 Hi everyone. I'm really excited to share with you 10 important tips to keep in mind when delivering instruction online. These are the objectives. By the end of our time together you will have discovered the attributes of high-quality online teaching which include active learning and participation, interaction, communication, collaboration, instructor presence, timely and regular feedback, and appropriate use of technology tools for delivery of content, student practice, and assessment. But first I want want to make sure that we can all agree on what is not good online teaching. In 2015 I had the opportunity for teaching online during a sabbatical. During that time I completed two online teaching certificates and this video that I'm going to show was included in one of the courses to show from a student's perspective what poor online instruction looks like by comparing poor classroom instruction with poor online instruction. I have no doubt that you're going to agree. So this video has minimal audio so I will probably just be just narrate it for you. He said I'm a student this is my routine every morning I get up I make my way to school I come here for an education seeking knowledge this is what I find day after day so I'm pretty sure none of us teach this way when we are in our school in the classrooms this is not how we teach he said this is what I find day after day this is what I find if you wouldn't neglect me in the classroom with talk and a board why would you do this to me in a classroom that has a keyboard and a computer education and teaching is more than a few reading assignments it's time for a change so as you saw there there was a lack of engagement in the student's online course and engagement is the key to effective online learning online teaching is not just putting your textbook online so before we go over these 10 tips let's review some big picture issues first to be effective online instructors we need to maintain our practice of the research based classroom best practices for adult education to the best of our ability within the online environment these best practices include student centeredness student choice and autonomy value and relevance of instruction to students lives goals and needs and opportunities for students to reflect on their learning one great aspect of online teaching is that we can provide differentiation and supplemental instruction or practice fairly easily to better meet the needs of all learners which is not always easy to do in a classroom with four walls because students have other demands on their time as we do too next we need to plan our instruction using backward design starting with lesson objectives or student learning outcomes what we want students to be able to do with what we teach them and follow the steps of effective lesson design often referred to as wipia warm up a review introduction presentation practice evaluation and application another of the big picture issues which is also very achievable in online instruction is to make efforts to meet the guidelines of universal design for learning or udl which include the following ensuring multiple means of engagement as you know people are engaged and motivated in different ways so by providing a variety of ways to engage our students online we can be better assured to engage all students we do this by giving students choices and autonomy finding ways to spark their interest in the course content and including assignments that challenge students providing multiple means of representation which means that we present our content in more than one mode such as audio video multimedia animation graphics text visuals we also provide support for students to access course content by active activating background knowledge scaffolding the instruction and providing direct instruction for new vocabulary students will need and providing multiple means of action and expression which means that we allow more than one way for students to demonstrate their learning and along the way we provide models and feedback this is how we evaluate students learning and we allow students to choose one when possible a variety of ways to demonstrate their learning for example giving students the choice to submit a traditional paragraph or essay a piece of artwork a song or a video in ed tech this is practiced through the use of choice boards also called menus for what students will create at the end of a learning unit of course what we see here might be um too many options for students so you want to limit to what technology you have already used with students and you can give them choices here finally a last big picture issue is along with engagement one of the most important a primary focus on strong pedagogy andragogy in our case as adult educators with technology being a secondary focus so with these big ideas in view let's narrow in on 10 details we can include on our checklist to establish the high quality online instruction that our learners deserve number one have early contact with students you can start off by emailing students a welcome message or video before the class starts along with links to tutorials on how to log in and navigate that an lms a learning management system that you use perhaps moodle canvas blackboard etc if you are using one let students know that you are ready and willing to support them in this new learning environment how and when they can reply to you and what they will learn in your class by sending a syllabus or a brief outline of course content consider sending tips for success in your class or even a former student's testimonial number two make sure that you are always visible in the online environment pin your photo with a bio and or a short video welcome or introduction video if student students see you each time they enter the online environment for your class they will feel more attended to and connected with you make your contact information easy to find when students log in number three ensure and support consistent and continuous contact with students inform students of explicit policies and procedures such as a communication policy that addresses and supports regular and effective contact such as how to contact you by phone email text and how soon students can expect a response send frequent check-in and reminder emails text announcements due dates events homework important school news and so on set and share with students online office hours when they can meet with you individually by chatting online by phone or in a video conference number four set and communicate a clear policy about netiquette which is the correct appropriate and polite way of communicating online be direct in stating expectations for appropriate online behavior in your syllabus in any first synchronous class meetings and in a visible area in your online course even adults need to be reminded not to write say or share anything online that is highly private or that could be offensive to their classmates we also need to remind students to honor academic honesty by not plagiarizing copying or having other people do their classwork that's why it's important to get a sample of student work very early in the class you may even have a contact contract such as an online form that you have students digitally signed to make them hyper aware of the expectations for communication and academic honesty in your online class number five just as you do in your face-to-face class establish predictable routines and patterns for example send class announcement announcements on the same day each week or at the same time each day use a modular organization for your online course and have a consistent order in the sequence of your assigned online activities for instance create modules for each week or for each unit or content area of your subject that follow a similar order there could be a list of the week's objectives followed by a survey or poll to find out what students do and don't know an image prompt a reading or video external links to explore a discussion post a quiz an assignment and a reflection survey release just one module or one week's worth of classwork at a time to not overwhelm students it's a good idea to deliver course materials at the start of each clear due dates these patterns will help students adapt easier to online learning and establish a rhythm to their learning which in turn will help them understand how they will need to manage their time for their participation in your class this also requires that you be ahead of the game creating a production plan for the entire term or semester before your class starts is a good idea but if you can't be at least one or two weeks ahead of students number six create community and encourage collaboration among students as much as possible in order to replicate their interactions online as they would conduct them on ground as we do in our adult ed classrooms in our online courses we need to provide opportunities for active learning and cooperative and collaborative activities when we create a strong supportive online community students will feel more comfortable to actively participate in this new environment and in turn we can honor our adult learners vast life experiences when students have opened up and we learn more about them there are tools within most learning management management systems as well as free apps that can be used to accomplish community building and engagement these are some things you can do have an icebreaker activity at the start of the class such as an introduction discussion post a video introduction or a selfie with a short written introduction as you may know a staple of online courses is asynchronous discussion boards post open-ended questions that will stimulate students thoughts about the topic and will give rise to deeper deliberation to make expectations clear provide a rubric that includes explicit details about the type of response you expect what kinds of and how many interactions between students you expect deadlines for posts and replies and how it will all be graded create and create a question and answer discussion forum for students to ask questions of each other and you about both the class and topics not necessarily directly related to the class synchronous discussions also go far in creating community and class connections we can do this by setting up web video conferences to provide explanations on new course content and assignments for students to interact in the main session or in breakout rooms and to provide online office hours synchronous tools we can use our zoom if you're and if your agency is part of a community college you can sign up at confer zoom skype google hangouts or meet microsoft teams web x or face time if you and your students have apple products hosting online class meetings through synchronous tools is the best next best thing to being together face to face and can eliminate that feeling of isolation that some students complain of in online learning last you can also use a variety of tools to have students create and collaborate on assignments and projects and to communicate with each other such as texting apps social media groups and shared documents and slideshows number seven going back to instructor present teachers should participate in online asynchronous discussions by posting model responses and asking follow-up questions to help students delve deeper into the course content especially at first it's helpful for students when the teacher posts a model response in the beginning and is active in the discussions by replying to students posts because that helps make expectations clear to students if your class enrollment is big you can assign students as weekly moderators to help you out but still be present in discussions number eight provide timely and useful feedback on assignments the great thing about using an lms is that quiz tools allow for instant feedback for many types of questions you can even customize the feedback by pointing out course lessons providing textbook page numbers or entering external links for questions that students struggle with even if you don't give official grades in your course use the lms gradebook if there is one students want to know if they are progressing they have the right to know if the huge sacrifice of their time is paying off number nine use the flipped classroom concept use online synchronous meetings to ask and answer questions and for teacher to student and student to student interactions activities that students can do individually can be delivered through the lms curate and create learning artifacts such as podcasts or video tutorials that students can return to at any time and can use to learn at their own pace while there are countless videos others have created on just about every topic the connection with your students will be stronger if the person they see and hear teaching them is you you could create a regularly scheduled podcast a screencast or video of yourself introducing or explaining course content or a narrated slideshow to promote active learning and maximize student focus and retention of first content create a note taking guide for class lectures remember to keep lectures or videos short definitely under 10 minutes number 10 last but by far not least learn about accessibility is the law and how you can make all your online course content accessible to everyone if you show a video make sure there's a transcript or there are captions same for audio text files should be able to be as as accessed by a screen reader and images need alternative text for ease of reading online use a simple font such as aerial courier or verdana do not use red or green for text students who have color blindness will struggle if your students will be used a learning using their phones use at least a 20 point font size which will be easier on the ice check your online materials on a phone since a large majority of our students may be studying on a cell phone lucky for us off OTAN offers an accessibility workshop on creating accessible documents put it on your to-do list if you need to learn about accessibility in online instruction teaching online for the first time is definitely a lot of work but in the end keep in mind the reasons why we love this profession our students they are worth every minute