Although our primary functions as teachers are to impart knowledge based on the given curricula of a course as well as help students develop academic skills, another critical component of our profession-I contend- is to help our students develop character through the educational process. This may be a contentious issue for many teachers (Althof & Berkowitz, 2006). Given the finite amount of time we have with our students in a course, three, four, five, seven, or eight weeks respectively,…

One of the most significant challenges instructors face is balancing the need to promote academic rigor in their classrooms while also helping students build confidence in their academic ability. This seeming dichotomy between helping students progress by instituting hard deadlines and standards and catering to the unique needs of the student can prove problematic; the diverse set of students present in our classrooms can exacerbate this issue. The question becomes: how do we manage student…

Ascertaining student progress in the online environment can at times be problematic given the nature of the milieu. Given that one of the primary objectives of any teacher is to ensure that his or her students' are making progress and integrating the material into their knowledge base, assessment of knowledge attainment is crucial. The online environment tends to be asynchronous in communication and does not inherently proffer intense interaction; these factors work against easy assessment of…