A Low-Tech Document Camera for Teaching Online

When teaching online, do you ever need to write on the virtual chalkboard? Or show your hands and materials on a table? I do. Since I teach math education, I’ll show my undergrads how

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Teaching College Tip #6

Provide an optional final. This is a collection of questions pulled from the weekly quizzes. It your course is scored out of 1000 points, this final could be worth, say, 100-150 points. This relieves

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Teaching College TIP #03: Let Students Choose the Breakout Room

When students are synchronously working on an assignment or task, give them a choice as to how they want to work. One way is to create different breakout rooms or channels to decide which working

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TEACHING COLLEGE TIP #07: Less Tests, More Interviews

Going forward, I’ll share some of my readers’ best tips for teaching online. They will be short and random (I won’t start at #1) . . . AND I promise they won’t waste your time.

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“Touching Your Students”: No, It’s Not What You Think

If you’re teaching online, you WILL lose students. Some will engage less. Others will disappear. Why? Many reasons, of course. But today, I’m focused on one: Because online, students get less “touches.” In the

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PODCAST: How to Self Publish a Profitable Book

GradBlogger podcast host Dr. Chris Cloney and I talk about my self-publishing experiences and how professors can turn their expertise into a potentially profitable book. This is for you if you’ve been frustrated with

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One Tweak to Make Breakout Rooms Easier To Manage

It’s frustrating to use breakout rooms for group discussions, whether on Zoom or on Blackboard (my learning management system platform). I struggled with it last semester. Why? Because I felt like I was just

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Getting Students To Show Their Faces On Zoom (Part 2)

The big concern professors have about Zoom (or any web conference platform) is: Should we require students to turn on their webcam? Or Why do so many students not want to show their faces?

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What Frustrates Students Most About Online Classes

As Spring 2020 comes to a close, I decided to take stock. What worked in my online class during COVID-19 and what didn’t, from a teaching perspective? What can I take away for next

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Should Students Show their Faces on Zoom?

Last week I conducted classes virtually and in real time on Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Collaborate Ultra (Blackboard’s videoconferencing feature). And the whole time all I could focus on was the sea of blank

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