Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Online Teaching Standards
One of the sessions I attended described an approach to ensuring quality of online teaching via checklist. I do not think that this is the total answer (and the presenters agreed that they were not finished with the project), but it is a start.
Essentially, the office of distance learning needs to form a committee to propose standards for online courses. Representatives on the committee should be from instructional design, IT, and academic areas. Once the committee has come up with a checklist, they should use it against existing, effective courses to see what revisions need to take place.
The suggested areas of a course to examine were:
Navigation
Consistency
Accessibility
Syllabus
Content
Activities
Communication
Assessment
Off the top of my head, I would add "Resources" (library, bookstore, technical help, etc.) The purpose of the checklist would be for evaluating a course, but I think it could be useful to teachers as they build new courses.
Quality Matters
Another session dealt with implementing QM in your program. This refers to the course design, not content or means of distribution. An important factor is paying attention to the course from the perspective of the student. What will a student need to know in order to make sense of the course? Also consider that "quality" does not mean "perfection." Part of the process of review of a course will involve recognizing improvements which could be made even though the course meets quality standards.
Something that gets completely overlooked by many teachers is the relationship of the textbook to the learning objectives of the course. Each unit of the course should have objectives which align with the course objectives, NOT to the objectives of "Chapter 3" in the textbook. The learning activities, similarly, must relate to the objectives; they should not be chosen just because your textbook has those activities. Are textbooks chosen because they align with the course objectives? They should be.
Essentially, the office of distance learning needs to form a committee to propose standards for online courses. Representatives on the committee should be from instructional design, IT, and academic areas. Once the committee has come up with a checklist, they should use it against existing, effective courses to see what revisions need to take place.
The suggested areas of a course to examine were:
Off the top of my head, I would add "Resources" (library, bookstore, technical help, etc.) The purpose of the checklist would be for evaluating a course, but I think it could be useful to teachers as they build new courses.
Quality Matters
Another session dealt with implementing QM in your program. This refers to the course design, not content or means of distribution. An important factor is paying attention to the course from the perspective of the student. What will a student need to know in order to make sense of the course? Also consider that "quality" does not mean "perfection." Part of the process of review of a course will involve recognizing improvements which could be made even though the course meets quality standards.
Something that gets completely overlooked by many teachers is the relationship of the textbook to the learning objectives of the course. Each unit of the course should have objectives which align with the course objectives, NOT to the objectives of "Chapter 3" in the textbook. The learning activities, similarly, must relate to the objectives; they should not be chosen just because your textbook has those activities. Are textbooks chosen because they align with the course objectives? They should be.
Labels: distance education, standards, TxDLA
