Departmental Issues

I’m in a Facebook Group in which there was a question about student success in courses with compressed or accelerated schedules. At my college we offer all of our online courses in the 8-week format and we also offer some of our on-campus classes in a 12-week ‘late start’ format. However, I believe the length of the class is not the only factor that affects student success in a course. Course Size Our online classes have a cap of 22 students and on-campus classes have a cap of 35 students. Academic Dishonesty Due to the increased opportunity for academic dishonesty…

At my college, there has been a push to add additional sections of many online courses due to increasing demand. There are many reasons for this new push for online classes, including  recent changes in our placement test scores. Now more students are placing into Beginning Algebra than into Intermediate Algebra. Although generally in a time in which college enrollments are typically declining, the additional classes would be welcome, this new push for online courses has raised many concerns: How should online courses be assigned to faculty? Before every semester, faculty select their classes. Sometimes it is not possible to…

I’m in a Facebook Group in which there was a recent discussion about what to do about a student who has type 1 diabetes, autism, a learning disability, an emotional disability, and very poor eyesight. The student can do the required coursework but is often disruptive in class. The instructor is doing everything to the best of her ability to accommodate the student but asked for suggestions as to what else she might be able to do. I found some references that I thought might be helpful, and thought it could be beneficial to others to share the resources here…