One of the most frequently asked questions from veteran and novice online faculty alike is, “How many weekly discussion posts should I contribute?” The reality is, there is an intricate balancing act to achieve the coveted “guide on the side” role in discussion forum facilitation.

It’s thrilling when I, as an educator, witness a student’s transformation from a limiting perspective to one that is broader, more inclusive, and most times empowering and inspiring. I can see that the change in their ways of thinking opens their mind to new possibilities about their lives and their worlds.

It’s a new year and a new semester, with new courses and different students—along with perhaps a few favorite courses and students you get to spend time with all over again, and maybe a couple of each you won’t miss at all. In other words, it’s a new beginning.

It’s an almost unquestioned assumption that written assignments need to be used to assess student learning. While traditional writing assignments are appropriate for many types of assessments, there is no law requiring it for all assessments. I’ve had students construct Wikipedia entries, make Voicethreads, and build online games as assessments.

Have you authored a scholarly article? Or perhaps read one that is bookmarked, dog-eared, and referred to on a regular basis? If so, we want to hear about it!

Most online students, even those who are successful, will tell you it takes an extra dose of motivation to stay on top of their assignments compared to the traditional classroom. No wonder online courses have an attrition rate that’s 10 – 20 percent higher than their face-to-face counterparts.

We all have our favorite authors … of course, most of mine write about teaching and learning. I read everything I can find written by my favorites and they remain favorites because their writing seldom disappoints. Peter J. Frederick, a history professor at Wabash College—he may be retired by now—is one of my favorite authors.

Complaints about incivility in the classroom are not new, but most faculty believe incivility is on the rise. Couple that with our litigious society, and it’s no wonder that one of the most important skills faculty need today is classroom management.

One of the enduring legacies of the classroom assessment movement (thank you Pat Cross and Tom Angelo) is that most faculty now realize that if they want to know how well something worked to promote learning in the classroom, they can’t just rely on what they think. They need to support what they think with feedback from students and, if that feedback doesn’t agree with what they think, they need to listen carefully to what the students said.