N.+Best+practice+for+online+teaching

Designing for Learning- 2006-2011

The follow is a summary of Boettcher's Ten best practices for teaching on line
Best Practice 1: Be Present at the Course Site 2: Create a supportinve on line course community 3: Share clear expectations 4: Use a variety of activities 5: Use combinations of synchronous and asynchronous tasks 6: Obtain feedback on progress early 7: Offer posts that invite discussion 8: Use upto date and computer accassable resources with links 9: Tailor core learning concepts to become personalised experience 10: Plan good closure to activities

Further details an expansion f these point can be easily located at the following URL:

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Things I wish my students knew:
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How to achieve the impossible.
In learning and implementing new technologies I appear to have the knack of crashing my existing moodle system. This is where the benefits of moodle- train come to the fore. I call my moode train site the dogs breakfast site- as this is where I can trial new technologies before exposing my students to them i have used peer reviewers in the form of my colleages who I can enrol as students to test drive the site and resources prior to launch- it like a prototype creation site. An example of this is the web confrence and activity book []

With no moodle experience using online resources are a valuable tool []

And now to Moodle 2.0 []

Ten best strategies for developing online group work
Recently I was involved with a working party to provide enhancement for course development. The working group developed a number of strategies to enhance the effectiveness of group work and I will share their top ten strategies from the initial brainstorming session: Employ self selection of groups where appropriate
 * Communicate to students the benefits of working in groups and provide examples
 * Be clear in respect of want students are expect to achieve when working in groups and its alignment to learning outcomes
 * Employ enhanced technology that permits instantaneous, synchronous communication within the group
 * Challenge stereotypes that define students’ technological literacy on the basis of age
 * Incorporate accountability in group work tasks to encourage students to perform
 * Include contracts as an assessment task that aims to identify the contribution that each student commits to make to the group
 * Include in the course profile rules and expectations for group behaviour; produce guidelines specific to each course that include a series of ‘what ifs’, e.g. What if someone drops outs? What if someone is not contributing?
 * Consider whether learning outcomes can be achieved by the use of group work preceding submission of individual tasks
 * Encourage the development of skills within the course and other courses (e.g. Professional Communication) to ensure students can manage group processes effectively

Further suggested reading:
Biggs, J.B. (2003). //Teaching for quality learning at university: What the student does//, 2nd edn. Suffolk, UK, Open University Press. Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. //AAHE Bulletin//, 40(7), 3-7. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). //Understanding by design//. Alexandria, VA, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.