From the Desk of the VPAA: Cultivating Community--Online!

Creating a class environment where students feel that they belong to a learning community is crucial to their academic success.

How does a professor cultivate such a community to academically
engage his or her students in a virtual environment?
Below I have highlighted three resources with tools and strategies for increasing student engagement and building supportive, learning communities in an online setting.   

Social Presence: “Tips for Building Social Presence in Your Online Class”--Dr. Oliver Dreon points out that while many instructors create fantastic teaching and cognitive tools for their students, they often forget to develop their social presence in an online course. Social presence in the online classroom is vital for increasing student engagement. Read the article to learn five simple ways to increase your own online social presence!  

New Media Resources: Through the UI&U Library, faculty have access to Films on Demand—an online resource for educational films. New videos relating to art, criminal justice, literature, education, political science, psychology, and social justice have been uploaded. Faculty can create links to these films in
CampusWeb and incorporate the content into their courses. Check out the UI&U Library Blog for details!

See what other education professionals are doing: Faculty Focus is an excellent resource of short articles written by working educators. The site features a variety of teaching strategies and approaches to learning, in addition to providing information about higher ed. seminars and conferences. 
What other resources have you found helpful in creating online learning communities? Send me your ideas for tools and strategies that you have found most effective at Feedback.VPAA@myunion.edu