Preparing for Spring Break in Your Online Courses |
| Spring break will soon be upon us at most schools. Here are some things you can do in your online courses to get you and your students ready for spring break time: |
 Remind them in a posted announcement of the upcoming break time |
Even if it’s in your syllabus and course calendar, students may forget or get the dates mixed. Particularly if they are accustomed to having an assignment due per week, they may wonder why a given week is omitted from the assignment due date list. They will appreciate the reminder so that they can plan ahead accordingly.
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 Consider releasing upcoming exams and other upcoming intensive assignments early so that students can work on them during the break time if they wish to do so |
Students will appreciate the flexibility and chance to work ahead a bit.
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 Along these lines, remind students that the online classroom is fully open to them during the break time |
This is yet another benefit of the online classroom over the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom. They have full access 24/7, even during times that the brick-and-mortar university may be closed for break time.
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 However, if tech support or campus-sponsored computer labs will be closed during the break time, please also remind students via a posted announcement |
This way they won’t be blind-sided if they need computer access or technical support.
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 Be sensitive to the fact that your students may actually have different spring break times at their own workplace |
If your students are teachers, you will soon discover that different school systems have different spring break weeks. Students tend to think of “spring break” as corresponding to their workplace break time, rather than their university’s break time. The reason you may need to be especially aware is that some of them may have already made plans to go on vacation during their (workplace) spring break time. While computer access is widely available regardless of location these days, there still may be sporadic connectivity problems when away from home. For this reason, you may want to do a little sleuthing to determine other spring break times that may pertain to your students…and be a bit flexible or lenient with regard to any due dates you may have during these other spring break times.
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| Finally, let them know if you will be offline during the break time. |
I typically remind students of my non-course e-mail address and ask them to use it in case of emergencies. At the same time, I think it’s a good thing to model for your students that you will also be taking this break time to refresh and renew…so that they can consider doing the same.
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Have a great spring break, whenever it may be, and a continued successful spring semester! |
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Coming
Up |
Upcoming
Online Courses |
Fostering Online Discussion Conference,
with Various, June 11 -
12
Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace ,
with Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt, July 21 -
25
Advanced Teaching Online ,
with William A. Draves & Mary Dereshiwsky, August 25 -
29
How to Teach Adults ,
with William A. Draves, August 25 -
29
Engaging the Online Learner,
with Dr. Rita-Marie Conrad, September 15 -
19
Generational Learning Styles,
with Julie Coates, October 20 -
24
Saving Faculty Time Conference,
October 29 -
30
Designing Online Instruction,
with Dr. Rita-Marie Conrad, November 3 -
7
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Boys get worse grades in college than young women, have higher drop out rates, and only 35% of graduates are now men.
LERN can help you help your male students.
For more information, go to SmartBoysBadGrades.com
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Brochure now available |
Our complete 2007 calendar of online events for faculty now available! To get your copy, just email Chris at chris@lern.org Free of course.
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