Key Advise for Online Instructors

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Here are ten proven tips for building and teaching an online course, and how they can be implemented in online environment:

  1. Make it easy to navigate.   Use the Calendar and Syllabus to ensure everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and when they should be doing it. Use Modules or other means of organizing content to "chunk" the course material into digestible pieces of interaction and activities that link students to content, students to students, and students to instructor.
  2. Establish patterns.   Both teachers and learners benefit from a fairly predictable set of course expectations and a clear "beginning" and "end" to each milestone in the course. Modules can help you organize your course material.
  3. Make it meaningful.   Use Outcomes to help you design your course based on requirements established by the university, your department, and you. Try building your course "backwards" by starting with what you expect students to have accomplished or mastered after successfully completing the course. Link Assignments to Outcomes so students know why they are being required to complete specific activities and master specific skills.
  4. Show up and teach.   The Faculty Focus report titled "10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching: Best Practices in Distance Education" stresses that online courses must be more than content delivery. Courses do not teach themselves, and students should not be expected to teach themselves the content, either. The numerous communication tools in Moodle--Announcements, Chat, Workshops, and Discussions--all facilitate an effective learning environment online. And according to Dr. Judith Boettcher, co-author of The Online Teaching Survival Guide , "Of all the good practices in online learning, the most important practice is 'being there'."      (Note:  This point is critical.  You must have a plan for how you will teach the content, not just deliver it.    Think about what you do in the classroom.  How will your online students get what you have to offer as a teacher?)
  5. Engage the learners.   Activities must be more than just weekly discussion questions in order for a course to be engaging. Consider using Quizzes as self-tests, including feedback forums in a Chat room, or having the student develop Collaborations and Files as ways to engage them with each other and the material. This website offers some terrific tips for engaging online learners.