Anna Miller

Course evaluation is essential in an online course because you should always be growing and improving your online content. This unit taught me that it is important to include the feedback from multiple stakeholders when evaluating the course, not just your own personal thoughts or those of the students. 

Assessments should be planned, use various strategies to test knowledge, and be directly connected to the learning objectives. I liked learning about the rubrics and how to use objectives and criteria because I mostly grade summative assessments using rubrics. 

In this unit I learned about the various ways to communicate with students online. It is important for the instructor to have multiple, reliable ways to communicate with online students. 

In this unit I learned that keeping the interface of modules consistent will help users to feel more comfortable as they navigate your course. It is also important to "test" your modules for reliability. 

My biggest takeaway in this module was the various types of online learners and which strategies to use when I encounter them. I learned about better ways of keeping track of records (student grades, assignments, and communications). 

In this section I learned the difference between asyncronous and syncronous discussions. I also learned that timely feedback is extremely important in any online learning environment. It is the role of the instructor to continually respond to and/or initiate converstaions with students. 

In this module I learned that it is important to model the behavior you want your students to display. For example, post an example discussion post to your own question. Also- I learned that facilitating teams or group work is an effective strategy to teaching online. 

In this module I have created a checklist of sorts for myself of how I plan to start my next school year in a fully digital platform (if it comes to that). I have learned that it is important to frontload students with all of your classroom procedures and policies; make sure they know exactly what is expected of them and where content is located. Finally, I have learned that there is no "cookie cutter" approach to online teaching, each teacher can take different approaches to teaching standards.