TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast

TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast


Latest Episodes

Episode 166: High Structure Course Design for Online STEM Courses
July 15, 2024

Guest Dr. Justin Shaffer joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss the role high structure course design can play in making online STEM courses more effective and fun!

Episode 165: Why Still Prepare Faculty for Online Teaching? #IYKYK
July 01, 2024

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

Episode 164: Student Success Coaching Online
June 17, 2024

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.

Episode 163: The Online Syllabus: “A Welcome Mat for the Course”
June 03, 2024

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

Episode 162: Listen and Act Now! US ED’s Proposed Online Changes
May 20, 2024

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 learner

Episode 161: Taste the Rainbow of Online Ed’s Possible Futures
May 06, 2024

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 o

Episode 160: “Remember the Why:” Designing Meaningful Learning Assignments
April 15, 2024

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.

Episode 159: “Adjusting Your Sails” in Online Ed Based on the Data
April 01, 2024

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.

Episode 158: AI-Assistance Built-In: Less Obvious/More Useful
March 18, 2024

Guest Nicolaas Matthijs joins hosts Tom and Kelvin to discuss the emergence of AI-assistance built into educational technology platforms and how this is a departure from past phases of artificial inte

Episode 157: Pending Changes to Inclusive Access Programs
March 10, 2024

In this episode, hosts Tom and Kelvin summarize the current issues surrounding proposed changes to inclusive access programs for digital instructional materials and how this affects the affordabilit