Brendan Cox

Transferring content to an online environment from a class room setting is not as simple as just copying the course. Instructors need to go over the course thinking about the four Os and making adjustments to the delivery of the material to fit the new needs.

Be familiar with all of your required roles as an online instructor. Be intentional with those roles as well because when offering feedback for example, students can not read your body language or read between the lines of what you say. You must make yourself clear and be clear of the expectations you have  with the students.

Synchronous and Asynchronous learning both have their pros and cons. When deciding which approach to take, you really have to look into what your course needs to successfully teach students. In my program, Computer Aided Drafting and Design, I believe we could benefit from a blend of the two. Starting off synchronous to get new students used to the LMS and the applications used in the program and moving to more and more asynchronous learning as students become more confident with the applications and techniques.

There are many technology tools available to the instructor to use. When thinking about the tools, an instructor should also be assessing their teaching style and how the tool could enhance or hinder their preferred delivery/style. I find podcasting to be an interesting choice and wonder about how I could implement it into our program. In these times, it would be a good way to have "guest speakers" that might not be available during the day.

When trying to close the loop in course revision and improvements, you need multiple sources of review. Don't rely solely on student review or self review, include multiple stakeholders like peers and collegues. 

Well thought out Rubrics can help the students understand the full expectations for a project and when enough detail is provided in the criteria, could help curb a lot of common problems like spelling, grammar and too little information provided.

The idea of a dynamic syllabus is very interesting. I have been used to our standard syllabus which is pretty straight forward, but in this changing education landscape, it could definitely use some updating. The scaffolding is very useful as well and helps to point out all of the various communication dynamics in an online learning community and how to utilize them.

Consistency is key across the board when deveopling a course-module template. Break down the course and figure out the simple things, the easiest font to use, when to emphasize, length of modules, etc. Additionally, when adding things like graphics, audio and video, stay consitent, keep videos around the same length. 

Instructing learners with disabilities is not a huge issue. If you tackle the situation by finding out what their specific disability is and past accomodations that were helpful along with allowing more time for certain tasks and doing what you can to accomodate them, they will likely be successful in your class.

Several good takeaways in this module to help students with learning deficiencies or students that are ELL learners. I think one of the best techniques to apply in my setting would be the gradual introduction of vocabulary terms in groups of 5-7 to teach the students the different phrases in drafting, what they mean and how they are used in the field.