Academic year: 2006–2007

Instructor of record: Dr. Susan Ceppi-Bussman

We will offer this course for NMSU credit. If you are interested in receiving credit, please email Dr. Bussman at suceppib@nmsu.edu.

Overview

You are already an experienced teacher. You've spent time making your F2F classroom a wonderful learning environment and have made numerous instructional design choices including:

  • the information you put on the walls,
  • the extra books you keep on the bookshelves,
  • the way you structure the class day,
  • the way you organize your lessons,
  • the content you choose, and
  • the way you teach that content.

You might not have ever thought of it in that way but, essentially, every choice you make as a teacher is part of your instructional design. However, regardless of the term you've used, you implicitly know that it all matters and it all has an impact on how your students learn. That's true regardless of the environment (online or f2f) in which you find yourself.

In this course, you will learn how to adapt your current knowledge of instructional design for f2f learning to the online environment. Specifically you will consider how to adapt:

  • your teaching style**,
  • your content, and
  • your instruction.

That is not to say that everything will need to be adapted; however, you will learn that while some things translate easily to the online environment, others will not.

** Teaching Style - defined, for the purposes of this course, as the choices you make based on your educational philosophy, values, and personality. There is, of course, overlap, among the three categories of teaching style, content, and instruction. Your style impacts the content you choose and the manner in which you choose to teach it.

Required and Suggested Reading

The following book is required reading for this course:

Moore, G., Winograd, K., & Lange, D. (2001). You can teach online: Building a creative learning environment. Boston: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0072455179

We also suggest that you read or continue reading:

Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential elements: Prepare, design, and teach your online course. Madison, WI: Atwood. ISBN: 1891859404

SREB Standards for Quality Online Teaching

SREB Standards for Quality Online Courses

This course will use WebCT, Centra, the OTLO blog, various Internet resources.

Required course materials or links to materials will be found in WebCT. Other resources and nice to know info will be linked to the OLTO blog. Additionally, in order to provide easy to access, all tech tutorials will be linked to the OTLO blog as well as posted in WebCT.

Standards

All of the OTLO courses are based upon the SREB Standards for Quality Online Teaching. Additionally, this course will introduce the SREB Standards for Quality Online Courses.

See each lesson for the standards and benchmarks being addressed.

Prerequisites

Learning theory and instructional methods

The design of this workshop is based on elements of cognitive constructivist and social constructivist learning theories. Teaching strategies in support of those theories that will be used in this workshop include: providing examples to strengthen conceptual learning, using group work to build community, and maintaining ongoing discussions for knowledge construction.

This course will use WebCT, Centra, the OTLO blog, various Internet resources.

Required course materials or links to materials will be found in WebCT. Other resources and nice to know info will be linked to the OLTO blog. Additionally, in order to provide easy to access, all tech tutorials will be linked to the OTLO blog as well as posted in WebCT.

An atmosphere of collaboration and mutual reciprocity between instructors and participants is the standard.

Netiquette and other Discussion Expectations

This course relies heavily on group discussion of materials to deepen understanding of content. We expect everyone to participate in these discussions and to do so with professionalism and courtesy. This does not mean that we expect everyone to agree. In fact, we expect and encourage some level of controversy as long as each of you is challenging the ideas presented rather than personally attacking someone.

An atmosphere of collaboration and mutual reciprocity is the standard.

Assignments

This course is six weeks long and contains three units. Each unit contains two lessons. Each lesson provides the resources and assignments needed for successful completion of the course. Assignments will include the following:

  1. WebCT Discussions - Asynchronous/Individual
  2. Centra Meetings - Synchronous/Whole Group
  3. Tool tryouts - Asynchronous and Synchronous/Individual and Group
  4. Self-assessment survey - Asynchronous/Individual

Details of assignments will be specified in each leasson.

Additionally, while not a required assignment, we recommend that you reflect on your experiences in this course- what works for you or not and why, what you'd do differently or keep the same and why, etc. - and then either post your reflections to your blog or discuss them with others via the WebCT Discussions tool.

Assessment

Your satisfactory completion of this workshop is based upon the successful completion of all assignments.

Breakdown of points for different assignment types are listed in the following table. Specific grading criteria and points for individual assignments are listed in each lesson.

Assignment Type Points
WebCT Discussions (6 @ 10 pts each) 60
Centra Meetings (3 @ 10pts each) 30
WebCT Presentation (1 @ 50 pts) 50
WebCT Tool Tryouts (3 @ 50pts each) 150
Self-Assessment Surveys (1 @ 50pts) 50
Course Assessment (1 @ 50pts) 50
TOTAL POINTS 400

Please note: The assignment grading scheme is subject to change as we are still in process of creating this course.

You will be able to check your grades whenever you like using the My Grades Tool link in the WebCT course menu.

Late Assignment Policy

We have high expectations of you, including that you meet all assignment deadlines. While late assignments will be accepted, points will automatically be deducted. You will lose 5% for each week that an assignment is turned in late, regardless of the number of days turned in late.

So, for example, if an assignment were due during week 2 of the class and you turned it in any time during week 3, you would lose 5%; if you turned it in late any time during week 4, you would loose 10%; and so on.

Of course, for some circumstances (major illness, death in family, etc.) we will consider not applying the late assignment penalties. HOWEVER, you must communicate with us before an assignment is late (to the extent possible).

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is passing off the ideas or words of someone else without giving them credit. Plagiarism is against university academic policy and will result in an F for the course and possible expulsion from the university. For help with how to avoid plagiarism, talk to your instructors or read the excellent help found at Purdue's OWL.

 

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© 2006 Board of Regents of New Mexico State University

 


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