More Best Practices

(The following text and other useful documents are available in PDF format. Details and links are provided at the bottom of this page.)

To create a positive online teaching and learning environment the instructor needs to carefully plan the course and maintain an online presence.

The online learning environment can present unique challenges such as the feeling of isolation, lack of clarity, impersonal communication, confusion, and exclusion of individual learning needs.

Following these best practices can help you minimize these challenges. For example: an instructor’s regular friendly feedback can minimize the feeling of isolation and create a personal atmosphere.

Communication and Feedback

Be available: Students need the reassurance that there is an actual person facilitating the course. Establish a policy of when and how you will be available to students. If you are going to be unavailable for any reason, let students know and have someone fill in if necessary. For example:

• Include a Questions and Answers category in the discussion forum to address general questions about the course, content, assignments etc.
• Have students send you email through the course management tool (D2L); you can set up this email to forward to another address if you like.
• Check for questions daily or indicate a regular schedule that you will log-in that should be a minimum of three times per week.

Give feedback: Provide ongoing feedback. Respond to questions directed to you promptly. We recommend a 24- to 48-hour turnaround. Students generally expect a response within a couple of days at the most.

Be friendly: Using a conversational tone, telling relevant stories, using appropriate humor, including your picture or a welcome video, including a mini biography, and including a place to make non-course related postings are techniques you can use to create a comfortable and enjoyable learning atmosphere.  

Organize content into sessions that include threaded discussions: Divide your course into a certain number of sessions. Each session is designed to meet certain learning objectives, and each session should contain threaded discussions that support the learning objectives. Use the discussion tool to assign and complete tasks, discuss topics, or respond to questions.

Facilitate discussions: Your role in the threaded discussions should be to motivate, support, and guide students. Allow students to discuss the assigned topics amongst themselves, but interject when necessary to keep students on track, provide clarification, and keep the discussions active. If you notice someone not participating, send a non-threatening private email, indicating you miss their contributions and asking if there is anything wrong.

Establish participation guidelines: If participation is a requirement or part of the student’s grade, indicate your expectations such as how many postings to make per topic (e.g. one original posting and one response to a classmate’s) and of what length and quality. You will want a balance of thoughtful but concise contributions and a balance of engagement but not dominance. You can divide the class into smaller discussion groups in order to avoid excessive reading for participants.

Maintain a polite atmosphere: Practice good netiquette and be mindful of cultural differences, including differences in gender, workplaces, and ethnicities. Words can be interpreted very differently online. Make sure you explain your feelings with cues like, "I feel very strongly about this," or "I'm confused by your answer. Is this what you mean?” Document these policies for the class.

Conclude sessions: At the end of each session, provide your final comments and summary of the topics discussed. Then lock the session. Students will still be able to read all the postings, but not create new posts.

Course Structure and Technology

Consider students’ technology access: Although the technology exists to use elaborate graphics, video, and audio, some students may not have access to high speed Internet.

Use technology appropriately: You want students to spend their time learning the course content, not tinkering with new technology. Include tips and how-to’s for using suggested tools.

Establish a time framework: Design your units within some time framework such as weekly sessions. Students then know what to expect and can get into a weekly routine. For example, allow students to complete required readings on the weekend and participate online from Monday to Friday.

Incorporate student feedback: Encourage student feedback and use this feedback to redesign your course as required.

Preparation

Learn the technology: Well in advance of the course start date, get up to speed with your computer literacy skills and knowledge of the D2L learning management system that UNB uses to deploy its online courses. Although CEL can manage many aspects of the course for you, you need to know the system well enough to teach within it. UNB’s Centre for Enhanced Teaching and Learning regularly provides D2L training sessions as well (visit this page to get more information on the training schedule).

Allow enough time: Plan on taking longer to design the structure of an online course. More time spent in design up front will lessen course "maintenance time." In an online environment, it is best for everything to be planned and scheduled in advance. Once the students have been given access to assignments and schedules, those aspects of the course should not be changed. CEL will help you with the design and will be able to review your course from a student’s perspective to make sure the design and instructions are clear and all components are easy to find.

Check accuracy: Check out all links, dates, etc. before students do. CEL will also check these items, but the instructor is ultimately responsible to make sure the correct readings are listed and linked and so on.

Engagement and Motivation

Tap learners' knowledge: Beginning the course with a brief survey or discussion category that asks students to share information about themselves such as why they are taking the course, what they hope to get from the course, and where they work. This gives the instructor information to customize course materials and assignments relevant to the individual participants.

Empower students: Assigning students responsibilities for certain learning activities such as having students responsible for summarizing the week's discussion, taking the lead of a discussion, or teaching others a concept is an approach that will empower them and save you time. You can also set up peer review parameters in D2L discussions to allow students to provide evaluative feedback.

Use peer-review: Students can assist each other before submitting their work for grading by completing peer reviews or peer reviews could be used as part of a student’s grade. If using peer review, include a feedback survey containing the meaningful points in which to comment on such as clarity of content, most useful element, what improvements could be made, etc. D2L’s discussion tool also includes a peer review component that you can include if are grading discussion participation.

Involve learners: Involve students in their learning, by providing opportunities for self-evaluation, negotiation of learning objectives, assignment choices, etc.

Downloadable Documents (PDF format)

Facilitating Online Courses.pdf
This document is a downloadable version of the text above.

UNB Online Best Practices.pdf
A short, bullet-point document highlighting some useful best practices.

Course Review Worksheet.pdf
An evaluation rubric used to review an online course. Can also be used to figure out important points to keep in mind when developing a course.