Peer Review

Best Practices in Online Teaching

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Reviewed:: Dec 17, 2009 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This course provides practical strategies and pedagogical advice for instructors teaching in an online environment. The course includes advice about: preparing to teach in an online environment, managing the teaching of a course, and addressing larger issues surrounding online teaching (e.g. workload, intellectual property, etc.) The course includes interviews from a number of teachers who have taught in an online environment. This course is based on a training session offered to faculty who teach at The World Campus at Penn State University.
Type of Material:: Tutorial/course
Recommended Uses:: Faculty professional development The course can be used by anyone preparing to teach an online course.
Technical Requirements:: Web browser and Audio Capabilities (some modules contain mp3 files)
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Goals The goals of this course focus on: * Preparing participants to become effective online instructors by discussing the essential skill sets necessary for teaching in an online environment * Collecting effective practices and strategies for teaching in an online environment Learning Objectives Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be able to: * Identify and perform essential preparation tasks prior to teaching the course * Articulate an instructor’s role in an online learning environment * Develop appropriate strategies for promoting active learning * Recognize learner characteristics or styles and apply appropriate strategies to monitor and facilitate students’ online learning * Apply effective strategies for facilitating and assessing online discussions * Manage your time, workload, and administrative issues related to teaching effectively online
Target Student Population:: This course is geared toward college faculty as well as education professionals.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Experience teaching as well as some knowledge of course management systems(CMS) is helpful.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: The content is solid. The Penn State World Campus has had much experience in planning and delivering online courses. They have won awards for their work in online education. This course is one that they use to prepare their online teachers. Due to Creative Commons license, the material is able to be shared: How to Reuse and Attribute This Content If you derive a copy of this content using a Connexions account and publish your version, proper attribution of the original work will be automatically done for you. If you reuse this work elsewhere, in order to comply with the attribution requirements of the license (CC-BY 2.0), you must include *the authors' name: Larry Ragan *the title of the work: Best Practices in Online Teaching *the Connexions URL where the work can be found: http://cnx.org/content/col10453/1.2/
Concerns:: None

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: This material saves a university the time and expense of creating a professional development course for faculty who teach online.
Concerns:: It is developed for use with the Angel platform. While there are many notations of this, some faculty may expect the illustrations to be in their own LMS.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: Very easy to use! Faculty can go through the material in their own time. When used on your university's own LMS, discussion boards can be monitored and responded to promptly. Menu is very intuitive, and allows the user to skip around very easily.
Concerns:: Used as is, the information is very much related to the Penn State World Campus program. It would need to be modified to a particular university in some areas.

Other Issues and Comments:: None
Creative Commons: