Best Practices for Online Teaching

The online instructor is faced with learning new technologies, introducing new technologies to students and building a sense of community, usually without any face-to-face contact. Needless to say, the online instructor must focus on how students and faculty communicate and the tools that they use to communicate. These best practice resources have been selected to assist the online instructor in creating a successful online environment.

 

Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online

(taken from The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips, by Judith V. Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad)

1. Be present at the course site.

2. Create a supportive online course community.

3. 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.

4. Use a variety of large group, small group, and individual work experiences.

5. Use synchronous and asynchronous activities.

6. Ask for informal feedback early in the term.

7. Prepare discussion posts that invite responses, questions, discussions, and reflections.

8. Search out and use content resources that are available in digital format if possible.

9. Combine core concept learning with customized and personalized learning.

10. Plan a good closing and wrap activity for the course.