OverviewW ITH PRESSURES TO INCREASE ACCESS to higher education, colleges and universities have focused on increasing the number of online courses and programs offered. Higher education is also being criticized for its retention and graduation rates, and pressure is building to find solutions. To ensure that online learning can help address these problems, professionals dedicated to online learning are under pressure to explore and evaluate strategies for getting students engaged in their online studies. These pressures are the genesis and reason for this monograph.By applying the theories and techniques for student engagement in online learning, instructors and designers of online courses can improve and increase student engagement and help higher education produce graduates who can contribute to their families, communities, and the economy. The theories and research reviewed in this monograph provide important clues as to how to help students learn, stay enrolled, and finish a degree.Engagement techniques may be one key to making online learning productive for the institution but, more importantly, ensuring that students are successful as they pursue a college degree. In fact, achieving student engagement in online courses may be more important than it is in on-campus courses because online students have fewer ways to be engaged with the institution and perhaps greater demands on their time and attention as well. In other Student Engagement OnlineStudent Engagement Online

This study compares the experiences of students in face-to-face (in class) discussions with threaded discussions and also evaluates the threaded discussions for evidence of higher-order thinking. Students were enrolled in graduate-level classes that used both modes (face-to-face and online) for course-related discussions; their end-of-course evaluations of both experiences were grouped for analysis and themes constructed based on their comments. Themes included the “expansion of time,” “experience of time,” “quality of the discussion,” “needs of the student,” and “faculty expertise.” While there are advantages to holding discussions in either setting, students most frequently noted that using threaded discussions increased the amount of time they spent on class objectives and that they appreciated the extra time for reflection on course issues. The face-to-face format also had value as a result of its immediacy and energy, and some students found one mode a better “fit” with their preferred learning mode. The analysisof higher-order thinking was based on a content analysis of the threaded discussions only. Each posting was coded as one of the four cognitive-processing categories described by Garrison and colleagues: 18% were triggering questions, 51% were exploration, 22% were integration, and 7% resolution. A fifth category – social – was appropriate for 3% of the responses and only 12% of the postings included a writing error. This framework provides some support for the assertion that higher-order thinking can and does occur in online discussions; strategies for increasing the number of responses in the integration and resolution categories are discussed.

For this study we used institutional web sites to examine the mission statements of 80 higher education institutions for messages about diversity. Of the 80 institutions, 59 (75%) referenced diversity in their mission statements; but only 19% defined diversity in racial or ethnic terms. In addition to mission statements, 52 (or 65%) of the 80 institutions had a separate diversity statement; but only 18 of these were an official institutional statement. These treatments of diversity are interesting in light of the changing demographics of the incoming college student population and the recognized need for greater cultural development or awareness on campuses. If mission and diversity statements reflect the priorities of the institution, 35% of the institutions in the sample said nothing about diversity. Key words Higher education institutions . Mission statements . DiversityAs the diversity of the United States population continues to increase, colleges and universities are also seeing a more diverse student population arrive at their doors (Smith 2006). The proportion of minorities, such as Blacks and Hispanics, attending college has grown from 1998 to 2008 by 127% for Blacks and 124% for Hispanics at private four-year colleges while at public two-year colleges the increase was 51% for Blacks and 68% for Hispanics (The Innov High Educ (2012) 37:125-139

This article presents the results of a national study of 39 higher education institutions that collected information about their practices for faculty development for online teaching and particularly the content and training activities used during 2011-2012. This study found that the most frequently offered training content (97% of the institutions) was assessment of student learning, followed by creating online community (91.1%), and training on the institution’s CMS, student learning styles, and instructional design models (all at 84%). Most frequent training activities (over 90% of institutions) were the workshop, one-on-one training, short sessions, hands-on training, one-time training, and creating an online course. Interesting differences by Carnegie institution type were found, perhaps explained by developers placing more value on teaching pedagogies than tools.

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