August 6, 2010

Happy Friday!

I hope you all have plans to enjoy the weekend ahead....hard to believe how fast summer has gone by. My husband and I are sticking around home this weekend, which rarely happens for us during the summer months....

Anyway, I thought I'd do a second blog post this week for a couple reasons:

• Three weeks from today is the deadline for redevelopment projects, so I thought you may need a little inspiration to keep moving along with your course(s)....
• I ran across a useful article, Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online, that does a great job summarizing much of what we hope to see in the content and design of our courses...plus, any article in the form of a Top Ten List has to be worth reading, right? :-)

Here are few points from the article that I think are particularly applicable, but please take a minute to visit the link and read the whole thing....it's a quick read and worth the time.

• Best Practice 4: Use a variety of large group, small group, and individual work experiences
• Remember that many of our students are working adults...let them share their experiences and knowledge through assignments, class discussions, etc.
• Best Practice 7: Prepare Discussion Posts that Invite Questions, Discussions, Reflections and Responses
• This is so important! If the discussion questions in your course can be answered with "yes" or "no" then they need to be updated! Or, if students are asked to respond to something factual, that only has one right answer (i.e. a math problem), mix things up or find a way to rewrite the discussion topic so there is actually something to discuss.
• Best Practice 8: Focus on content resources and applications and links to current events and examples that are easily accessed from learner's computers.
• Every unit should have "additional resources"....look for news articles/videos, interesting blogs (check the source for reliability), audio lectures available free online (check out Academic Earth), etc....the web has countless opportunities for integrating course material to the world around us.
• Best Practice 10: Plan a good closing and wrap activity for the course.
• Avoid the trap of Unit 12 just being a final exam and easy discussion...find a way to really bring the course to the close for the students - reflecting on an "Aha! moment" or discussing how far they've come in terms of mastering and applying the content can be a good form of closure for everyone.

Thanks for all your hard work - enjoy your weekend! And, as always, contact me with any questions.

Kelly