One of the beautiful things about a semester is that we are banded together in a learning experience for a specified period of time. Every class we teach has a unique makeup of students from all across the university. Many will be from different majors and all of them will have different backgrounds, cultures, and ways of seeing the world. It, therefore, becomes important to establish a community where students know their peers and are comfortable speaking to them. We also want them to see the instructors as part of this community, not just as wizened sage, but as a guide for their learning and experiences. This poses the question “How DO we establish a supportive community of learning in our courses?”. This can be largely based upon our introduction activities that pave the way for all other interactions in a course. We need to “ break the ice ”. In both online and face-to-face teaching modalities establishing community is important for creating space for discussions, as well as effec...

Millennials watch 11.3 hours of online video a week! With the average YouTube video at 4 minutes long, that means they are watching about 171 videos per week. Educators need to take note of this trend, and take some tips from the "TubeGurus" on how to create engaging videos for their courses. Our webinar on March 2, 2016 talked about a number of topics from the use of humor, to how to get started with ideas. We shared and discussed some of the best practices below, and applied them to videos for online and flipped courses.  Some of the best practices included: Shorter is Better Use the 5A's of Emotion Tell a Story Call (Students) to Action Create a "Viral" title As always, the best way to get started is to meet with an instructional designer, with your objectives and a few sketches on what you want to do.  Below is the summary video, slides and resources. Resources: Summary video PowerPoint slides Frame-by-Frame Template Video Idea L...