Being an educator is a challenging career. And teaching online adds some additional challenges. How can you apply the four commitments if you don’t ever see your students face-to-face? How can you create engaging and interactive activities when your learners are all over the globe accessing your course at all hours of the day and night?
Odessa College offers an Online Teaching and Learning Certification program to help you answer those questions, by enhancing your skills in online education! This program will help you to
- Develop online courses that make use of programmatic design elements to ensure course quality, including standard structure, appropriateness of content, functionality and accountability standards
- Identify course/program outcomes and demonstrate their relationship to student learning experiences at the course, module and activity levels
- Design activities that promote engagement/interaction between learners and the instructor, learners and the course content, and learners and each other (as appropriate)
The certification series is a year long program, consisting of six (6) courses in Blackboard. The courses are:
- Foundations of Online Teaching & Learning (Spring 1) – This course provides learners with a hands-on experience in designing and teaching their own online course. Historical background, current trends and common terminology will be discussed. Focus will be placed on writing measurable outcomes based upon the needs and goals of a course being developed by the learner. Learners will also gain experience in choosing and managing multimedia that enhances the online experience. How to create and manage learning communities will also be addressed. Developing assessment and evaluation techniques based upon best practices will be emphasized. At the end of the course, the learner will have begun to develop their own quality online course.
- Principles of Instructional Design (Spring 2) – This course will help students to apply principles of instructional design to modify or to develop their own quality online course. Several models of instructional design will be presented with the emphasis on Bloom’s Taxonomy and the ADDIE model. Students will learn the steps of the design process and will produce outputs consistent with good instructional design.
- Assessing & Evaluating Online Teaching and Learning (Summer 1) – This course introduces learners to a variety of online assessment and evaluation strategies, with a focus on continuous assessment and the use of evaluation as a means to improve teaching and learning.
- Developing Online Learning Communities (Summer 2) -Concepts, methods and research for creating and facilitating collaborative online communities of practice. This course focuses on the facilitation of online learning through collaboration, and provides hands-on practice using asynchronous and synchronous communication technologies. The learner will actively facilitate and design online discussion prompts, and discuss conflict resolution, netiquette, and collaborative learning through problem solving scenarios, simulations, and online discussions.The learner will discuss pitfalls to avoid when facilitating online activities and explore various feedback and assessment tools to analyze, assess, and encourage learner participation in online discussions.
- Multimedia & Technology (Fall 1) – This course focuses on the design and evaluation of multimedia learning and teaching environments in higher education settings as well as corporate training contexts. Learners are introduced to principles of multimedia design based on best practices and current trends. Learners will explore the characteristics, possibilities and limits of various multimedia products that are available for use. Learners will always be exposed to various learning management systems.
- Practicum (Fall 2) – Culminating experience for the Online Teaching & Learning Certification Program, during which learners will apply concepts they have learned throughout the program to develop a cohesive online course that meets the rigorous quality standards of the program. Learners will prepare their course for submission and achievement review through the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program.
During this program, you will develop content that you can apply to your current courses, and you’ll have opportunity to work with tools you may not have used before. But more importantly, you’ll have opportunities to interact with your peers and co-workers from disciplines across campus, allowing you to exchange ideas and practices, learn about and from each other, and develop new bonds and friendships with your colleagues!
Here’s what some of our previous participants have said about this program:
An online learning community is students turning to each other instead of me as a first line of help. This happened over the summer with the group activities that I incorporated. I didn’t understand the fruits that were ripening until the end of the course. In their teamwork reflection assignment, students wrote about feeling isolated until they got to know the group. They reported about the difference that the group made in helping them understand information and providing constructive feedback…. The work isn’t over, but it is easier. I never felt a connection with my online students like I did my seated classes. That changed this summer. I think they opened up more because they felt like they belonged.
…what do I wish I knew before I started this course – EVERYTHING. This class, and the ones prior have made such a huge difference in my classes and how I teach my classes – both online and face to face!!!
The best advice I could give to a new instructor would be to attend professional development activities and enroll in this Online Certification Course. The benefits of the this course is collaboration. The input of others is very beneficial.
At this point, I don’t care how hard it gets – this class … just a short 3 weeks in has inspired me to do so much and change so many things. I can’t wait to see what the next lessons make me grown and do!
I am learning new ways through this course of engaging the students and I have put together some new assignments that have not been tried out yet. In our department, we are continually talking with each other and sharing ideas on new things to put in the courses and I definitely have some new things to share.
Who Can Participate?
All faculty are eligible to participate! But be sure to discuss this with your DRI and/or your Dean!
When is it?
The 2019 Cohort will begin in January 2019, about 2 weeks after 19SP term 1 begins.
The program will last through December 2019.
How Much Does it Cost to Participate?
Great news! This program is free for all faculty of Odessa College… including our Part-Time Faculty!
What About Books?
There are a few books that we highly recommend… OC Global has some copies of them available to borrow. But we are moving toward a model of open pedagogy… all of the resources we use are online… free to use!
For More Info…
Want to learn more about this program? We will be offering info sessions during PD week, or you can contact OC Global’s Jennifer (jlee@odessa.edu) or Julie – (jlyon@odessa.edu) or one of our amazing Faculty Facilitators: Almudena (maguirre@odessa.edu), Susie (chaynes@odessa.edu), Jessica (jjordan@odessa.edu), or Shawndee (skennedy@odessa.edu).
References
Schuurman, Krijn. (2010). Op tijd naar bed lukt niet met iPad op de bank. [Digital Photograph, licensed through Creative Commons, CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0) Retrieved from Flickr.com.