Facilitating Your Online or Hybrid Class

What skills are essential for success in teaching online? Insights from long-term online instructors - a presentation from an Oregon State e-campus qualitative research study that interviewed 33 long term online instructors for insights with an average of 14 years experience teaching online. It covers topics such as:

- responsiveness, tone, time management, organization, communication, flexibility, creativity and technology skills.

Also see: PDF guide to virtual teaching (30 page PDF)

Attribution:

Portions of the above were adapted or copied from the JHSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit, November 2016.

Design Learning Activities

What will you do to facilitate learning?

[MOVE LECTURE CONTENT TO LEARNING RESOURCES THAT SUPPORT LEARNING ACTIVITIES]

A learning activity can be thought of as anything that helps your students learn the desired content. We often think of lectures as a way to present content that student should learn (and they are!) - but when designing learning activities, you should also consider other methods of engaging students with the content in a way that will help them learn the material that they need to learn. This section will give you tips on teaching techniques including lecture, case studies, problem based learning, discussion, and more.

Key readings

Interactive Techniques – 101[+] Teaching Tips (K. Yee, CC BY-NC-SA) – PDF
Non-traditional Teaching & Learning Strategies (Harris, MSU)
Active Learning Tip Sheet (Brenner, Harvard) – PDF
See also: Pedagogy and Frameworks - for ideas on problem-based learning, cooperative learning, connectivism, community of inquiry framework, flipped classroom.

[SELECTING/USING LEARNING RESOURCES: https://www.canva.com/design/DAE57lgBN-w/ZHliHe73sgLCoHaZthw6ww/view#6]

SYLLABUS

How do you communicate all of this course design to your students?

How can your syllabus stimulate deeper and more enthusiastic student learning?

The Course Syllabus: A Learning-Centered Approach (ISBN: ISBN-1-882982-18-5)

Are laptops and cell phones allowed? If so, in what capacity?

What's the late policy on assignments?

Do you take attendance?

Do you have additional thoughts on academic ethics beyond the school standard verbiage?

All of these things should be part of course design, and should be included in your syllabus.

Suggested Syllabus Policies (UNC Charlotte)
The Syllabus: Course Policies / Expectations (Carnegie Mellon Syllabi)

Online and Hybrid Classes?

See our list of short readings and resources to help prepare for hybrid and online teaching.

Leave you with a few summary points:

Course design is a critical step to ensuring student success.

Engaging, challenging and involving students in the learning process is vital to adult learning. Here are some resources related to these topics:

- UMB Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning (FCTL): Increasing Student Engagement in Online Courses [BROKEN LINK]

Synchronous Engagement

What to do some students have to say about engagement in synchronous videoconferencing such as Zoom, Webex or Collaborate? This short video highlights some of the ways students appreciate the use of such technologies.

Definitions

F2F - face-to-face courses, traditional classes. These may or may not be "web-enhanced" - where materials, activities, resources are posted online for students to access via the internet.

Hybrid (Blended) - Hybrid Classes require students to participate partially in-person and partially online. A minimum of 6 sessions are in-person and a minimum of 6 sessions are online (either asynchronous or synchronous). The remaining 3 sessions can be in-person or online. Instructors will communicate the schedule via email and on the course syllabus. Online activities may include participating in asynchronous discussion forum, self-assessments, group projects, viewing lecture content, quizzes, assignments, etc.

Online - an entirely online course which may not require the student (or instructor) to be in a specific geographical location at any given point. Some online courses may still require synchronous activities, such as videoconferencing or live group meetings.

Hybrid Conversion

Have a course you have previously taught F2F that will become a hybrid? Here are some handy resources from Ryerson University that cover planning strategies, content selection, assessment strategies, etc. Also see 30 page PDF guide to virtual teaching.

Also, this quick read from the UCF Blend Toolkit is a nice intro, as well as this short read on student success strategies for hybrid/blended courses.

Online Teaching - Tips and Experiences

- This page about the Online Teaching Community run by the UMB Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning (FCTL) includes a schedule of meetups on various topics as well as a recording archive of past meetups
- Recording from an SSW faculty conversation on online teaching with Professors Nalini Negi, Kyla Liggett-Creel, and Lane Victorson

Course Rubrics

- FCTL: Take Online Teaching to a New Level (TOTAL)

https://www.qualitymatters.org/sites/default/files/PDFs/StandardsfromtheQMHigherEducationRubric.pdf

Online and Hybrid Program Scorecards, Quality Rubrics and Benchmarking

A number of useful tools exist for assessing organizational readiness, maturity, and effectiveness in relation to the offering of online and/or hybrid programs and ensuring that the entire learning community is well-supported: