syllabus with students, I know I do (and old habits are hard to break). However, if you’re up ready for a change, or think you might find yourself with some extra time…

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What Every Online Instructor Needs to Post in Their Courses

If you teach college courses online, I can guarantee that the following piece (by online instructor and occasional Happy Professor contributor, Chris Berg, Ph.D.) will have you vigorously nodding your head with every word. Do yourself a favor and send the following article to your students as a Canvas or Blackboard Announcement, or even take…

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The Importance of Engaging Students 10 Minutes Before Class Starts

In my first book, Happy Professor, I included a short section about the importance of engaging with your students during the seemingly insignificant (but secretly crucial) 10-15 minutes before class starts.  Honestly, I don’t always follow my own advice. Sometimes I have a crisis on my hands at a different school, so I’m dealing with…

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Discussion Ideas for Family Communication Courses

This semester I put together what I call a ‘packet’ of discussion topics for my Family Communication course that we, as a class, discussed over the course of the semester. I was really pleased with the way it turned it. As we read about and discussed the concepts in class, we watched relatable videos, tied…

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How To Facilitate Easy and Effective Discussions in the College Classroom

After reading last week’s post, Why Students Benefit from Participation & Class Discussions, a longtime friend and reader of the blog decided to try a new approach to teaching her class and reached out to me for some tips. I was thorough enough that I figured my (very long) response to her would serve as…

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Why Students Benefit from Class Discussions & Participation

This semester I’ve been teaching a Family Communication class that I’ve loved every second of. I taught the class online a few years ago, but the face-to-face version has been a completely different experience, and I’m seeing my students grasp the concepts much more easily this time around- applying the textbook terms to their own…

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How to Effectively Flip Your Classroom

I’ve been using the ‘flipped classroom’ approach to teaching since before I knew what the term meant. I’m sure I’m not the only instructor who intuitively felt that talking at students for a few hours each week, and then sending them home to do outside work wouldn’t be the best learning strategy. Instead, I had…

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How to Help Students Think Critically in the College Classroom: State, Elaborate, Exemplify, and Illustrate Activity

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I’ve been working on some face-to-face classroom activities (that I’ve also tried out with my online classes) to help my students answer and analyze questions/concepts more thoroughly in future assignments. After experimenting a little bit, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the results. Any instructor, regardless of what…

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The Student Perspective: 3 Insightful Articles for College Instructors

The dean at one of my local colleges goes through the trouble of sending out department-wide emails each week with school updates and interesting articles we might be interested in reading. As an online instructor, I probably appreciate these weekly emails more than most instructors since it keeps me in the loop, so I try…