Some people may be under the false assumption that on-line teaching is the same as in-person teaching, only done via an online platform.
Not so! Teaching on-line requires attention to specific skills in addition to your expertise and knowledge in the subject area. Items that one may not have even considered during in-person instruction, because they do them rotely and automatically requires some consideration when delivering instruction online. The basic orientation of the course and the Course Management system employed becomes vital. The degree of technical support becomes equally important. In order to teach effectively online, one must make sure that he/she knows how to (according to this module):
- View the class roster.
- View student profiles.
- Post announcements.
- Post discussion questions.
- Interpret the trail of responses to discussion questions.
- Participate in Chat sessions.
- Drop participants from Chat sessions. A circumstance under which you should do this is when students ignore your warnings and consistently deviate from the topic.
- Respond to students' input.
- Generate a summary of each discussion forum.
- Delete postings from the discussion forum.
- Review events in the calendar.
- Post events in the calendar.
- Manage group projects.
- Manage the grade book. Enter as well as modify scores.
- Generate student activity reports.
