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If you’d like to better understand the rules for online teaching and learning, the following 10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching is the perfect guidebook.
Principles 1 Show Up and Teach
Since most of the course is already authored and designed for online delivery, instructors may believe they simply need to serve as the proverbial “guide on the side” as the students navigate the learning system. Not true! Principles:Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies The online instructor can help create a successful learning experience by practicing proactive course management strategies such as monitoring assignment submissions, and communicating and reminding students of missed and/or upcoming deadlines. Principles 3: Establish Patterns of Course Activities Although the online classroom environment provides tremendous flexibility of time and place of study, establishing and communicating a course pace and pattern of work can aid both instructor and student, and alleviate confusion around how the course operates. Principles 4: Plan for the Unplanned For those small or not-so-small occasions when “life happens,” having a strategy for informing students of these changes can go a long way to maintaining course continuity. Principles 5: Response Requested and Expected Timely instructor feedback is essential for the online learner to manage their learning experience. Instructors are expected to respond to student inquiries within one business day. Principles 6 Think Before You Write Most experienced online instructors can relay a variety of stories about a dialogue with a student that went awry due to a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the intended message. Take special care to be as clear and concise as possible. Principles 7: Help Maintain Forward Progress Students in the online classroom rely on the timely return of assignment and exam grades in order to maintain positive forward progress in their studies. Principles 8: Safe and Secure Using the institutionally supported learning management system provides increased degrees of security and confidentiality and keeps “institutional business” within the appropriate confines. Principles 9 Quality Counts Instructors need to establish strategies for addressing the quality of the online learning experience, including content resources, instructional design strategies, and systems performance. Principles 10 : Connection As with many aspects of the online classroom, the technological infrastructure plays a critical role in determining student and instructor satisfaction. |
Online Education