Best Practice 1: Be Present at the Course Site
Liberal use of Announcements and discussion board; “Best online" faculty show their presence multiple times a week, and at best daily; Set clear expectations at the beginning.
Best Practice 2: Create supportive online course community
Balanced dialogue; Encourage engagement; Share your teaching philosophy and research; Small groups can assume responsibility for mentoring and summarizing; Problem-solving forums.
Best Practice 3: Expectations of Communication, Level of Effort
Cannot be overemphasized; Expectations for how students communicate; Students are accepting of faculty member's time and life requirements if they know in advance; Online learning just as intensive as F2F, time needs to be scheduled and planned for.
Best Practice 4: Vary Large, Small Group, Individual Experiences
Learning works well when a variety of activities and experiences; Some learn best on their own –so, build options to work together AND individually; Working in teams effective when working on complex case studies for first time.
Best Practice 5: Both Synchronous & Asynchronous Activities
LMS mimic most everything we do on campus classrooms and can engage learners in collaborative and reflective activities; Think, plan, write, summarize = effective learning; Create many types of effective learning environments and opportunities.
Best Practice 6: Early in the Term, Ask for Feedback
What is working well in a course? What might help them have a better course experience? Then attend to the input.
Best Practice 7: Discussions that Invite Questions, Reflections, etc.
Discussions designed for: Open Q&A forum; Critical & creative thinking; Reinforce procedural processes;
Achieve social interaction and community building; Validating experiences; Support reflections.
Hints for discussions. Open-ended, explore and apply concepts; Model Socratic-type probing; Clarifying questions that encourage metacognition; Stagger due dates; Guidelines on responding to other students.
Best Practice 8: Resources Accessible from Learner's Computers
Help provide/identify digital material; Links to current, applicable events; Encourage use of high quality resources: Incorporate into assignments how tools are used in professional situations and in decision-making.
Best Practice 9: Combine Conceptual with Personalized Learning
Requires focus on patterns and relationships; Asking students‘ to create, talk, write, explain, analyze, judge, report and inquire; Stimulate growth to concept acquisition, building in a "series of intellectual operations”. Discussions are strategies for engaging learners in clarifying, enlarging their mental models and building links to relationships.
Best Practice 10: Plan Good Closing and Wrap Up
Hints for closing. Remind Students of What's Next and When Items are Due.
Plan the Ending of the Course Experience - reflection and integration of useful knowledge.
Avoid traditional concerns on covering material, and focus on application and extrapolating the experiences. Focus on asking
What is going on inside the student's head?
How much of the content is being integrated into their knowledge base?
How much of the content and the tools can he/she actually use?
What are students thinking and how did they arrive at their respective positions?
References
Boettcher, J. (2006). "Ten core principles for designing learning. Syllabus. 16: 33-36.
Boettcher, J. and Conrad, R. (2004). Faculty guide for moving teaching and learning to the web. 2nd Edition. Phoenix, AZ, League for Innovation. Pp. 247.
Conrad, R. M. and Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities & resources for creative instruction, Jossey-Bass, Pp. 123.
Fischer, K. Reiss, D. and Young, A. (2005). Ten tips for generating engaged online discuss. TX.
Goodyear, P. (2002) Psychological foundations for networked learning." Networked learning: perspectives and issues. Pp. 49-75 2002. Springer-Verlag. New York, Inc.
Grogan, G. (2005). The Design of Online Discussions to Achieve Good Learning Results.
Mabrito, M. (2004). Guidelines for establishing interactivity in online courses. Innovate 1 (2).
Painter, C., Coffin C. & Hewings, A. (2003). "Impacts of directed tutorial activities in computer conferencing: a case study." Distance Education 24(2): 159-174.
Pelz, B. (2004). Three principles of effective online pedagogy. J. of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(3).
Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought & language. (E. Hanfmann , G. Vakar, Trans.) Cambridge, MIT.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.