Next Steps and Additional Resources
Where do I go from here?
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Next Steps
You made it through! I know that I presented a lot of information in a short amount of time, but hopefully you were able to spread your learning out in a way that was manageable to you, and made note of the things you might want to revisit later on. That is one of the greatest advantages to online learning: flexibility.
As your online course starts to take shape, the final step you'll want to consider is how to evaluate it. In addition to your own reflection, there are three common ways that you can consider evaluating and getting feedback for your online course:
Quality standard rubrics - There is a collection of online course quality standard rubrics in the resources below.
Peer observations - Teaching and Learning Services will do peer observations of your online course (whether or not they include live sessions).
Student feedback - Solicit feedback from students frequently throughout the course and at the end. Resources on some ways to do this can be found below.
As you work through planning and teaching your first online course, remember that course design is an iterative process; I can guarantee that some things won't work perfectly your first time around. Be reflective as you teach and take notes about your experiences and future changes you want to make. When things settle down, don't forget to add content related to your online teaching experiences to your dossier. This is valuable teaching experience that will have stretched you as an instructor, no matter what.
Kim
Top Ten Tips
With your learning objectives in mind, reduce your course content as much as possible.
Keep what you can from your f2f course, and change or abandon other things mindfully.
Plan small, low-stakes activities and assignments.
Minimize your marking as much as possible.
Keep your expectations realistic.
Manage your students' expectations.
Be present in your course.
Communicate, communicate, communicate.
Be as organized and clear as possible in Blackboard (get a colleague to check).
Keep it simple (seriously... I cannot stress this enough).
A Good Online Course...
Has clear expectations and guidelines
Is chunked and paced to maintain motivation
Is engaging for students
Gives students flexibility and choice
Has many opportunities to communicate
Promotes a sense of community
Allows students to collaborate
Is well organized in the LMS
Improves over time
Additional Resources
Getting a Blackboard Course
Blackboard can be found in the MacEwan Portal
To request a new Blackboard course, please contact blackboard@macewan.ca
Online Teaching Resources
Article: What the Research Tells Us about Higher Education’s Temporary Shift to Remote Teaching by By Nancy Chick, Jennifer Friberg, and Lee Skallerup Bessette (2019)
eBook: Teaching in a Digital Age by Tony Bates (2015)
Book: Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby with James Lang (2019)
MOOC: Pivoting to Online Teaching: Research and Practitioner Perspectives (U Texas - Arlington)
Quality Standard Rubrics (Evaluation)
Guidelines for Evaluating Online Courses (Carleton)
Course Online Design Rubric (NMSU)
Online Course Evaluation Rubric (Oklahoma)
Getting feedback from students
Creating Anonymous Surveys in Blackboard (eLearning)
Creating Google Forms (outside the LMS)