The New Role of the Educator: Best Practices in Online Education

This course is intended to serve as a basic guide for any educator who is preparing to teach in a virtual environment. Our intention is to help educators create and teach effective, interactive and interesting online courses, and to learn about the methodologies, best practices and resources available to them when designing their online courses.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• First, we will begin by introducing and understanding the context of online training and the different sub-formats of this type of education in order to understand what it takes to transform a face-to-face course into the virtual format, using the resources that are available.
• Next, we will learn about using fundamental tools such as videoconferences, discussion forums, evaluations and feedback to ensure that the courses we design are effective from a pedagogical point of view – and that they are also entertaining, lively and interesting for students.
• Finally, we will hold discussions with a panel of experienced online teachers who will share lessons learned, tips and best practices, and we will interview a learning technology expert on the trends and more advanced tools that you can include in your online courses.

CONTENTS

• Online learning models
• Available resources
• Technology
• Course design
• Online resources development
• Preparing a video conference class
• Activating students’ participation
• Best practices
• Evaluations
• Forum setup and management
• Content for evaluations
• Formats
• Deliverables and assessments
• Challenges and best practices