Inspiring Students to Succeed in Online Courses 

Primary Presenter: Teresa Nugent

Co-Presenter: Erin Kingsley

Organization: University of Colorado Boulder

Role: Instructor

Track: Discussion

Level: For Mere Mortals

Abstract: Actively engaging students is the number one challenge for educators. Instructors Teresa Nugent and Erin Kingsley have experience teaching online and traditional English courses for the University of Colorado. They will initiate this group discussion by sharing their experiences of teaching courses in D2L and discussing strategies for engaging students in virtual and physical classrooms. Discussion will cover best practices for online teaching, including assignments, discussions, assessments, teacher-student communications, technology and Web 2.0 applications.

Bio: Teresa Nugent, Ph.D., has been teaching online English courses for the University of Colorado at Boulder since 2004. She is the liaison between CU’s Independent Learning Programs and the Department of English. She coordinates the Digital Pedagogy Grant program, which offers English graduate students hands-on experience in online teaching. Erin Kingsley is a Ph.D. candidate in English at CU-Boulder. She is the recipient of the 2011-2013 Digital Pedagogy Grant, and she received a 2011-2012 GPTI Teaching Excellence Award. Nugent and Kingsley are both passionate about teaching and exploring new ways to enhance students’ online experiences in virtual classrooms.

Description: Objective: Our aim is to share teaching experiences, challenges and solutions and generate an active discussion with audience participants about enhancing student engagement in our classrooms, both virtual and physical.
Outline: We will open this session by sharing our experiences with teaching online English courses in D2L at CU. One of the primary challenges for any educator is getting students actively engaged with course material. We all know that students tend to do well in courses that peak their interest. How do we draw them into the subject matter through a computer screen? What tools and techniques help to keep them involved so that they continually return to the virtual classroom and participate in course activities? Teresa and Erin will share their successes and failures with attracting and maintaining student engagement online. We will display our online courses to the audience in order to provide examples of online course sites and generate discussion on topics, such as the following:
• Getting students to logon and read/view the homepage, syllabus, assignments, etc.
• Text versus video
• Individual versus group projects
• Generating successful discussions online
• Utilizing Web 2.0 applications, such as Hootcourse, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Assessment tools: what works, best practices
• Interacting with students; it’s all about communication
• How to help students when they begin to slide or disappear
The audience will be called upon to contribute their own experiences with motivating students to succeed. Depending on the size of the audience, we may break down into small groups to discuss specific questions about pedagogy, technology, assessments, teacher-student interactions and feedback, assignments, incentives, etc.
Anticipated outcomes: participants in this session will gain insights on how to design courses that capture students’ attention, get them invested in their learning experience, and help them track their own progress.