The document provides an overview of online teaching best practices. It discusses the differences between online and campus courses, types of online courses, the four stages of an online course (beginning, early middle, late middle, closing), learning theories, 10 core learning principles, and 10 best practices for online teaching. It also provides tips and strategies for each stage of an online course on topics like launching discussions, giving feedback, managing projects, and closing a course.

1. The Online Teaching
Survival Guide
Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad
Steve Thompson
EDUC 632 Use of Telecurricular Instruction
Fall 2011

2. “A course is a set of learning
experiences within a specified
time frame, often between six
and fifteen weeks, in which
learners, mentored by an
instructor, are expected to
develop a specific set of
knowledge, skills, and attitudes”.
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

3. 5 major differences between online and
campus courses:
1. The faculty role shifts to mentoring and
coaching.
2. Meetings are asynchronous.
3. Learners are more active.
4. Learning resources and spaces are more
flexible.
5. Assessment is continuous.
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

4. Types of Online Courses:
1. Web facilitated – up to 30%
delivered online
2. Blended/Hybrid – between 30
and 80 % delivered online
3. Online – 80% or more delivered
online
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

5. The four stages of a course:
Phase One – Course Beginnings
 Learner – familiarity with course
requirements
 Mentor – establish trust, promote social
presence, state expectations
 Content Knowledge – access to required
resources
 Environment – learners know how to use the
learning tools of the course
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

6. Phase Two: Early Middle
 Learner – weekly rhythm: readings, postings,
collaborating
 Mentor – guiding the learning of core
concepts, supporting community, balance
coverage of content with understanding
 Content Knowledge – exploring, engaging,
and identifying resources
 Environment – Community settled into a
routine
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

7. Phase Three: Late Middle
 Learner – applying core concepts, supporting
and challenging others
 Mentor – personalized instruction, support
learners as leaders, mentoring, providing
feedback
 Content Knowledge – creating and sharing:
blogs, wikis, projects, etc.
 Environment – active use of course tools,
sharing with the community
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

8. Phase Four: Closing Weeks
 Learner – demonstrated knowledge of core
concepts through complex projects and
assignments
 Mentor – continues teaching presence,
supporting learner projects, clarifying course
wrap-up activities
 Content Knowledge – application of core
content beyond the basics
 Environment – Learners effectively evaluate
tools based on need
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

9. Learning Theories and Theorists:
 Theory of Social Development – Vygotsky
 Experimental Learning – Dewey
 Genetic Epistemology – Piaget
 Constructivism – Bruner
 Cognitive Apprenticeship – Brown
 Schema Theory - Schank
Teaching Online – the Big Picture

10. Ten Core Learning Principles
 Every structured learning experience has
four elements with the learner at the center.
 Learners bring their own personalized and
customized knowledge, skills, and attitudes
to the experience.
 Faculty members are the directors of the
learning experience.
 All learners do not need to learn all course
content: all learners do need to learn the
core concepts
Theoretical Foundations

11. Ten Core Learning Principles
continued
 Every learning experience includes the
environment or context in which the learner
interacts
 Every learner has a zone of proximal
development that defines the space that a
learner is ready to develop into useful
knowledge
 Concepts are not words but organized and
interconnected knowledge clusters
Theoretical Foundations

12. Ten Core Learning Principles
continued
 Different instruction is required for
different learning outcomes
 Everything else being equal, more time on
task equals more learning
 We shape our tools and out tools shape us
Theoretical Foundations

13.  Be present at the course site
 Create a supportive online course community
 Develop a set of explicit expectations for your
learners and yourself as to how you will
communicate and how much time students
should be working on the course each week.
 Use a variety of large group, small group,
and individual work experiences
 Use synchronous and asynchronous activities
Ten Best Practices for Teaching
Online

14.  Ask for informal feedback early in the term
 Prepare discussion posts that invite
responses, questions, discussions, and
reflections
 Search out and use content resources that
are available in digital format if possible
 Combine core concept learning with
customized and personalized learning
 Plan a good closing and wrap activity for each
course
Ten Best Practices for Teaching
Online

15.  The essential course elements of an online
course
 How not to lose the first week
 How an online syllabus is different
 Launching the social presence in your course
 Getting to know students minds individually
 Getting into the swing of the course
 The why and how of discussion boards
 Characteristics of good discussion questions
 Managing and evaluating discussion postings
 The faculty role in the first weeks
Tips forCourse Beginnings

16.  Tools for communicating
 Learning and course management systems
 Weekly rhythm
 Early feedback loop from learners to you
 Early feedback tools
 The why and how of group projects within online
courses
 Sharing the teaching and learning
 Promoting peer interaction and community with
learner to learner dialogue and teaming
Tips for the Early Middle

17. Continued
 Online classrooms and tools for synchronous
collaboration
 Using audio and visual resources to create a
more engaging and effective course
 A good discussion post has three parts
 Discussion wraps
 Getting an early start on cognitive presence
 Launching projects that matter to the learner
Tips for the Early Middle

18.  Questions and answers
 Three techniques for making your students
knowledge visible
 Moving beyond knowledge integration to defining
problems and finding solutions
 Simple rules about feedback in online learning
 Feedback on assignments
 Reshaping learning habits of online students
 Customizing and personalizing learning
Tips for the Late Middle

19. Continued
 Managing and facilitating group projects
 Assessing group projects
 A rubric for analyzing critical thinking
 Four effective practices during project times
 Souped-up conversations that help build up
community
 Using social networking techniques to build a
learning community
 A touch of spice
Tips for the Late Middle

20.  Authentic problem solving
 Using what-if scenarios
 Stimulating and comfortable comaraderie
 Learners as leaders
 A strategy for capturing course content
meaningfully
 Pausing, reflecting, and pruning strategies
 Wrapping up a course with style
 Stories and suggestions for closing experiences
 Debriefing techniques with students
Tips for the Closing Weeks

21. 1. Just do your best
2. It’s kind of fun to do the
impossible
3. Begin with the end in mind
Advice from Those who have been
There