Effective Online Teaching Techniques

These are the slides and some resources from my workshop on "Effective Online Teaching Techniques." It relies heavily on Chickering and Gamson because I like to emphasize that the same principles that make face-to-face teaching effective are the same principles that make for effective online teaching.

What resources would you suggest for teachers new to online teaching? Feel free to add to the comments below. 

• Anderson, Terry & Elloumi, Fathi. (2004) Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.
• Boettcher, J.V. (2011) “Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online: Quick Guide for New Online Faculty.” Design for Learning.
• Cain, Geoffrey B. (2012) “15 Time-Saving Tips for Teaching Online”. Brainstorm in Progress.
• Chickering, Arthur W. & Ehrmann, Stephen C. (1996) “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever.” The TLT Group. 
• Chickering, Arthur W. & Gamson, Zelda F. (1987) “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” Washington Center News.   
• Codde, Joseph R. (2006) “Applying the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.”  Michigan State University.  
• Shelton, Kaye. (2006) Online Teaching Tips. Dallas Baptist University Online Education Program. 
• Rubric for Online Instruction. (2009). CSU Chico  

DE 101: Preparing students for online learning

Geoff Cain (College of the Redwoods)
Barry Tucker (College of the Redwoods)
Description: College of the Redwoods offers its students "DE 101" a free, two-week, fully online seminar on how to take an online class and be a successful online student. In this seminar, students learn about Sakai and how to use other online tools such as MyCR email and TurnItIn.com. The course covers the tools in Sakai as well as the skills required to be a successful online student. Topics covered include an over-view of the typical tools used in an online Sakai course but also cover, time management, online collaboration skills, solving technology problems, identity theft prevention and other topics of concern to online learners. The Distance Education department has completed 9 sections of this course. We have found that having this kind of training available before the student takes an online course (or concurrently) helps student completion and retention in online learning. This presentation will review the course and discuss the decisions that went into the creating the content.
Presenter

bios:
Geoff Cain: Geoff Cain is the Director of Distance Education at College of the Redwoods where he leads the instructional design and faculty training team as well as facilitating the online orientations for students.

Barry Tucker: Barry Tucker is the Student Development Advisor for Distance Education and Veterans students. He is also the co-facilitator of ?DE 101,? the free online orientation to distance learning for students. After serving eight years in United States Navy he moved to Humboldt County in 1985 where he attended College of the Redwoods before transferring to Humboldt State University where he received his single subjects teaching credential in Social Sciences in 1993. Barry is currently working on his master?s degree in Academic Advising at Kansas State University.

Daniel Fiore, our multimedia instructional designer also presented.

12 Time-Saving Tips for Teaching Online

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Online learning saves time for students. Students in online courses have 24/7 access to their course materials, other students, and their instructor. For working students, this is an incredible benefit. But we often hear that online learning takes a lot of an instructor’s time. I have found that it can be, but when a course is set up in advance to take advantage of a learning management system’s features, a lot of time can be saved. Many of these techniques make for a more engaging experience for the students and less stress for the instructor.

Here are some of my favorite time-saving tips. Please add to them!

1. Create a comprehensive syllabus.

• Utilize a "Week Zero," a module that explains to new students how to be an online student and use the learning management system (LMS).
  
• Direct students to tech support and the help desk as much as possible.
• Create a course “scavenger hunt.”

2. Use a syllabus quiz.
3. Make your course easy to navigate.

• Keep as much content as you can no more than two clicks away.
• Use a consistent format week-to-week or module-to-module.

4. Schedule your time.

• Do not work on your online course because you can; work on it because you have scheduled the time.
• Let the students know your schedule.
• Access your course consistently (e.g. three times a week) and respond to email promptly (with-in 48 hours).

5. Automate your course as much as possible.

• Take advantage of the time-release feature of announcements.
• Record and reuse lectures.
• Let the LMS handle as much of the grading as you can.

6. Distributing and exchanging documents.

• Use the assignment feature of your LMS instead of e-mail.
• Have the students attach documents to a forum posting.

7. Centralize question and answers.

• Use a discussion forum for “Frequently Asked Questions.”
• Create a FAQ page.
• Ask students to ask questions in the forum rather than e-mail.

8. Use online groups with a deliverable

• Let the students do the work.
• Do not respond to every posting, respond to the group deliverable.

9. Use a "common responses" file to quickly paste in answers to common questions.
10. Allow students to facilitate online discussions.
11. Use a detailed grading rubric to help answer questions in advance.
12. Encourage student-student interaction and study groups.

• Give them the space to solve problems.

What about you? How do you streamline your online teaching process? Leave a comment below if you have any time saving tips.