How can I apply best practices in my online courses?

Dear Aggie:

I have been able to apply many best practices in my face-to-face courses, but I still struggle to apply them in my online courses. Please help!

~ On Edge About Online

 

Dear On Edge:

As Judith V. Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad put it in their Online Teaching Survival Guide:

Moving from a campus face-to-face environment to a rich mobile technology environment can be intimidating and challenging. Adapting lifelong teaching habits to new teaching models takes time, energy, patience, and a willingness to try different teaching strategies using digital tools.

The good news is that you can apply the best practices you already know in this new environment, including those that seem the most difficult. In fact, the very first of the authors’ 14 best practices for online teaching is “Be present at your course.” But the very nature of online courses is that we aren’t present in the way that we’ve used that term since grade school, right?

Being present is the most fundamental and most important of all the practices. Your students want to know you as a person and as an expert. They want to know what you think, based on your expertise and experiences. They want to know that you care about them and that you care they are learning. Since they can’t always see you in person, they want to see and hear you through your words, and in audio and video messages.

One challenge, of course, is accomplishing this without spending significantly more time on it than we would in a face-to-face course, but that can be done with prerecorded mini-lectures, timed announcements, and occasional participation in group discussions. 

If you would like to learn more about applying best practices in online courses, please join Dr. Oana Cimpean’s book group on The Online Teaching Survival Guide on Fridays from February 14 through March 7. Registration ends February 7.

~ Aggie