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Online Education Encourages Stronger Scholarship Cultures

One of the greatest advantages of traditional education is its ability to create knowledge based cultures through face-to-face communication.  It is believed that on-campus social interaction creates norms, values, and expectations that lead people to higher forms of scholarship.  This is not always the case when negative cultural influences restrict the ability of students to be successful.  New research shows that online courses help to enhance the scholastic nature of colleges by countering some of the destructive norms in society that limit intellectual growth. When people interact and socialize with each other they create social expectations that can either lead to more scholastic behavior or lessen that behavior. For example, cultural norms can encourage greater research and knowledge sharing or it can socially restrict the transference of knowledge. When negative cultures are developed in face-to-face environments they can be extremely difficult to reverse. Online education

How Does Chinese Culture Influence Online Education?

Online education is growing and spanning the earth as Internet access becomes more entrenched in people’s lives. The study of culture and its impact on online education hasn’t been studied with any real vigor. According to a study by Zhang (2014) Confucius cultures maintain many of the same attributes when engaging in school online. School administrators should consider the impact of culture on the online education modality and how that impacts learning.  It is first beneficial to understand what culture is. It can be seen as, “ the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another ” (Hofstede, 2010). Culture is that which we carry with us from our shared social upbringing uniquely tied to our place of origin.  When students move online the way in which they perceive the information and how they interact with authority figures isn’t likely to change. Those who were raised in cultures that have a high respect f

How to Encourage Student Engagement in Online Classrooms

Online classrooms are an increasingly popular modality in higher education. Because online informational channels are completed in a virtual world it can be difficult to connect with students in a way that is meaningful. Despite its difficulty this connection is a vitally important aspect of encouraging student success in terms of retention, satisfaction, and learning. Engaging students is about trying to connect with them on a personal level and this can be difficult if you are not standing face-to-face with them and have enough interaction to learn about their interests. Even though it may require new skills the online modality does provide a sufficient platform to engage students on a personal level. Read Student Profiles: Students love to talk about themselves, what is going on in their lives, their pets, and their experiences. Reading through their profile will provide an elevator snap shot of the student and how they want to be seen by others in class. Refer back to

Online Education: How To Collect Data To Assess Needs and Student Outcomes

Tuesday, June 3, 3:00-4:30 (Eastern) Type: Online Webinar As the cost of education continues to increase and the availability of new and innovative technology tools expands online teaching and learning opportunities, keeping up with and increasing faculty skill sets proves challenging. Moreover, institutions are experiencing tighter budgets, making opportunities for professional development more difficult to fund. This webinar will focus on how to collect, correlate, and use data to expand faculty capacity and assess outcomes. During this webinar, participants will learn how the University of the District of Columbia initiated an effort to provide professional development opportunities to faculty across three levels: track participation and outcomes, target specific training to faculty based upon skills, and move faculty along a continuum toward being certified to teach online. The presentation will also disclose how a simple correlation was used to map trained faculty and their

The Benefits of Reverse E-Teaching in Military Education

The concept of reverse teaching has been around for nearly 200 years. In practice it has led to both strong and poor performance of students. This is often dependent on the motivation of the student and whether or not they are actively reviewing materials and making connections between that information. A paper by Maria Constantinescu (2013) discussed how reverse teaching works with e-platforms in the military.  Reverse teaching is a process whereby the teacher provides the necessary materials and tools for students to understand theoretical concepts. Students study on their own time and then come back to class to show what they know. It is based off of a model implemented by the 1817 Colonel Sylvanus Thayer at West Point who is known as “Father of the Military Academy”.  The same process also occurs in an online environment whereby the instructor provides the right materials and students use these materials to study the concepts. The class is used as a place where they c