Hello, I am just starting out teaching mathematics online, but have been teaching mathematics at the university level for almost 5 years. I have been thinking about how to deliver a quality mathematics course online. Most of my experience has been that homework/assessments have been delivered via a platform like WebAssign/MyMathLab while content is delivered via something like Blackboard either using university supplied lectures or the videos on Kahn Academy. I think math is uniquely posed among the sciences for distance education because it doesn't need special equipment or labs. In fact it can be effectively taught using the above items and a 30 dollar graphics tablet. My experience so far is that the above is an effective translation of the classroom setting- lectures and homework. However, most of what I've had to do online is "clean up" consisting of giving access to students who went beyond their due date because of personal problems. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience really delivering a quality course where the students walked a way with a strong understanding of mathematical principles? Brian Stout

We need to be very careful about what media we choose. There are some gray areas about copyrights and what can be used and in what context.

I have used Jing for some of my courses to capture images or videos from my screen in order to share them with my students. It's a very user friendly technology that allows you to take screenshots and mark them up with arrows, pictures captions, or textboxes. Or, you can create videos up to five minutes in length; I make them when I want to record what I see on my screen as I navigate websites or documents, which works great if I want to create a narrated tutorial. Check it out at http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Maybe the students could be given a brief survey at the end of the first week of each course to assess how well they are navigating various components of the course. The instructional designers can use their feedback to make changes in the courses or create specific learning platform navigation tutorials.

Whether it’s online or on-ground both structural integrity and navigation simplicity is essential. The lack of structural integrity in an online environment can create chaos for the online learner. It is therefore incumbent on the instructor to ensure that the course (content) is designed to meet the need of the students, which includes the student ability to learn and apply these new skills. Without some logical sequence in the course materials, students would be unable to grasp the information (during the learning process) that the instructor is trying to convey. As a result, with appropriate structural integrity, the instructor can provide the appropriate student evaluation that is necessary to measure the course outcomes and the quality of the course content. Similarly, navigation simplicity is also essential in guiding the student through different areas of the course content. However, students--even for those who consider themselves “tech savvy”--should receive the appropriate training in the institution platform to ensure that they are familiar with and can locate the necessary course material/information. Inadequate training can lead to frustration for students and instructors who must spend unnecessary time teaching students how to navigate through the course materials.

I believe that your design of an online course should be in a linear approach. I believe that laying out the tasks by week or module is much more effective than trying to get your students to jump around the course. Walter Walter van Poollen 10-10-12

Lecture notes should be based upon what is in the exam. Exams should cover resources required to read by the students. The idea of an exam is to see how well the students are doing in a class and how well the instructor is teaching the concepts of the course material. This does not mean that the lecture notes have the answers for the question in the exam. Walter Walter van Poollen 10-10-12

I feel that chats are the most useful tool in an online class. This is the only time that an instructor can teach. By teaching, the students can learn by hearing the story and have the ability to ask question as they think of them. Walter

Once an online student myself, I believe that structural integrity of a program and navigational simplicity is essential for an active online learner eager to expand their knowledge for a specific topic. As "independent learners", a student should have the option to take the virtual tools and learn at their pace. There should also be an option for students who are less independent learners for a specific course study and prefer facilitation from the instructor. As an online instructor, it is essential that I maintain wide parameters meeting the teaching needs for my students. Having structural integrity and navigational simplicity allows for the student to adapt easier to an online environment and provides an avenue for scholastic success.

Navigational simplicity is very important. I want the students to be thinking about and working with the material rather than having to focus on on where to click. From personal experience having to work hard to figure wher to click gets in the way of thinking about the material. Cognitive dissonance I guess you would call it.

Teaching is a powerful position, and it is the responsibility of the instructor to serve as a role model for the students. I feel teaching is one of the toughest, but most rewarding, professions. It is my responsibility to allow, but aid, students to take responsibility for their own learning and help prepare them for a career in accounting. Student learning is enhanced when the students are actively engaged in the course and perceive the course as relevant to their personal and professional goals. My overall structure of the course depends on the course material and the students in the course. It is my responsibility as an instructor to determine the best delivery method to the students to aid in their understanding of the material and this varies depending on the level of the student, such as graduate vs. undergraduate. I perceive the role of instructors to help students actively engage in their own learning and to critically think about the subject matter before them.

I teach at a company that is moving to web base training. I feel this will be a great move, students that learn how to teach their self will be better prepared through out their lives. there is so much information avalible today right at their finger tips and they need to know how to use it.

Online courses depend on you the instructor to reach across the sceen and make the course relevant to each student

Through my limited experience, I have found the most effective way to evaluate the effectiveness of a course, or an entire program for that matter, is to evaluate the quality of the graduate. This means that the course or program must first run its length, then the graduating student must be evaluated on their ability to meet the demands that are placed upon them once in the field. For example, the only way to know what the best way to build a car is would be to build the car, test it, evaluate the car's performance stated criteria, then build another car!

One obvious major difference between the on-ground and online is the administration of tests/exams. Normally tests for an on-ground program are closed book. How can we mediate this in an online environment, or can we? I would like to hear from you all on this matter :-)

First off, I am an instructor for Bryan University Online where we have LIVE lecture. In our live lectures, we the instructors have microphones and cameras as do the students and therefore we do in fact have real interaction. Essentially, our class sessions are held in a Skype-like environment, but with a fully interactive learning environment that includes a white board, application sharing abilities, web-touring abilities, presentation uploading abilities, and much more. So you could probably imagine my amusement with the portion of the presentation for this course that discussed the idea that face to face interaction does not take place in an e-learning environment :-)

Technology has greatly improved the ease of which we are able to attend school, even with busy full time work schedules and such. However, with the "disconnect" of being in an online environment, the quality of the education as compared to that of being in the actual classroom suffers greatly. This shortcoming of the online environment is not easily resolved. As both a full time online instructor AND on-ground instructor, as well as a full time online student I am constantly searching for additional methods for improving online educational quality. The search continues.....

It can be a real challenge to keep students interested in the course content, but I think one way that instructors can continually do so is to ask students on a weekly basis if they have questions or concerns on anything from previous/current/upcoming weeks, because usually this will get some kind of response from them, whether straight to the point or a lengthy answer. In almost every case where I have asked this at the beginning of a live chat, I have had at least 5-10 students provide an answer. Also, I ask the students what they think will be most interesting for them to research/learn about for a particular week, because I think in this way they feel like there's a space to share their interests and thoughts and to hear my feedback right away. I think by keeping students participating, in my opinion, that is the best way to keep them interested and engaged in the classroom from week to week, especially in an online environment.

I had an idea, since this is a course devoted to Designing and Developing Online Courses, that perhaps instructors should leave open the possibility for students to input directions on an individual project or discussion board. If students were given the chance to take a bit of a lead off of their directions and write about topics relating to the main assignment, they may put in more effort. For example, one week I asked a series of questions during our live chat, and some of my students really enjoyed the discussion. They wanted to continue the discussion on the discussion board for that week, but their discussion didn't exactly line up with the questions they were supposed to be answering. So for that week, I gave them the option, to either continue where our chat discussion left off, or to discuss the assignment questions - many of them chose the live chat discussion questions, and they put more effort into researching and pushing further beyond discussing what we had set out initially to do. So, I thought I would bring that concept up in this thread. I think it touches on placing more responsibility on students who want to learn and explore their own ideas further, while showing them that you (their instructor) hope they are investing themselves in authorship. I look forward to any discussion on this idea.

Creating your course online seems a tough task, but it could be very simple if done in proper way. Your knowledge should be in depth for particular subject on base of which you are going to create the online course. Online courses are the big medium of knowledge to obtain the knowledge or to get some skills. Creating your course online seems a tough task, but it could be very simple if done in proper way. Your knowledge should be in depth for particular subject on base of which you are going to create the online course. You can obtain expertise knowledge through extensive reading of articles about web based training, technology education and online learning. You could practice using software take an example of other one's training course and explore the program. You need to gather your material and content in a central location. Filter out the material which you have gathered and make a best suitable resource location which is going to be needed in development of online course. After your data is been collected make an outline or structure that matches each course component with date marks, labs, assignments etc items. Determine which material is going to be used in the course verbally and which is going to deliver online. Select items that are related to the course's objectives and their learning experience. Filter the irrelevant material from the course to make it most relevant to the subject. Create the organizational structure for the course. Structure the data in proper format in root and sub root format. It should be formatted in linked list kind of structure for the maximum ease. Enter each folder and fill it with quality content relevant to the subject. Use technological advancements into the course structure and involve it in the course paradigm. Enter the discussions board and create a form and post an introductory assignment. If your course is online then discuss about particular topic related to your course subject and give reference to your course site. Create introductory document in announcement area and welcome student to your course. Preview the final drafted course and make it published as the course. Proofreading and view the course as a student is also the important part for the course development.