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Fresh perspectives, proven strategies, and stories from real Yellowdig classrooms.
Featured
When Vulnerability Leads to Engagement : A Yellowdig Story

Dr Heather Young University of Florida   Challenge: In large online courses, students often feel like just a “face on a screen” or a number. Traditional discussion boards often result in “compliance” posts, posting once and replying twice just to check a box,which lack originality and real connection. The human moment Dr. Young shared a […]
Burnout Isn’t Just Workload… It’s Emotional Load : A Yellowdig Story

LaToya Devezin Penn West University Challenge: Faculty burnout is no longer just about time. It’s the pressure of large classes, constant grading, and trying to support every student—often all at once. The human moment LaToya described what burnout actually feels like behind the scenes. It’s not just the volume of work; it’s the expectation to […]
Why Discussions Don’t Feel Like Conversations : A Yellowdig Story

Jill AndersonNC State University   Challenge: Online course discussions lack real conversation. Students participate out of obligation, and faculty must grade every interaction. Engagement becomes routine, not meaningful. The human moment Jill described a frustration many instructors recognize immediately. Discussion boards, meant for interaction, often fail. Instead of real dialogue, students simply complete assignments. As […]
Latest at Yellowdig
Student Success
How to Build an Online Community that Rocks!

The Basics of Creating Community in a Virtual Cassroom: There are many free and paid technology options for starting an online community. While choosing software, it is important to consider: 1) ease of use rather than just a feature checklist, 2) access to data, and 3) compliance with the regulations and standards of your industry.  We […]
Yellowdig
Maintaining Learning Communities Amid Coronavirus Concerns

Yellowdig helps connect students, teachers and administrators so that learning can happen anytime and from anywhere. Our #1 goal has always been to make sure every online student has the network needed to excel in their program and graduate. We purposefully built our platform to support fully asynchronous learning. We are making Yellowdig Engage available […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig Engage Product Update 3/4

Features: Posts can now be copied via permalink Discoverable boards are now searchable Not authorized page appears when an issue is preventing users from accessing part of the platform Performance Improvements: Scalability improvements in notification pipeline for large enrollment communities Improved page load performance Upgraded software versions Bug Fixes: Fixed performance issues on /user/notifications page […]
Student Success
The Textbook’s Crumbling Monopoly

But that is no longer the case today. The textbook’s monopoly on knowledge is crumbling (if it hasn’t already). Scan any university campus or peek in on any dorm room and you will see fewer books. Why? Well aside from the astronomically inflated cost of textbooks at campus bookstores, the model in which students acquire […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig Engage Product Update 2/19

Features: Password complexity checking. This strengthens the security of users’ accounts. Post reply-to threading UI. This distinguishes replies to comments from replies to posts, making it easier to read and track long conversations. Avatar hover card. This allows users to follow and directly message each other by hovering over their picture in the feed. Interactive […]
Yellowdig
Want a Yellowdig Community that doesn’t suck? Follow our best practices.

In 2020, we created a composite Community Health metric that captures four key dimensions of student engagement and achievement. Along the way, we confirmed something we already knew: instructors who use many of our best practices have Communities that perform significantly better than instructors who use fewer. Over the past 3 years, we’ve continued to […]
Latest at Yellowdig
Case Study, Webinar
Gamified approach drives meaningful learner satisfaction

Yellowdig Participation Grades are Important for Student Success Marketing Management and New Media Marketing students posted, commented with purpose to earn participation grade ​ CHALLENGE : How do we boost student engagement?   Drexel University Lebow College of Business marketing Professor Lawrence Duke was noticing a trend: student engagement with the message boards set up […]
Case Study, E-book
Community-building for learners and educators

Community Building With Yellowdig for Learners and Educators Interview with Dr. Nina Wieda, PhD Northwestern University MA, Nationalism Studies, Central European University, Budapest Professor at Northwestern University, Chicago Field Studies Program About Dr. Nina Wieda  “I teach in Chicago field studies program, which is an academic internship program. It’s a unique interdisciplinary program.  Our students do […]
Student Success
What We Can Do About Community College Enrollment Declines

Quick facts: 11.8% drop in enrollment for public-two year institutions during the pandemic 53% of students are not ready for undergraduate studies after high school 70% of California students fail to graduate or transfer to a four-year college Community colleges have been facing enrollment problems since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic which has only […]
Student Success, Yellowdig
Yellowdig Community Interaction Strategies

Make sure Yellowdig is not a side-show First and foremost, Yellowdig is designed to be an organic and connected learning community which is used as part of a course in tandem with synchronous sessions (if any) and the LMS. It is not meant to be an isolated part of a course and learners should not […]
Case Study, E-book
A genuine Community for Learners and Educators

Yellowdig Offers Genuine Community for Learners and Educators Interview with Ben Leffel University of California, Irvine Instructor, UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Sociology Listen to the podcast One piece of advice from Professor Leffel to fellow Yellowdig instructors:   It is possible to make the online course as interactive […]
Product Updates
What's New in Yellowdig Engage This Fall?

As the semester starts to kick off, that means it’s time to dust off the cobwebs and get back into your Yellowdig Communities! If this is your first time back since the spring or even the fall of last year, you will definitely notice a few changes. Below we highlight some of the most notable […]
News
How Education 3.0 Rethinks the Learning Experience

Everyone at the university level felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic — from faculty burnout, enrollment dropping, and the sudden chaos of figuring out how to scale online programs to an entire student body with little warning. As students return to in-person classes, the holes in learning models revealed by the pandemic are now […]
News
Education 3.0: Connecting the Learning Experience

In August 2020, I wrote the blog “Is BigTech About to Take Over Higher Education?”. At that time we were in the beginning phases of the COVID pandemic, and the importance of technology in education was becoming more evident as the entire world had moved from in-person to online learning. Since then we have been […]
Instructor Stories
3 Strategies for Instructors to Reduce Grading Time

The education environment constantly changes as learners develop and as we usher in new generations of learners. But with so much constant change, grading remained a stagnant variable in its nature. Despite much rethinking, trials, and tribulations with the grading system, why has it remained unchanged? Traditional grading is easy, convenient, and the norm, so […]
A Student Perspective
Why Most Students Prefer Holistic Learning: Perspectives from Today's Learners

What is Holistic Learning? An unfortunate fault in some modern pedagogy is the disregard for the wants and needs of today’s learners. A proper learning environment should center around both learner and instructor, with both parties working in tandem to create a harmonious experience. One solution is a holistic learning approach, or a “comprehensive approach […]
Yellowdig
6 Ways to Use Online Learning Communities to Improve the Academic Experience

Interactions between students and instructors are an important part of any class. Yellowdig allows for flexible student engagement while growing a community with improved learning outcomes. Traditional discussion boards and other constrained social assignments don’t have the same level of expression, creativity, or active conversation. We have been listening to the feedback from our Instructors […]
Instructor Stories
How to Reduce Professor Burnout with Modern Student Engagement

Our teachers are the backbone of society. Teaching, planning, and making an impact on students are no small feats. However, at times, we take for granted the hard work, time, and energy put in to keep academia going. One large issue hitting professors like never before is faculty burnout.But don’t fret too much– we have […]

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