Introduce Myself

Hi and welcome to your history class. I’m Mrs. Booth and I am your instructor for this course. I’m so

pleased that you’ve chosen to be a part of our team and I look forward to working with you as we travel

through history. While history is quite a passion of mine, and I hope it will be one of yours too, it is not my

only obsession. I am an avid reader of historical fiction (o.k. still history), I live in central Florida although I

was born and raised in Connecticut. I could not live happily without regular sun and warm weather or my

cats. Most of all, I couldn’t be happy without my wonderful family. I have been married almost 25 years

now. We have two beautiful children (they really are), a boy 19 and girl 17. My favorite movie is The

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. I would love to know something about you. Please share a bit in the

“Introduce Myself” discussion forum. I really do look forward to meeting you there.

Routine Tasks Item Number

Daily Weekly Monthly

1 Check v&email 2-3x daily & return

messages within 24 hours

Monitor student

activity & progress

Mail merge progress

reports

2 Maintain discussion area posts Send motivational

emails/phone calls as

needed.

3 grading – chunk/portion Update course page

4 Meet with colleagues

Critical Thinking Prompts

What do you consider to be your most memorable accomplishments and what do you still

hope to accomplish?

Think of something that fascinates you. What interview questions would you ask?

If your life were a book, what would be the title? What would the book reviews say?

What place, real or fiction, is most like you and why?

Management Issues Issue Strategy

Confusion about how, where, and when to post Clear and specific guidelines, directions

and posted deadlines

Off topic Redirect to/encourage casual forum

area

Lack of depth in posts and responses Clear requirement guidelines established

in the beginning.

Discussion Grading rubric

Excessively long posts Clear requirement guidelines established

in the beginning – discussion rubric

private contact with student with gentle

reminder of post guidelines

Low/No participation Personalized feedback early on

Positive feedback

Private discussion to discuss strategies

that work for the individual and instructor

Assigning specific roles

Technical Difficulties Tech Support link with common problems

and solutions and video directions & help

number

New student orientation that covers basic

course navigation, uploading, etc.

Breech of Netiquette Clear netiquette rules reviewed at

beginning of course

Reminder of Netiquette rules with each

discussion

Private reminder for first violation

Take privileges away for 2nd

violation

Withdraw student from

discussions/Withdraw Fail discussion

portion of course for 3rd

violation or at

instructor’s discretion

Procrastination/late posts Include reminder email to all participants

before due date

Personalized communication with student

No grade for late posts

Management Strategies Prepare strong discussion questions Questions to promoting higher order thinking – open

ended questions that solicit a variety of responses

Small discussion groups Break class up into smaller groups to discuss topic.

Groups come together in the end to share.

Collaboration – each member is assigned a role to

create a finished product – groups share out in the

end.

Monitor discussion and intervene only as needed Facilitator should monitor discussion daily. If

discussion wanes, either summarize and end the

discussion or prompt with further questioning.

Feed back Provide personalized feedback early on. Maintain a

presence, more frequently early on, less toward the

end. Summarize or assign a summarizer to end the

discussion.

Establish Clear Expectations Expectations and guidelines should be clear from the

beginning. Students should be made aware of the

expectations before the start of the discussion board

and expectations and guidelines are made available

in an ongoing basis.

Online Discussion Forum Rubric

Category 1 2 3 4

Promptness and

Initiative

Does not post or

posts on occasion

with prompting

Does not respond

to prompting

Posts after the

deadline or with

prompting

Posts in a timely

manner with

occasional

prompting

Consistently posts

within 48 hours of

assigned topic

Does not require

prompting

Delivery of Post Posts reflect haste

– may have poor

spelling and

grammar

Most posts reflect

several spelling

and grammar

errors

Posts have few

spelling and

grammatical

errors

Posts are free of

spelling and

grammatical errors.

Relevance of Post Posts are off

topic, irrelevant or

lacks quality

Posts are brief and

reflect little to no

insight into topic

Posts are

frequent and

reflect insight

into topic or

related posts.

Posts encourage

further

discussion of

topic

Posts consistently

and reflects high

level of

understanding and

insight into topic

Often cites

additional sources

related to topic.

Posts encourage

further discussion of

topic

Meeting Discussion

Guidelines/Netiquette

Posts consistently

breech netiquette

rules and/or

discussion forum

guidelines

Posts occasionally

breech netiquette

rules and/or

discussion forum

guidelines

Post almost

conform to

netiquette rules

and forum

guidelines.

Posts always

conform to

netiquette rules and

forum guidelines.

Who Are You?

This area is for sharing who you are with your classmates in a fun and creative way. Choose one of the free

tools or one of your own to create a reflection of you and post to this discussion forum.

Glogster – make a poster of yourself

http://www.glogster.com/

Wordle – personalized word clouds

http://www.wordle.net/

Portrait Illustration Maker

http://illustmaker.abi-station.com/index_en.shtml

Create your own avatar

http://avatarmaker.eu/