Online Education
Program in teaching and learning online

The goal of this course is to provide participants with the knowledge and skills to effectively facilitate an online course. This course will be piloted in early 2008.

Overall learning objectives

During the course, participants will:

1. Understand the online learning environment of the course
2. Understand the role of the facilitator in online courses
3. Be exposed to different kinds of online facilitation styles
4. Practice facilitating a portion of an online course
5. Become familiar with the discussion-based nature of online courses

Much of the learning will take place through the various discussions between the participants. While resources and content will be provided, the sharing of experiences and feedback between participants are an integral part of the learning process. In addition, during the course, there will be opportunities for participants to have discussions (not as part of the content of the course or the assignments) related to facilitating an online course that they can be a part of.

Participants should expect to spend approximately 4-5 hours a week on this course.

Module descriptions

The course includes 6 modules, each focused on a different aspect of facilitating an online course. The following is a brief description of each module.

Module 1: An introduction to online learning

This module introduces the concept of online learning, briefly discusses its history and growth, and describes some of the demonstrated benefits of online learning, for promoting and reflection and collaboration on a flexible schedule.

Module 2: The roles of online facilitators

This module will begin to explore the roles and functions of online facilitators. The module introduces 'community of learning' model to help think about the necessary components of an effective online educational community: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence.

Module 3: Supporting critical thinking online

This module will consider how online facilitators can support the social and communicating aspects of online learning by examining the notion of 'cognitive presence' and considering ways in which online facilitators can assist learners and promote critical thinking.

Module 4: Cultural issues in online learning

In this module, participants will learn about some of the cultural challenges that learners may experience in virtual learning environments. Participants will consider how their own worldviews may influence the ways in which they assess and respond to different online learners and will have a chance to reflect on how this new learning might influence their future practice as online facilitators.

Module 5: Critical incidents in online teaching and learning

This module uses case studies of 'real' difficult situations in online courses to help participants think about and share strategies for communications 'repair' in online learning environments.

Module 6: Providing feedback

During this module, participants will have opportunity to practice being a facilitator by providing feedback to sample assignments.