Student Expectations
Students expect professors to be knowledgeable on the subject they are teaching, treat all students fairly and with respect, show that they care about teaching and want students to learn. The syllabus should have clear expectations, due dates, and policies, and the course should be organized logically.

Students expect professors to use Blackboard beyond uploading a few files. Being able to access course content and see their grades was viewed as most important. Students find it helpful when professors give substantive feedback.  Professors should be available outside of class and respond to student emails in a timely manner.

Students appreciate when the professor seeks their input. Personally, I value student feedback and welcome new ideas and try to make my course better every time I teach it.  

Instructors Lose Credibility with Students
Reported in Therese Huston, Teaching What You Don’t Know

• Show up late for class
• Lack familiarity with assigned readings
• Unable to explain difficult concepts
• Rarely see if students understand the instructor’s explanations
• Do not make an attempt to answer student questions
• Provide unclear expectations and vague answers to student questions about course policies, tests, assignments
• Fail to follow course policies outlined in syllabus
• Fail to remind students of upcoming deadlines & due dates

Teaching and Learning
Students have different learning styles.  Professors should integrate different teaching methods and have varied ways of assessing learning.  How a student is assessed can directly impact how well they do in a class.

What Impacts and Motivates Students
The professor’s teaching style and student engagement is the biggest factor that impacts student learning. A combination of receiving a good grade, interest level in the class, and the professor are the biggest factors that motivate students to do well.

Teacher-Centered vs Student-Centered
A majority of students prefer smaller student-centered classes over teacher-centered lecture hall classes.  F2F and Online classes that are engaging have a positive impact on student learning. 

Clickers
Clickers should be used for more than taking attendance. Clickers can help engage students during a lecture and be beneficial for test review.

Group Work
The three panelists preferred in-class group work.  Sometimes it’s hard getting all group members together outside of class and unfortunately sometimes not everyone does their share. Note: Would need to get more student feedback on group work.

Online Classes: Perceptions vs Reality
Students have a mixed perception of online classes before taking an online class.  Students typically find the online workload tends to be more than F2F classes but this totally depends on the professor and the class.

Advantages of Online Classes
Flexibility and convenience were the biggest reasons students take online classes.

Challenges with Online Classes
Students found the loss of F2F interaction with the professor and classmates, the lack of or delay in receiving communication/feedback from the professor, and technical difficulties were the biggest challenges to taking online classes.

Audio Feedback
Audio feedback can better reach auditory learners.  Even though two of the three panelists preferred written feedback, a majority of past students who took an online class that incorporated audio feedback found it to be more personal, beneficial, and refreshing compared to written feedback. Providing audio feedback or using VoiceThread might be something professors want to consider trying out for an assignment when teaching online.

Online Discussions
Discussions can help build community online and give students more time to think about what to post and reply compared to in-class discussions. The success of online discussions depends on the interest level of the topic and question(s) being asked.  Note: Not all subjects merit discussion.  Online discussions should be worth a significant portion of the grade (e.g. 20-40%).  If discussions are not worth enough, students won’t have an incentive to participate. Professors should provide students with clear expectations and/or rubrics. Quality vs Quantity.

Two of the panelists mentioned that some students won’t do any of the readings and will just paraphrase and reword their classmates’ discussion posts as their own. There is a post-first option in Blackboard which means students have to post first before they can read their classmates’ posts.

Tests: F2F vs Online
According to research, there is no significant difference between how well students do taking a test F2F vs online (as long as the online test is timed). Any online test should be considered open book. Professors should consider randomizing the questions and answers.

Cheating: F2F vs Online
According to four research studies, cheating F2F vs Online had inconclusive findings.

• Academic dishonesty online is no more pervasive than F2F
  (Grijalva, Nowell, & Kerkvliet, 2006).
• Cheating was much more prevalent online compared to F2F
  (Lanier, 2006).
• Online students were less likely to cheat than F2F
  (Stuber-McEwen, Wiseley, & Hoggatt, 2009).
• 635 undergrad/grad students at a university showed higher rates of academic dishonesty in F2F (Watson & Sottile, 2010).

Overall Learning: F2F vs Online
It totally depends on the professor and the class but students typically learn about the same F2F vs Online.  The old saying is, it’s not what you take, it’s who you take.

Link to CIT presentation: http://www.albany.edu/faculty/dmamorella/cit2017.html