Thinking About Teaching Online?

Great! Here are some ideas to get you started.

Teaching online or hybrid can provide flexibility for both students and instructors at the same time that it promotes student engagement with the curriculum.

Teaching with technology is student driven as student instructional needs are changing and more and more community college students are working full- or part-time. Many have family and business obligations which prevent them from attending classes during normal hours. Online and hybrid courses offer them opportunities that may previously have been out of their reach.

Many instructors appreciate the opportunities of teaching online. Some enjoy exploring new technologies, while others gain satisfaction in finding ways to reach a wider variety of learners in an asynchronous environment. Teaching with technology is a journey both professionally and personally. At each stage in your journey you will find new ideas and learn about new tools to incorporate into your course.

There are three levels of teaching with online material.

• Technology can be used in the traditional face2face class as a supplement for the convenience of students.
• Hybrid courses have a traditional class session with some hours being replaced with online components. Each instructor will make the delivery decisions about what to present in class and what to delivery online.
• An online course is completely delivered online with students and instructors working together in an asynchronous environment for content, engagement, assessment, and communication.

Here are some questions to think about and to discuss regarding teaching with technology.

Moodle
Moodle is the learning management system supported by LaneCC. Moodle has many tools to engage your students. You will find it to be a great organizational tool. Some instructors use Moodle to provide classroom documents or grades for their face2face classes. Hybrid and online classes make extensive use of Moodle to deliver content and to stay in communication with students.

1. Are you familiar with Moodle?
2. Have you taken any class or workshop at the ATC about using Moodle?

Your Division
Have you talked to your Dean and other faculty in your department about teaching online? Having a discussion with other instructors in your department would be a good opportunity to refine and/or clarify learning outcomes for the course.

1. How would you compare and contrast the delivery of content between lecture classes and online classes?
2. How would you compare and contrast the interaction with students between lecture classes and online classes?
3. How will you meet the expectations for your department with such things as office hours, grading policies, lab time, etc?
4. Have you read or seen anything lately that has excited you about distance learning?
5. What aspect of online teaching are you looking forward to?
6. What aspect of online teaching do you think will be the hardest?
7. Have you talked to other LaneCC instructors who teach online?

Your Curriculum
Each course and discipline has its own needs to consider. You need to consider how to deliver your content and how to engage students with the content.

1. Have you thought about delivering your curriculum in an asynchronous environment?
2. How would you prepare your activities and assessments to align with objectives using technology?
3. Have you allowed sufficient time to learn to support the content of course with the available technology?
4. How will you make use of technical resources for communication with students?
5. What do you anticipate the time commitment will be to be actively involved with your online students?
6. Do you enjoy learning new teaching methods and working with new technology?

LaneCC Resources
There are resources available right here at LaneCC from teachers supporting teachers to technical support from the ATC, the Academic Technology Center.

At the Academic Technology Center you will find lots of help for using resources and for undoing any confusing problems. We have student workers standing by to assist you. You can also call ahead to make an appointment for individualized instruction on topics ranging from Moodle to podcasting to getting a copy of the Quality Matters© rubric regarding best practices standards for online courses.

Explore our website or contact the ATC .

Talk with your friendly FTS; that's your Faculty Technology Specialists. They can get you started in combining pedagogy with structure and organization of content for your course.

The ATC offers seminars, Moodle classes, courses, workshops, and lab sessions for supporting faculty in the development and growth of online and hybrid courses. You can also check out ATUDE for a network of support and expertise from within Lane's own online teaching community.

Design and Content

As you start your journey with teaching online here are some things to keep in mind: When designing your course include your very own fascinating content and objectives along with these elements: high interactivity, media richness, and social networking.

Why these design principles you ask? Let's ask Marshall McLuhan, one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. Here are some thoughts taken from his work.

With our course objectives in mind, we strive to use the following tools in combination with verbal/ text based information to build a solid course.

1. Interactivity: Are we stimulating our students, or putting them to sleep? Marshall McLuhan made distinctions between mediums such as film, television, and print, essentially categorizing media based on viewer engagement or passivity. Online courses and material can be either, giving us the opportunity for active engagement. This allows for a mix of rich materials where everything is supplied, but allows the students an opportunity to fill in the gaps.
2. Media: What is the point of audio visual materials? As you are well aware from sites like YouTube, Flickr, and being able to access traditional media like NPR, the internet has traversed huge distances from its text based roots. We can use this to reach across different learning modes and engage auditory and visual senses. If nothing else, audio and video can relate complex ideas in short moments of time. We can also use it to demonstrate applied uses of abstract concepts.
3. Social Networking: How is social networking relevant to teaching?
   It allows your students the ability to collaborate and discover through social networking. Again with a nod to McLuhan, we are able to use online tools to have students share information, and in some ways create the online equivalent of an "oral tradition". This changes the students' role from receivers to givers, and can impact how they relate to the content.

Creating a highly interactive course with multi media resources and social networking which allows students the chance to collaborate and to discover is the goal. Contact the Faculty Technology Specialists through the ATC for any addition information or to discuss questions regarding your course.