Nancy Olsen

When transitioning a course from F2F to online it is important to organize the information well and select what is most important "need to know" to provide short lectures that emphasize this content. It is also important to be consistent in how materials are organized so students become familiar with where to find what they need. Presenting yourself as an instructor, both at the beginning and throughout the course, in a way that helps students connect with you helps the student feel welcomed and more present in the course.

Being the "Guide on the Side" and facilitating discussions and interactions with the course content is an important role of the instructor in the online environment. Making expectations for interactions clear is not only important at the start course but on an ongoing basis. It is important for the course instructor to keep tabs on the direction that discussions are taking and gently guide them back on track when they are going off topic.

Active learning activities can be used to enhance critical thinking skills in both the online and F2F environment. Active learning activities can also occur in both sychronous and asynchronous formats. When listening to lectures and taking notes students don't typically learn as much about application of the information. Collaborative learning techniques are one type of active learning and can develop skills that the students will be able to use in real life situation such as learning to better communicate with others in their work environments. 

It is important to gather data from multiple sources when evaluating your course. Using both quantitative and qualitative measures is the ideal way to get the best overall picture of how effective your course is. Different types of data fit best with the different stakeholders in the course outcomes.

Students should be made aware up front at the beginning of the course that it will involve active engagement in the learning process on their part. It is important that the instructor explain the "why" of active learning and what the students will get out of it in a way that students can relate it to thier own lives. Keeping the students motivated to complete the active learning activities is part of this and the instructor needs to take time to research the available tools that students could use to complete projects and assignments and decide which ones might line… >>>

I think I started as an instructor in an academic program thinking that all students would have already developed some level of critical thinking skills by the time that they reach college. Being reminded that recent models of K-12 education have focused more on "teaching to the tests" as a way to meet the requirements that all students be able to demonstrate certain basic knowledge in order to graduate from high school. The idea that this focus in education has limited the development of critical thinking skills and led students to expect that this will be the same with advanced… >>>

I have already been learning about synchronous and asynchronous learning through other courses provided by my university. What I learned through this module is that it is important to to develop a pattern of teaching for both synchronous and asynchronous settings. This is something that I have not done to the extent that I would like to. I think the ideas about organizing the course will help with that.

Linking assessments to the course objectives is important for the instructor and the student. When building rubrics, linking the criteria to assignment objectives will help students see what the purpose of the assignment is. It also helps the instructor focus on how the assignment is related to course outcomes.

Reply to Bill Wong's post:Yes, I need to do that too. I think mine is still evolving.

With the onset of COVID 19 I was asked to transition a course to the online learning format in a very short amount of time. If I were doing the course now, I would definitely be able to do this more effectively through more effective use of technology tools. Some technology tools were made available to us and I have learned how to use some of the features but there are others that I would like to use i the future to better engage students. I would really like to implement some of the features of the Video Conferencing platform… >>>