Taking an online course can be an isolating experience, but it doesn’t have to be. There are several key techniques you can employ to humanize your online courses and thus improve the learning experience as well as success and retention rates.

This ebook is about pursuing a joyful journey in college teaching. Part memoir and part advice for others, it is meant to encourage and inspire faculty who may have fallen out of love with teaching.

How much can we learn from each other’s experiences? A lot, but there are reasons to be cautious. Sometimes what’s been learned from an experience, or set of experiences, is wrong. That’s true whether the learning is about teaching or life.

Last semester I implemented a different kind of final exam. In the past I have used the standard multiple-choice and short-answer exams. I was thinking about making a change when I discovered Beyond Tests and Quizzes: Creative Assessment in the College Classroom, edited by Richard J. Mezeske and Barbara A. Mezeske. The second chapter, “Concept Mapping: Assessing Pre-Service Teachers’ Understanding and Knowledge,” describes an assessment method that tests higher-level thinking. The author shared his experience using concept maps as a final exam, included an example of the final exam project, offered rubrics for grading, and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the strategy. I decided this was the change I was going to make.

How do we make learning messy and unpredictable for our students—and why? I posed this question to the members of the Teaching Professor group on LinkedIn in July, and a lively and insightful discussion immediately began. This article is based upon the insights shared in the discussion.

This is an important question because so many institutions now offer regular courses in shorter time frames. It might be a course offered in a monthlong summer session or one taught in January between regular-length semesters. It’s also important because there is a perception among students that shorter courses are easier. How could you possibly do as much work in a four-week course as in a 15-week one?

Accepting and sharing responsibility for creating a productive work setting within the department and institution result, at least to a great extent, from how well each member of the community carries his or her own fair share of the common workload. The challenges faced by higher education institutions in the 21st century cannot be successfully mastered, nor can the efforts of dedicated professionals be sustained when the actions of a faculty member are divisive, uncompromising, and inflexible. In a similar way, it is destructive to a department’s morale and effectiveness when one or more of its members accept a significantly lower degree of responsibility for achieving a shared purpose. These elements lie at the heart of that salient, fundamental hallmark of successful interactions in academic life that is commonly called collegiality.

How we teach begins and ends with behaviors. It’s good to remind ourselves of that every so often. Most of the ingredients identified as the components of effective instruction—things like clarity, organization, and enthusiasm—are abstractions. They’re intangible, without physical form. Their presence or absence is conveyed by the behaviors that have come to be associated with them.

NEW YORK – October 8, 2013 – Professional development in the higher education industry is becoming increasingly important as shifts in student demographics, pedagogy and classroom technology usage mean that faculty require a new generation of training tools. To help educators respond effectively to these challenges, McGraw-Hill Education today announced the launch of Magna Campus, the first professional development product created through the collaboration between Magna Publications and the McGraw-Hill Learning Institute, the company’s professional development unit designed to help faculty navigate new and emerging educational technologies.