OLT provides some easy to access resources for Faculty who are new to teaching in distance education. Here are a couple of resources that you can download or print and save for easy reference:
Learners, Instructors and teaching support staff are involved in different activities at each of the stages of a course or program. These stages may break down (simply) as:
When planning a course or program, its helpful to consider the things that learners will be expected to do at each stage of the game and build from there to consider the role of the instructor and the institution in supporting that activity. The Learner Support Framework (developed at OLT) is a useful resource.
For instructors new to teaching online, it may also be helpful to keep track of the various teaching tasks that you’ll want to pay attention to in these areas:
The CSU Center for Distributed Learning offers some tools and checklists that you may find helpful:
Assessing Online Facilitation Instrument
Both of these tools were developed to assist instructors in objectively reviewing their roles as online facilitators.
Recently, Larry Ragan, Director of Faculty Development for Penn State’s World Campus, was asked “how would you rank the critical competencies for teaching online? Here are the 6 he identified:
1. Teaching and Learning
2. Technology Aptitude
3. Classroom Administration/ Management
4. Faculty Workload Management
5. Building Community
6. Attitude/Philosophy
Read the full article from the Distance Education Report, November 15, 2009
How Would You Rank the Critical Competencies for Teaching Online? (pdf)
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I just came across this interesting article in the Journal of Educator’s Online: July 2006 edition: Engaging Learner Attribute Research in Dialogue with Classroom Practice: Predictors of Success in the Accelerated, Online Classroom reported on a sample of online faculty response to the question “What do you see as the five factors most likely to predict a student’s successful completion of an online course?”
Of six identified themes, four issues emerged as the most relevant to the issue of online learner success:
• Time
• Technology Literacy
• Initiative
• Competence
According to the 96 instructor respondents, the most successful online learners:
• Participate early and often
• Practice effective time management strategies
• Take the initiative to solve problems and ask questions
• Demonstrate basic levels of technical proficiency in the online environment
• Are competent writers and communicators.
In addition, instructors cited several other competencies that contribute to success in the online classroom: focus on detail, awareness of institutional support services, successful completion of prerequisite coursework, and critical thinking skills.
“While these factors are not unique to the online classroom, they are especially important in a learning environment that forces students to work more independently and autonomously.” (p.9)
UBC’s Office of Learning Technology recognizes the importance of both learner competencies and instructor competence in creating a learning environment that supports the development of some of the competencies that have been highlighted here. Resources that you may find useful to incorporate in your course include:
8 Things to Get a Handle On: Online Learner Competencies
Learners’ Links (included in WebCT/Vista course environments developed by OLT).
Online Teaching Modules: a work in progress – first phase to be complete in fall 2009 and integrated into the Online Teaching Orientation course in WebCTVista.
If you are taking over the instruction of a print based course or delivering an online course for the first time, you may want to be aware of some of the resources to support your work in distance education.
Download the teaching tips for Online (pdf) or Print (pdf) for your reference. The Teaching Tips will provide you with sample communications for welcoming your students, links to the resources you will need to get started and suggestions for supporting learners.
You may also want to print the list of Key Contacts (pdf)for distance education. This will help you direct your concerns (or your students’) to the right person.
Learning to teach using WebCT’s Vista? Check the e-learning site for upcoming Vista Bootcamp sessions.
Re-thinking your teaching approach? The TAG institute (May 26-31) offers sessions to stimulate your thinking: everything from Comic Pedagogy to Brain Research on Motivation and Emotion.
Finally, you will likely want to bookmark the DE Instructors’ Guide and Resources of the OLT website. Refer to it for information on exam invigilation (and other policies) to teaching resources (such as facilitating online discussion).
Each term, instructors struggle with the academic and policy implications around these questions:
Here are some resources that you may find helpful in preparing to address these questions in your own teaching practice:
Plagiarism:
Many students are simply unaware of the consequences of their actions when they “cut and paste” to prepare a paper or miss a citation for a direct quote, etc. Discussing the topic (or providing guidelines to students) at the start of the term may go a long way to preventing plagiarism by providing students with the information they need to make good decisions. Here is a collection of resources to help you develop a prevention plan or respond to plagiarism:
Course Repeats
Some students may choose to repeat a course to improve their overall standing or because mastery of the subject matter is important to their overall goals. Individual faculties have different guidelines around course repeats and students should be advised to discuss this with their faculty advisor before repeating a course. You will need to decide whether or not you will accept re-submission of the same course work or whether you expect the student to undertake different assignments in order to complete the course. Here are some guidelines and links to policy documents regarding academic advancement:
Online Identity
We are all learning everyday about the impact of our online identities on our offline lives. Consider the near suspension of a Ryerson student who reportedly ran on online study group on Facebook and was accused of cheating. And the potential forblurring of boundaries between student and prof on Facebook. Not to mention the daily stories of someone getting fired after posting something unpleasant about a boss, workplace or co-worker. A cross-campus team of students and professionals are addressing some of these issues in an interactive online tutorial:
As always, if you have an anecdote or resource to share with your colleagues about the topics included here, please leave a comment.
If you haven’t heard about the 7 Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education you should know about them. They were originally published in 1987 by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson. These are widely accepted principles and they have been applied in various contexts. For your review (or if you haven’t seen the original) the link to the original article (reprinted with permission by the Wingspread Journal: Johnson Foundation) is below for download:
Seven Principles for Good Practice by Chickering and Gamson PDF
Good teaching practice, according to the seven principles, emphasizes:
The communication tools that we currently have access to (chat, email, VOIP) as well as web based collaboration/social networking tools for students means that we have more opportunities than ever to be successful in implementing these principles in distance teaching. This has led to considerations about how technologies (including WebCT and Vista) can support the principles originally outlined by Chickering and Gamson:
If you are not teaching an online course but are interested in how you might leverage technology to improve your teaching, the TLT Group (Teaching and Learning with Technology) has a public collection of “low threshold” or easy to integrate approaches.
It’s close to that time again! If you are new to teaching in distance education, you’ll likely be looking for a few tips to get you started on the right track. Here’s a snippet:
You may also want to reference the Teaching Tips for Online and Print. They’re both short reads and full of links and resources to get you off to a good start for Fall 2008!
Happy start of term, all!
If you are taking over the instruction of a print based course or delivering an online course for the first time, you may want to be aware of some of the resources to support your work in distance education.
Download the teaching tips for Online (pdf) or Print (pdf) for your reference. The Teaching Tips will provide you with sample communications for welcoming your students, links to the resources you will need to get started and suggestions for supporting learners.
You may also want to print the list of Key Contacts (pdf)for distance education. This will help you direct your concerns (or your students’) to the right person.
Learning to teach using WebCT’s Vista? Check the e-learning site for upcoming Vista Bootcamp sessions.
Re-thinking your teaching approach? The TAG institute (May 26-31) offers sessions to stimulate your thinking: everything from Comic Pedagogy to Brain Research on Motivation and Emotion.
Finally, you will likely want to bookmark the DE Instructors’ Guide and Resources of the OLT website. Refer to it for information on exam invigilation (and other policies) to teaching resources (such as facilitating online discussion).
EDUCAUSE is sponsoring an upcoming (March 3rd) ELI web seminar with Terry Anderson, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Distance Education at Athabasca University.
Many Students Loosely Joined: Social Software to Support Distance Education Learners will likely be of interest to any of you who are thinking about the potential for social/collaborative tools to improve both distance and blended learning environments.
I’ve attended several of these ELI online seminars and count them among the best online learning experiences I’ve had. Hope some of you will have a chance to check it out.
Cindy
