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Establishing a level of comfort in which students feel at ease in an online course is primarily the responsibility of the professor, but fostering this community of inquiry is a complicated task. While research is rich with regard to broad instructional practices that can be used to foster social presence, practical strategies and examples for faculty to use are lacking in the literature. This chapter describes specific social presence-related instructional strategies used to foster an atmosphere of sharing, support, and success for students enrolled in online courses.

Classroom management is a challenge for beginning teachers. To address this challenge, a model to provide support for beginning teachers was developed, consisting of a one-day workshop on classroom management, followed with online support extending over eight weeks. Specific classroom management strategies included (a) developing a foundation based on relationships; (b) preventing disruptions with procedures and routines; (c) responding to disruptions and rule violations; (d) providing inclusion for students with special needsKeywords: online learning, classroom management, teacher preparation, andragogy lassroom management is a major challenge for beginning teachers as indicated by a strong consensus among researchers and practitioners (Evertson & Weinstein, 2006;Garrett, 2014;Goodwin, 2012;Greenberg, Putnam & Walsh, 2014;Jones, 2006;Simonsen & Myers, 2015). Even for experienced teachers, classroom management is frequently cited as a primary cause for teacher burnout (Friedman, 2006;Freiberg & Lapointe, 2006;Simonsen & Myers, 2015). Inadequate training in classroom management during initial teacher preparation programs has been identified as the primary source of the problem (Chesley & Jordan, 2012;Evertson & Weinstein, 2006;Garrett, 2014;Greenberg, Putnam, & Walsh, 2014;Jones, 2006;Stough & Montague, 2014). Stough and Montague (2014) contended that teacher preparation has emphasized content knowledge at the expense of training in classroom management, and behavior management techniques have been largely ignored within the context of content preparation. Jones (2006) revealed that a strong majority of beginning teachers state that they were inadequately prepared by their teacher preparation programs to deal with classroom management. Evertson and Weinstein (2006) cited a lack of consensus about the content of courses dealing with classroom management, the result frequently being a presentation of several models without sufficient depth to prepare students for professional practice. Greenberg, Putnam and Walsh (2014) harshly criticized teacher preparation programs for ignoring research based management strategies, for embedding fragments of classroom management in multiple courses, and simply instructing teacher candidates to develop their own, personal philosophy of classroom management. Additionally, they cited a complete disconnect between the little that is taught about classroom management and accountability for implementing management practices in clinical teaching experiences (Greenberg, Putnam, & Walsh, 2014). Need for the StudyHow and when to provide training in classroom management has been a matter of debate among experts in education. As previously cited, pre-service teacher education has been criticized for failing to adequately prepare candidates for the realities of managing the classroom. Moreover, in-service training has often proven inadequate in that it primarily consisted of workshops with limited scope and little or no follow-up. New approaches embodying the principles of adult lear...

The primary purpose of this study was to establish perceptions of faculty members regarding the benefits of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in higher education. In addition, the study sought to determine what the challenges of offering MOOCs were and what accounted for the low completion rates of MOOCs. Data were collected using an online survey from 1,057 faculty members in a major university system based in the southern United States. Of the 1,057 target faculty population who completed the online survey, 939 responses were viable, and only 396 of the faculty respondents provided answers to the open-ended question regarding the benefits of MOOCs. Overall, the researchers analyzed 396 faculty responses using the Atlas Ti qualitative program. Open-ended coding was conducted to determine what key concepts faculty provided in their responses to describe the benefits of MOOCs. Axial codes were developed to group primary codes into broader concepts which enabled the researchers to create themes based on the axial codes. The responses provide rich and robust descriptions about the benefits and drawbacks of MOOCs. The paper presents the results of the open-ended question.

In 2013-2015, two

In an era of increasingly hyped Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that seem to evoke feelings of both promise and peril for higher education, many institutions are struggling to find their niche among top-tier Ivy League schools offering courses to thousands of participants for free. While the effectiveness of MOOCs in terms of learning outcomes and student persistence is still unclear (see Daniel, 2012;Kirschner, 2012;and Jordan, 2013) INTRODUCTIONT he pervasiveness of recent media attention for Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in higher education has created a sense of urgency for institutions to offer online courses to massive numbers of participants, nobly for the sake of expanding access of coursework to those who might not otherwise have it. While MOOCs have become a popular buzzword in higher education, much of the discussion includes thinly disguised promotional material by commercial interests (Daniel, 2012), and despite the millions of participants enrolled in MOOCs in 2012, there were only 26 related peer reviewed academic publications, most of which were devoted to studying the concept of MOOCs, and few examining educational theory, pedagogic approaches, and learning outcomes (Liyanagunawardena, Adams, & Williams, 2013). While the effectiveness of MOOCs in terms of learning outcomes and student persistence is still unclear (see Daniel, 2012;Kirschner, 2012;and Jordan, 2013), one benefit of the trend are the innovative adaptations that smaller-sized, regional institutions have begun testing as alternative in-roads into the MOOC era.This article describes the structure and processes used to develop a Targeted Open Online Course (TOOC) that blended attributes of a MOOC with the best pedagogical practices of a traditional online course to impact participants surrounding a mid-sized regional institution in Texas. This paper discusses the planning and administrative/logistical considerations for implementing the TOOC course, as well as a discussion of the instructional strategies employed to ensure academic rigor and student engagement. Finally, data regarding persistence rates, impact, participant satisfaction, and recruitment outcomes will be shared. THE TOOC MODEL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORKIn the summer of 2013, a mid-sized, regional university in Texas announced its first Targeted Open Online Course (TOOC). The TOOC model is an adapted version of the increasingly hyped MOOC model that allowed the University's College of Education to leverage existing partnerships to offer free coursework (in this case, for graduate credit and CPE credits) to area educators. The graduate course, Principles of Instructional Design & Technology was offered July 8 to August 8, 2013, and was designed and taught by a tenure-track assistant professor of educational technology with the assistance of six graduate team leads. The free online course was advertised to 59 Effective Schools Project (ESP) schools in north central Texas and could be taken for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit and/or graduate credit at t...

Improvement initiatives crafted based on well-understood problems of practice often stand the greatest chance of leading to sustainable educational improvements. Framing problems of practice using multiple modes of evidence is advisable to fully understand the system of root causes of the problem and its stakeholders. In this study, we used the document analysis method to investigate the types of evidence (e.g., literature, anecdotal, secondary data) that students used to frame problems of practice in EdD dissertations in practice within CPED consortium member institutions (N=53). Results suggest that students predominantly use literature to frame problems of practice with fewer using primary and secondary data. 

A review of the empirical, peer-reviewed literature related to marketing in higher education was conducted to examine the use and effectiveness of social media in higher education institutions. Results from twelve peer-reviewed, empirical studies were thematically analyzed. Findings were outlined in a thematic map with three emergent themes: (a) why social media marketing is used in higher education, (b) the purposes for which social media marketing is being used in higher education, and (c) the effectiveness of the use of social media marketing in higher education. Results suggested prospective students still rely on the traditional forms of marketing, such as institutional web and print materials, although there is some evidence that social media is gaining prominence in their decision-making process. In summary, findings imply university marketers should strategically plan, including assessing student preference regarding social media communication, in order to embed social media marketing as an institution-wide tactic taking into account the collection of measurable analytics on the effectiveness of the effort.