Key Advise for Online Instructors, cont.
- Consider various types of learners. Not everyone learns well from words printed on a screen. Try using the flickr creative commons to embed images. Use the audio and video features throughout the course to add human voices and faces to everything from discussions to feedback on assignments.
- Ask for feedback. Try using private conversations, collaborative documents, or an open-ended discussion forum to generate feedback about the course, what students are concerned about, their ideas to make it better, what's work and what's not working, what they need more of/less of, what they need help with, and what they have learned so far. Be willing to make adjustments based on the feedback you receive. Dr. Judith Boettcher stresses this point in many of her articles and books about online teaching and learning.
- Empower students. Give students the tools they need to create their own learning experiences. In Moodle, students can start discussions, schedule conferences, --all of which empower them to take control of their own learning.
- Check it twice. Do all web links work? Are dates correct? Has information been updated as necessary? In Moodle, check all document and media files to make sure that may be viewed by the user, regardless of the format in which they were created or saved.
- Offer technical and academic support. The Help link connects students to Help Desk for technical support.
For more information, please review the Quality Matters Rubric Standards (2011-2013) for higher education online courses.