Thinking of You: Q&A for Online Faculty

In this episode, I share a few thoughts on late work policies that work for students and faculty. I also present my current late work policy (see more on my blog here) in case it's helpful. 

What should you do when a student experiences an emergency or major life event? Do you stick with your syllabus or make exceptions to your policies? What about a student who hasn't started the class more than halfway through but now wants to make up the work? I'll share my criteria for working with students in these situations. 

How can we help when students haven't been able to get their required course materials due to financial aid delays, international shipping, and other issues? Please share your ideas and experiences with this if like: thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com 

It's week 1, and you may be experiencing a high volume of questions in your online course. Here are a few tips for answering these questions and refining your course based on the questions that are coming in. 

This is a quick mini episode to answer the age-old question: should students be able to see what other people have posted before they submit their own response in a discussion board? Or should you require them to post first before viewing other students' responses? You probably won't be shocked to find that I have a strong opinion on this one :). Send along your questions to thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com and have a great week!

In this episode, I provide some ideas for how to respond when a student feels that they are teaching themselves in an online course. 

Today's question covers how to kindly and effectively teach students who are not native English speakers. I go over my thoughts on how to assess work and facilitate the best possible learning experience for all of our students.  Share your own thoughts, resources or questions on my website. 

Negative course evaluations are never fun, particularly when student feedback is personal rather than constructive. In this episode, I share a few thoughts on how to use them to improve your teaching and how to avoid using them for self-flagellation. Resources mentioned in the episode are available here. 

As the semester winds down for many faculty across the States, many people are buried beneath a pile of assignments to grade. In this episode, I offer a straightforward way to think about how much time you have to grade, how to schedule it into your calendar, and how to set up your online courses to work around submissions that you'd like to focus on more deeply. Please send questions my way: thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or post on my website. 

It's finals week! In honor of wrapping up one trimester while simultaneously preparing for the next, I share some ideas about creating interesting and fun "Getting to Know You" activities for week 1 of your online courses. For more info or to submit questions, visit my website. 

Ah, plagiarism. The word that causes a sinking feeling in every educator's heart. In this week's episode, I discuss a few quick tips for handling academic integrity issues, and some thoughts on crafting assignments that don't lend themselves to plagiarism. I'd love to hear your strategies and ideas: thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or www.camillefreeman.com/podcast 

I've developed a process for handling letter of recommendation requests, which I outline in this episode. You can see my website page for students who want to request letters, and the one with instructions to be used after I've agreed to the request. (Many thanks to Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom and Dr. Tricia Matthew for sharing their guidelines. I highly recommend following both on Twitter and elsewhere.). If you have other ways of handling letters of recommendation, I'd love to hear about them: thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or leave a comment on my website. Thanks for listening! 

I cover a follow-up question about Episode 6: Mid-Term Surveys and talk about what it feels like to be a beginner. I'd love to hear from you! Please send your comments and questions to thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com. 

Wherein I go on a small rant about when and how to use discussion boards in online courses. Thoughts? Ideas? thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or leave your feedback here. 

In today's episode, I discuss some ideas for setting up quizzes in our course, including whether to allow repeated attempts, when to reveal answers, and so forth. I highly recommend the website https://www.retrievalpractice.org/, which transformed the way I think about quizzing in my physiology I course. If you have questions, comments, or quizzing tips/ideas, I'd love to hear from you: thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com 

Should you send out a mid-term survey in your online course? If so, what kinds of questions work well? Click here for a link to one of my most recent mid-term surveys, which you're free to use or modify for your own course. As always, I love receiving questions and comments. Reach out any time! thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com 

A slightly-belated Valentine's Day episode! A few thoughts on loving our students, even when it's challenging. 

Thoughts on how to best communicate with your online students individually and as a group. Please share your thoughts and questions by emailing thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or on my website here.  Link to the Remind app I mentioned. 

Here are a handful of ideas for adding student agency to your online course, even if you weren't the one who designed it. I'd love to hear your ideas, comments, and questions. How do you add agency to your online courses? Email thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or submit online here.  * A video tour showing how I incorporate student choice into my Pathophysiology course * Tricider: a free tool for brainstorming and voting on ideas * FlipGrid: a free tool that simplifies video responses. I'll do a separate blog post on this soon! 

Thoughts on how and why to humanize your instructor bio.  See also this excellent article in Faculty Focus by Evan Kropp: Using Your Instructor Bio to Humanize Course, Reduce Student Anxiety Here is a link to the Teaching Complexity webinar series.   Please send feedback and questions to thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com or submit here. 

Should you open all of the weeks in your online course from the beginning, or should you release content slowly over the course of the trimester? We'll consider this question through the student lens. Please share your thoughts and/or questions about teaching online here or via email: thinkingofyoupodcast@gmail.com 

Meet Camille and learn why this podcast is called "Thinking of You."