Cynthia Hutchens

Professional development is not beneficial unless it applies to your needs. Courses may need to be revised throughout the course.  This is known through formative evaluations from the students throughout the course, every 3 - 5 weeks, and then a formative evaluation at the end of the course by students, perhaps the original designer, your peers.

Communication is what makes an online course successful, whether it is student to content, student to instructor, or student to student.  There must be boundaries extablished regarding all forms of communication.  This can be done in the syllabus.  Feedback is very important to keep students from feeling alienated from class.

Some examples of the characteristics of a good online educator are visability/social presence, have good organizational skills, have the skills to collect and analyze student data, and have the ability to lead by example.

Having workload strategies is essential to the online instructor.  Having time management and information management is just a part of the workload strategies.  There must be support from the instructor and from technology groups.

Learning must be connected to real life.  Otherwise it appears to be just busy work.  Goals must be set to give oneself something to strive for.  Appropriate communication and good time management is essential to online success.  There are pitfalls that students must be aware of and avoid or they will hinder or sabotage the online learning experience.

Using a technology survey at the beginning of the course is very beneficial.  It allows the instructor to determine the technical ability of the students and helps the instructor see where technical problems may arise during the course.

Getting students to participate and be engaged in the learning process is necessary for sucess in an online class.  Group engagement is also very important. This can be done by assigning roles within the group, such as, leader or facilitator, etc.  You can also assign portions of the assignment to different members of the group.  Students must also realize the importance of online citizenship.  As an instructor, you must make sure that they understand the academic honesty policy of the course.  This should be relayed in your syllabus.

Self-analysis for the student and the instructor concerning online teaching and learning is absolutely necessary because not everyone is going to be successful at it.  Motivation is essential to online learning.  It is mainly the students responsibility, the instructor needs to help with the motivation to keep the students engaged.  Students and instructors need to have good time management skills or the workload will become overload.

Community is the most important part of the online class.  Without it, there is no communication, colaboration, or participation in group discussions.  I like the idea of the rubric for assessing communication.

Online classes are more difficult than the brick and mortar classes.  With different generations involved in each class, there will be differences in the ability to use the communication tools.