Online learning continues to flourish, despite difficult circumstances. There is an unprecedented state of decline in higher education enrollments overall. According to the most recent estimates from National Student Clearinghouse, there was a 1-plus percent decrease in term-to-term enrollments in the spring of 2018. Still, Eduventures forecasts that the online market will increase by 1 percent, reaching 4 million students in 2019 and with pandemic situation in 2020 , we have full 100% students populations online . 

A word about teaching Online Courses

posted Mar 25, 2019, 3:22 PM by Professor Lili Saghafi

 

Online courses are not like face to face courses. They are just different. This has to be understandable for the instructors that are involving in teaching these courses. After a long time spending and having vast experience in developing online programs and courses and of course interacting with faculty to help them using these courses. I noticed that some have a different perspective on these courses. Some may think, online courses are a bunch of material that we drop for the students and they will grade old fashionably by receiving in drop-boxes or emails. They are resisting to have a presence in online engagements like Forums or discussion boards. Good discussion spaces, course blogging platforms, curated materials to accompany each module — all of those take time to build and necessary to online courses.  Also, it is good to be reminded to some that the time commitment doesn’t go away after the course is built for them. Throughout the semester, Instructors have to spend a considerable amount of time creating and then maintaining meaningful engagement with their students in Forum and in their course blogs and hangout sessions. Web presence is perhaps the single most important ingredient in meaningful learning online. In the case of absent any social or cognitive presence for an online course and If that’s all online courses aspire to be, we might as well just have students watch YouTube . I hope there will be a day very soon that our faculty members get used to the interactive content and interactions between instructors and faculty in our online courses . Until then , we have to deal with not so very positive feedbacks of our students . 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/word-teaching-online-courses-professor-lili-saghafi/

 

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Standard Experience

posted Mar 7, 2019, 10:23 AM by Professor Lili Saghafi

 

Online learners need a standard experience. Often, they’re going from one eight-week course to the next throughout their academic program. If students have to adapt to what each instructor thinks an online course should look and feel like, as well as how it will function, the resulting experience can result in unnecessary stress and may undermine the learning experience.

 

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Some Facts

posted Mar 7, 2019, 10:22 AM by Professor Lili Saghafi

 

1. Mandatory or incentivized training for faculty who have not taught online

2. Regular feedback cycle for continuous professional development

3. Regular feedback cycle of instructor evaluation

 

4. Uniform learning experience for standard components of an online course 

 

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Internal training and development

posted Mar 7, 2019, 10:17 AM by Professor Lili Saghafi

 

"Internal training and development of bi-annual workshops, along with a series of less formal training opportunities, can help engage faculty and ensure they are updating their online teaching skill sets."

 

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Support Service

posted Mar 7, 2019, 10:14 AM by Professor Lili Saghafi

 

"Help desks are relatively uncommon support services for online faculty, but they can be helpful, even vital, for instructors new to online education. In this learning format, faculty can have a fear of the unknown, causing them to resist teaching online. Along with various training and professional development opportunities, a robust 24/7 help desk can help assure instructors that the institution is there to support them. Sometimes a 24/7 help desk is not realistic; in that case, providing some off-hours support should be considered."

 

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Feedbacks

posted Mar 7, 2019, 10:12 AM by Professor Lili Saghafi

 

Establishing a feedback cycle can help instructors continually improve and incorporate new techniques into their pedagogy in the online environment. In most cases, feedback is not consistently given and typically from a single source. Having multiple sources of and opportunities for receiving feedback can help drive a process of continual evolution and improvement. Such a process can also ensure stated procedures are being universally applied. 

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