Start Strong: Build Your Online Course

This guide presents a bird's eye view of teaching for instructors looking for a fast start. Become familiar with the foundations of creating your course and engaging your students.

This online course development guide offers an informal self-paced approach. While there is some sequencing, we encourage you to explore. Set aside six to eight hours to work your way through. We've included videos and readings to broaden your view of teaching & learning and recommendations for best teaching practice. Look for the downloadable worksheets and examples to help you start planning your courses. Some information has been summarized, but we encourage you to visit the sources.

Each section offers resources and recommendations to guide your course development. Follow along!

1. Getting Started - You're here now!
2. Designing Your Course
3. Putting It Together
4. Engaging Your Students
5. Expanding Your Practice

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at instructionaldesign@mcphs.edu

Driving Question: In what ways was your education different from that being described by the professors in this video?

With the shift towards student-centered, or driven, learning, students must rethink and adjust their learning.  Although our responsibilities as educators doesn't change, how we support that learning - or go about teaching - must be reconsidered.

Topics: Student engagement, collaborative learning, sustained motivation, teacher presence, learning community.

*This video focuses on online; however, the fundamental concepts are relevant in all settings. 

Let's start this training off right. Whether you teach online or face-to-face, Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson's Seven Principals for Good Practice, written in 1987, are still relevant. Read Applying the Seven Principals for Good Practice to the Online Classroom and learn how to apply these principles:

1. Encourage contact between students and faculty. 

2. Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students. 

3. Encourage active learning. 

4. Give prompt feedback. 

5. Emphasize time on task. 

6. Communicate high expectations. 

7. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning.