ISI Faculty Resource Center

While online courses pose a number of difficulties for teachers and students, the reality is that they are becoming increasingly popular among departments. I’ll be teaching online courses for the first time this fall, and I am particularly concerned about how I can best engage a group of students whose interaction will be completely virtual. I will be using the Desire to Learn (D2L) system through the University of South Dakota—a technology similar to Blackboard. I also have the option to use Elluminate, a system which allows for live classroom discussions as well as a forum for pre-recorded lectures (with power-points and other images). I have used discussion boards (through Blackboard) in conjunction with on-campus courses before and found them to be useful. But I am still looking for suggestions for how to best facilitate community, engagement, and free discussion in a strictly online course. Can anyone offer suggestions or lessons learned from personal experience?

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The readings for June 17 ("Thinking about Technology and Teaching") and June 19 ("Teaching the Millennial Generation") got me thinking about the proper role of technology in the classroom. Of course, many questions regarding teaching style refer further back to the fundamental goals of any given course. In the past I have asked myself: What will my students get out of this? What do I want them to learn? And how can I best facilitate that process?

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