This learning activity describes changes made to teach Recreation Programming in an online format, specifically the use of weekly student-led discussions on readings and films related to programming. The three components of weekly discussions (weekly summaries, weekly participation, and one-time discussion leader) are explained.

While I have always considered my approach to teaching to be student-centered, teaching during a pandemic challenged me to critically examine my teaching philosophy and practices. Guided by principles of the pedagogy of kindness, I sought student input as we collaboratively modified our courses during the COVID-19-induced shift to online learning.…

At an institution which serves mostly commuting students who are first generation and often balancing life responsibilities, online learning is enticing and presents challenges. Students can struggle with the required skills of self-regulation, effective time-management, communication, and balancing needs. In the spring of 2022, an innovative…

In the Winter of 2020, my introductory Canadian politics class started to develop its own online, collaboratively-built, open-access, introductory "textbook" on Canadian politics. Drawing on the principles of critical pedagogy, the assignment engages students in group work to generate plain-language primers that can connect with an…

Introduction: Individuals in various career fields will interact with people who have experienced trauma while engaging in their work responsibilities, and many have limited, if any, trauma training. Therefore, there is a need to provide trauma training within undergraduate degree programs. Statement of Problem: Online learning is a viable method…

Incorporating writing into an economics course is a beneficial goal of economic educators. The potential benefits of using writing to enhance learning among economics students have been emphasized in the literature. Writing to Learn (WTL) is an act of using writing activities to help students think through key concepts presented in a course. The…

In a matter of weeks--and in some cases, days--teachers were asked to move the remainder of their semester-long, in-person courses to the online environment, restructuring assignments and methods of content delivery along the way. Now, we live in-between, as people have navigated hybrid, stops and re-starts. What helped us then can help us in the…

Belonging, or the feeling of being a valued member of a community, has been linked to numerous positive outcomes in higher education. Although creating a sense of belonging at the campus level is important, equally important is fostering belonging in the classroom. Research has shown that belonging is more likely to occur in classes where students…

Active student participation is critical to the delivery of medicinal chemistry components of the pharmacy school curriculum. Carefully structured active learning strategies can promote student engagement while increasing course material application. Topic-based active learning assignments can be administered, where learners apply constructed…

This article describes the use of feedback-oriented online assignments in large classes of undergraduate students studying anatomy and physiology to promote active learning, critical thinking, and effective written communication skills.

In February 2020, the author was offered a position as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at a large land-grant college in the American West. A couple weeks later, COVID-19 hit in full force. As the newly hired postdoctoral teaching fellow, the author's department chair tasked the author with a challenging assignment -- to develop an asynchronous…

The COVID-19 pandemic is a huge challenge to education systems. This Viewpoint offers guidance to teachers, institutional heads, and officials on addressing the crisis. What preparations should institutions make in the short time available and how do they address students' needs by level and field of study? Reassuring students and parents is a…

As the use of social media continues to grow in practice and as an academic discipline, so too does the need for marketing students (and faculty) to develop and maintain a career-focused and current knowledge warehouse of information that is optimized to their own unique life situation--hence, the creation and use of what is described as a digital…

In our changing world there are many challenges that students face, one of them being temporary inability to attend face-to-face classes. This paper presents a perspective on how to best meet the needs of online learners, including such topics as course design, student engagement, challenges, and solutions. The information in this article may be…

The rapid shift to online instruction in response to the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of motivationally enhanced and emotionally supportive instruction during this stressful time. In this paper we demonstrate how five theoretically situated and empirically supported motivational design principles can be used to create effective…