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Magna Online Seminars
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Using Web 2.0 to Enhance Classes and Improve Retention
Debates about the causes of student retention failures and continuing online course drop rates can involve a multitude of issues. However, there are two factors that are especially significant in these discussions: forging deeper connections with students and offering learners a greater variety of learning options. Learn how to impliment web 2.0 technologies from YouTube to Ning into your online courses.
A Perfect Storm: Understanding and Managing Millennials
'Millennials' are generally defined as younger than 27 and sometimes called ‘Generation Me,’ or ‘Generation Q(uiet).’ Millennial students defy traditional approaches to management and communication. This seminar explores the “perfect storm” of social and environmental factors affecting this unique group.
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When Online Faculty Receive Low Evaluations: Guidelines & Advice
There’s no question: online teaching is different. It can challenge the most experienced faculty, and overwhelm novices. What do you do when a faculty member – at any experience level – receives a low evaluation? How do you improve performance, maintain morale, and protect the reputation of your institution and its online programs?
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7 Steps to Recruiting, Training & Maintaining Campus Tour Guides
Given that a successful campus tour is the best indicator of applications and, ultimately, enrollment, you could argue that tour guides are the most important ambassadors of your school.
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The Keys to a Culture of Assessment: Value and Respect
We all know how important assessments are – not only for improving learning outcomes, but for providing the metrics your institution needs to maintain accountability, ensure accreditation and secure funding. How do you encourage people to see assessments not as painful obligations but as important opportunities? How do you bridge the gap between faculty attitudes and institutional imperatives?
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Enhancing PowerPoint for the Online Classroom and Beyond
Want to know the secrets of good PowerPoint? Marketing consultant and founder of CONNECTINGDOTS, Paul J. Gibler, will show you how to avoid common mistakes in PowerPoint and instead create presentations that enliven your classroom and strengthen student learning.
Tools to Reduce Personal Liability for College Administrators
Recent court cases have raised the very real possibility that college administrators will be liable for actions they take on behalf of their institutions. Discrimination and harassment complaints – and in particular, complaints under Section 1983 – are no longer being filed only against institutions, but against the individuals who work there. In this 2-hour audio seminar you'll gain critical insights into this issue.
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Creating a High-Impact Student Recruitment Website
Your website is a powerful tool for marketing your institution and recruiting new students. In an era of cost-cutting, many are tightening their print budgets and turning more attention to online media. The advantages? Websites are affordable, flexible, and they offer opportunities to share your message in new and exciting ways.
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Balancing Challenge and Support in Undergraduate Teaching
It’s a dilemma every teacher faces: How much help can you give your students before you’re being no help at all? Learn how you can empower students to grow and solve problems independently, while providing the necessary support to help them stay on track.
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Using a Template to Assist Faculty in Online Course Development
How can you ensure your online programs are fundamentally sound, and consistent across every department on your campus? One effective way is to work from a campus-wide template. Templates take the guesswork out of course development, and give everyone involved a clear roadmap to success. In this online seminar you can learn more about the benefits of using a template and how to apply one on your campus.
Getting Started with Assessing Institutional Effectiveness
nstitutional effectiveness begins with the development of a mission statement for the college or university and a blueprint for how academic programs and administrative services contribute to that mission. The blueprint should consist of strategies that have specific and measurable outcomes, but many fail to fully develop their plan and are unable to assess their progress.
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Student Leaders Struggling: When the Best & Brightest Need Help
They’re easy to spot. The student government president with the 4.0 G.P.A.. The R.A. who also edits the campus newspaper. The student active in campus ministry who spends weekends volunteering at a clinic. On the surface they look invincible. Deep down they could be close to a breakdown.
Effective, Time-Saving Communication for Online Instructors
Tired of online courses with countless emails and ineffective discussion boards? There is a more efficient way to structure online course communication. Take control of your online course and save time in the process.
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Redirecting Pushy Parents: How to Build Healthier Relationships
As advocates for their college-aged students, some parents resort to pushy, demanding or downright aggressive behavior. These so-called “helicopter parents” can be the stuff of legend around the water cooler, but they also take a toll on morale and productivity.
How to Add Social Media to Your Marketing Communications Mix
You can’t simply dismiss Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other popular media as fads, because your peer institutions are all active in those spaces. At the same time, you can’t overestimate their importance, because they’re a complement to your traditional media efforts, not a replacement for them. So where’s the middle ground? What do you need to know about social media? Which ones do you need to be active in … and which ones (if any) can you safely ignore?
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Rubrics: Save Time, Engage Students & Foster Deep Learning
You spend significant time and effort communicating your expectations to students – about the course, about assignments, about their responsibilities – and then you review their work, and see absolutely no evidence that your messages got through. So you grade accordingly. Is there any hope of bridging that gap? The presenters of a new online seminar say “yes.”
Behavioral Intervention Teams: 20 Frequently Asked Questions
Whatever stage your institution is at in implementing a BIT, you won’t want to miss the rebroadcast of this popular seminar. Led by Brett Sokolow, J.D. and W. Scott Lewis, J.D., nationally recognized experts on campus safety, security and high-risk student health and safety issues, this seminar will provide you with valuable information on emerging trends and best practices in the formation and operation of successful BITs.
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Instead of Mandated Therapy: Mandated Educational Programming
Dr. Van Brunt and Mr. Ebbeling will discuss how to create programming similar to that offered for students who violate alcohol policy, but built around the issues of suicidal behavior, aggressive actions, and domestic violence behavior.
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How Quality Matters' Updated Standards Improve Online Courses
Design can make or break online-only or blended courses. The Quality Matters™ Rubric is a peer-reviewed standard for online course design. After this 90-minute video online seminar you’ll be able to apply proven, nationally-respected techniques to your online courses.
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Admitting Undocumented Students: 15 Frequently Asked Questions
The number of undocumented students who are graduating from U.S. high schools with hopes of attaining a college education is increasing. Learn to better understand the effect of current and proposed federal laws on providing education and financial support for undocumented students and more!
Six Ways to Teach Students of All Abilities Online
Online education continues to grow at a rapid pace and courses are found at virtually all colleges and universities. If you’re interested in learning about current best practices in online instruction to help improve the quality of your students’ educational experiences, you’ll definitely want to make a point of attending this seminar.
Will Your Campus Sexual Harassment Policy Hold Up in Court?
Flawed sexual harassment policies can infringe on free speech and leave institutions vulnerable to legal fights. Eliminate problem language in your policy with this 90-minute online seminar. It offers clear, step-by-step strategies to evaluate and draft sexual harassment policy that won’t leave your institution vulnerable.
How Good Is Good Enough? Setting Benchmarks or Standards
Establishing standards is a difficult process. But with assessments taking on increasing importance – not just within your institution but as criteria for accreditation and funding – it’s essential that you create clear and meaningful measures of achievement.
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Civic Engagement: Best Practices and Tools You Can Use
Your institutional mission statement likely includes a claim that you, as an institution, will prepare students for engaged citizenship. However, this may not reflect reality. Dr. Barbara Jacoby explains how to prepare students for lives of civic engagements by providing the fundamentals and best practices of civic engagement in higher education.
Online Faculty Success: What’s It Take?
One significant development in online education in recent years has been the emergence of specific teaching competencies. The potential list of competencies gathered from literature reviews, experience and expert interviews now number over 100, and these are helping to improve understanding of what is necessary to realize success in online teaching.
10 Ways to Improve Blended Learning Course Design
Increasingly, faculty and others are finding that “traditional versus online” really isn’t an either/or proposition – and that the best teaching may involve a bit of both. Blended learning (or hybrid learning) synergizes the strongest features of face-to-face and online teaching, creating a uniquely rich learning experience.
Creating a Personalized Learning Environment with Web 2.0 Tools
If you haven’t been tracking the evolution of Web 2.0, you’ll be amazed at the applications now available … and if you have been trying to keep up, you know it’s an almost impossible task; new tools are popping up seemingly every day, everywhere. This seminar will help introduce you to this remarkable new virtual environment, and show you how you and your students can harness its vast functionality.
Summarizing and Using Assessment Results
You put a lot of hard work into creating student assessments. And then what? With all the time spent developing and administering assessments, it’s a shame not to reap the benefits on the back end. This seminar will teach you how to summerize and use your assessment results.
Recordings are available for past presentations.
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