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Best
Practices Checklist
The following
are many, if not most, of the practices that the best online teachers
engage in their online courses. These practices have been garnered
from comments from experienced online teachers, recommendations from
online learning experts, and workshops presented at national conferences
on online learning. Few if any online
courses display all of the following attributes and practices. Not
all may be relevant to the subject matter you are teaching. Instead,
they represent "targets" for online teachers who want to
enhance the quality of their online courses by following the most
commonly used and accepted best practices.
Just for fun,
check those which you currently do to see how advanced your online
course may be. Make a note to yourself with 1-3 other best practices
you feel are as important as the ones listed here.
- Do you have
your class divided into smaller discussion groups?
- Do you provide
additional points for online discussion comments that are responses
and replies to other comments?
- Do you encourage
or mandate that students help each other, answer each other's questions
online, or otherwise assist and engage in sharing in the group?
- Do you do
role plays, online debates, group presentations, or other stimulating
variations for student interaction online?
- Have you turned
some of your quizes into games?
- Do you have
audio lectures online?
- Do you have
synchronized slides with your audio lectures online?
- Do you have
multiple ways of evaluation and grading?
- Do you have
unit self quizes in which the student can gain feedback, but are
not a part of the student's grade?
- Do you have
a separate discussion area for non-course related chat for your
students?
- Do you have
group projects or any collaborative team activities?
- Do you utilize
WebQuests, virtual tours, or other online resource activities?
- Do you utilize
any guest presenters or outside content experts?
- Do you have
any instructional help in facilitating the small discussion groups?
- Do you have
any content in which the student can interact?
- Do you have
any simulations?
- Do you have
any interactive simulations?
- Do you save
student testimonials about your course to share with future students?
- Do you select
1-5 things to improve before your next offering?
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