Philip Gerstenbluth

When making a plan for course revisions, you must understand the course development cycle. In the course development cycle, the course revision process is a key component.

The nature of online education requires online instructors to purposefully think about how communication with students, collectively and individually, happens.

Social presence is the degree of feeling, perception, and reaction of being connected to another intellectual entity, and in the context of an online learning environment, social presence impacts online interaction.

The online learning environment should bedesigned with a strong sense of sharedpurposes, policies and procedures, and acontinuous examination of how well thepurposes are being achieved. The sharedpurposes should relate to the learningoutcomes.

Helping students develop planning and goal-setting skills is beneficial for their success.

As an online instructor it is important to review the tool, decide if it is essential to communication in your course, and use it effectively.

As an online instructor providing feedback to a particular student based on their writing, you may want to have a private blog or wiki where the two of you can develop a private editing session. The student will feel more comfortable in a one-on-one session such as this and the impact may be seen more quickly as the student may feel comfortable writing more in such a private session.

Although motivation is the responsibility of the student, it is important for the online instructor to be aware of the importance of motivation and helping students develop and sustain their own motivation.

At the beginning of an online course, it is essential to present clear guidelines for participation in the class, in addition to course expectations and procedures.

Online courses meet the needs of a variety of students as they are building basic skills, increasing skills for employment, and/or continuing to be active lifelong learners.