Today I'd like to share with you a couple of high quality free digital resources.
The K. Patricia Cross Academy is an online collection of videos, downloadable materials, and a blog that offer detailed instruction and guidance for implementing active learning techniques for online and face-to-face courses. These techniques have been widely used in a variety of disciplines, and the creators of the site are experts in the field of higher education teaching and learning.
The videos demonstrating teaching techniques are catalogued in multiple ways to aid navigation, so you can search for various teaching environments and activity types, but also by particular teaching problems an activity is useful for addressing, such as poor note-taking or cheating, and by the learning dimension the activity addresses, such as evaluation or synthesis. Each technique video is paired with downloadable material that include step-by-step instructions and support documents for implementing the program. Their new blog, CrossCurrents, addresses timely issues for faculty now, including making good use of online discussion boards and creating engaging asynchronous lectures for online courses.
The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) has created an Online Teaching Toolkit that explains some key best practices in online course design and teaching. The ACUE Online Teaching Toolkit is divided into six key topic areas, including Welcoming students to the online environment, Managing your online presence, Organizing your online course, Planning and facilitating quality discussions, Recording effective microlectures, and Engaging students in readings and microlectures.
ACUE always offers excellent resources and trainings developed by the leading experts in the field.
As you plan your fall classes, I think you’ll find these resources particularly helpful and inspiring.
