TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast

Guest Melissa Loble joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to share an optimistic vision for the future of technology-enabled higher education. Amidst heightened automation and AI assistance, the uniquely human affordances of relationships are all the more crucial in solving our challenges.

Hosts Kelvin and Tom explore the catalyzing personal and organizational value of individuals cultivating a “startup mindset,” regardless of personal role, in the work of digital higher education.

Dr. Justin Shaffer, an expert in high structure course design, offers insights into enhancing online STEM education. He emphasizes the importance of structured course design for boosting student engagement and improving outcomes. Strategies like scaffolding and interactive tools are discussed to create a supportive learning environment. Shaffer also advocates for incremental changes in course design, encouraging educators to adapt gradually for better effectiveness. This thoughtful conversation reveals how intentional course design can cater to diverse student populations.

In this episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin explore the rationale underlying continued institutional efforts to prepare faculty for online course design and teaching. Hint: It’s about students.

Dr. Jenny Sumner joins hosts Kelvin and Tom to discuss the growing role “coaching” plays, especially online, in centering students and their success within our higher ed work.

In this episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin invite “fun with syllabi” by exploring the multiple roles played by the syllabus in online courses and encouraging adjustments to make syllabi more meaningful and inviting for students.

In this time-sensitive episode (listen now!), return guests Russ Poulin and Cheryl Dowd explain how proposed actions by the US Department of Education (US ED) may negatively impact many online learners and US higher education institutions.

In this Season 10 kick-off episode, hosts Kelvin Thompson and Thomas Cavanagh revisit a “time capsule” of past predictions and pivot toward the various flavors of “possible futures” available now in online education.

Guest Dr. Jean Mandernach joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss how faculty and instructional designers can design more meaningful and engaging learning assignments for students, online or anywhere.

Hosts Kelvin and Tom talk through the importance of consulting trusted sources of data and information as the basis for sound decision making in online education, no matter what role one holds.