Technology has provided us with the ability to take an online course from anywhere. While this may make being a student easier, it doesn’t necessarily make it easier to be an instructor. Actually, in direct contrast it can make our jobs as trainers more difficult. However, the key to being an excellent online course instructor really comes down to five easy tips. As long as you can master these five things your online course success will either meet or exceed that of your face-to-face courses.
5 Easy Tips to Mastering Online Teaching
1. Don’t bombard your learners with material.
The number one problem that most online courses have is they aren’t broken down into manageable pieces. For example, one time I took an online course from my compliance department that was over 4 hours long. Yes, you heard me correctly… 4 hours. The first problem with this is obvious. As a friend of mine says, “one can only learn what the seat can bare.” Online courses should be no longer than 20 minutes. Any additional content should be broken out into another module and delivered to the learner on a separate occasion. This gives you an opportunity for reinforcement – which gets me to my second issue with bombardment. As learning professionals we know that a single learning intervention won’t drive the message home. You need to reinforce the material in order to make a behavior change. If you deliver (for example) four hours worth of content in one sitting you have to work very hard to get the learner to be willing to accept your attempts to reinforce the material. By breaking up the online course you make it easier to “sneak in” reinforcement and have learners who are more willing to pay attention to your lesson.
2. Talk with your learners instead of at them.
When leading an online course it is important to have a good deal of contact with your students. No, you don’t have to give them your home phone number, but they should hear from you at least every other day or two until they have completed each of the modules in the course. Many LMSs have a communication tool built in that will allow you to contact each of the learners at their online courses are sent out or as they are completed. If possible personalize the messages by dropping in a mail merge name field. Also, ask them to contact you directly if they have any questions. Even if you don’t think you can answer their questions assure them that you can find them somebody that will. A good rule of thumb for online course learner interaction is that the amount of time you spend communicating with the learners should equal to the amount of time you would have been in the classroom.
3. Manage your learner’s expectations.
Let your learners know from the beginning of the online course what you expect from them. Sometimes it is best to meet in person to have an “orientation” and then begin the online portion of the course. Other times you may want to make a 5-10 minute webcast that you can show and then be available for questions. What should you cover? Make sure your learners know that there will be more than one module and explain why this benefits them. If you plan to release an online module on Monday and issue a test on Thursday let them know that. If you have a FAQ that you want your learners to check before contacting you make sure you show them where it is located. The more your learners know up front, the less time you will spend troubleshooting problems later.
4. Engage your learners whenever possible.
Teaching an online course has benefits beyond what the classroom provides. Some of these benefits are in the form of the technologies you use. Use these technologies to engage your learners and make sure they play their part in creating the educational content too. Depending on the type of course you can ask your students to record and upload a video that explains their thoughts on a particular topic. Then ask other learners to comment on the submissions. Or, add a forum to the online course and ask your learners to discuss the topic with eachother.
5. Provide constant feedback.
Online courses can make learners feel very isolated. In addition to doing what I described in step #4, make sure to provide your learners with increased feedback. Since they can’t interact with you directly providing more feedback than you would in a face-to-face setting is incredibly important. This feedback should not just be via private email messages to your students, but if you employ the forum or message board approach you should also praise students that are making insightful comments. This not only gives that learner the confidence they need to use their new knowledge in the “real world,” but also shows the other learners what you are looking for.
Online courses can be very exciting and very rewarding, but you have to be prepared to handle the nuances. If you really want to learn how to teach an online course the best advice I can give you is to take one! Check out your local community college and take an online course in something that interests you. Pay attention to the way the course is run and write down what you like and don’t like. Then use this list to construct your own online courses.
Best,
P.S. Interested in learning more about online course development? Check out this book Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design (Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning)
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