session introduction

Overview

This course prepares participants to facilitate online courses within their schools, districts, organizations or educational programs. It provides an in-depth exploration of the skills and strategies necessary to create and maintain an effective online learning community, including how to foster substantive online discussions, communicate effectively with online learners, motivate adult learners at a distance, and respond to common facilitation scenarios and challenges. Additionally, participants learn about the benefits of online learning, time management strategies for teaching and learning online, assessment and feedback techniques, and how to use the course management system and address technical difficulties. Finally, participants will select and review the content of the online courses they will facilitate and complete all background preparations necessary to run the courses. Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be eligible to facilitate online courses with ongoing support from ETLO staff and other educators who are facilitating courses within their educational organizations.

Standards

This course addresses the International Council for Online Learning (iNACOL) National Standards of Quality for Online Teaching which is based on the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Standards for Quality Online Teaching and the iNACOL National Standards of Quality for Online Courses which is based on the SREB Standards for Quality Online Courses.

Goals

During this course, participants will learn skills and strategies to:

  1. Understand the qualities and benefits of an effective online learning community.
  2. Foster the development of a learning community in their own online course.
  3. Understand the basic principles, strategies, and techniques of facilitating effective online courses.
  4. Prepare concrete plans for facilitating courses for their schools, districts, or organizations.
  5. Effectively assess and provide feedback to participants in online professional development courses.
  6. Become familiar with the available course-authoring tools and demonstrate proficiency in the use of these tools.
  7. Facilitate meaningful asynchronous discussions that foster critical engagement between participants.
  8. Motivate and meet the needs of adult learners in online courses.
  9. Clearly communicate course expectations, requirements, and information to online participants.
Prerequisites

This is an introductory course for individuals or teams of educators who want to learn how to facilitate and implement effective online professional development courses.

Participants are expected to have regular access to computers and proficiency with email and current Internet browsers.

Course Requirements

In order to successfully complete this course, participants must meet the following requirements:

Discussion Postings

Participants are expected to respond to the online discussion prompt in all six of the course sessions; at least one of the three contributions should be made during the first half of the session. All contributions (individual postings and replies) must meet EdTech Leaders Online Discussion Board Expectations.

Readings and Activities

Participants are expected to complete the required course readings and activities as posted in each of the session assignment pages.

Welcome Message

Participants are expected to complete the Welcome Message Assignment as outlined in Session Three.

Sample Feedback

Participants are expected to review a sample final project, and provide feedback on the sample as they would to one of their future participants as outlined in Session Four.

Experimentation Course

Participants are expected to complete each of the required tasks in the Experimentation Course as outlined in Session Five.

Facilitation Planning Guide

The Facilitation Planning Guide is a tool you will create to organize and consolidate the various tasks, strategies, and ideas you would like to remember when you are facilitating your own online course. Reminders about specific elements to add to your facilitation guide will be provided in each session. Your facilitator will provide you with detailed, narrative feedback on your completed template at the end of the course.

Course Surveys

Participants are expected to complete the Orientation Survey prior to the end of the Orientation session and the Final Survey prior to the end of Session Six.

Course Syllabus

Feedback and Assessment

Participant feedback and assessment are important components of this course. Facilitators will use the Gradebook to document each participant's performance on required assignments. At the conclusion of each session, the facilitator will update the Gradebook noting whether participants met expectations for the weekly discussion forum and any other required assignment(s). The facilitator will also send each participant narrative feedback on the Welcome Message and Facilitation Planning Guide assignments.

If you collaborate with others on any task in the course, make sure to indicate with whom you work. If you build on or borrow pieces of work or ideas that are not your own, be sure to credit the source appropriately including a reference URL if possible.

Upon successful completion of this course, Facilitating and Implementing Online Professional Development, participants will receive a Certificate of Completion which certifies successful completion of the course requirements and awards 48 contact hours.

Certificates are sent to participants via email within 2 - 4 weeks after the course ends.

Technical Requirements
Multiple Browsers

ETLO courses and workshops are designed to work in most modern browsers. Current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome are all recommended and should work for your courses. Please note, however, that the WYSIWYG editor is not presently available in either Safari or Chrome. It is good practice to have at least two browsers on your computer to be able to test that any problems are not due to one particular browser.

PDF icon Adobe Acrobat Reader

PDF is a popular format for distributing documents on the Internet. Several readings in this course are posted as PDFs. To view and print PDF documents, you need Acrobat Reader software, available free from Adobe's website. If you do not yet have Acrobat Reader installed, go to the Adobe site and follow the directions to download and install the software.

Pop-Up Blockers

Pop-Up Blockers are either software programs that you can download or settings in your browser to prevent "pop-up" ads from opening up in your web browser. If your browser is configured to block pop-ups, you will need to add your course’s URL as an exception.

Multimedia Software

Some sites linked to in ETLO courses and workshops incorporate multimedia materials. To be able to experience the sites with the full multimedia effects, you may need one or more of the following free software downloads:

Javascript and Cookies

Your browser must be configured to accept cookies and JavaScript must be enabled.

Viewing Videos with Closed Captions

This course makes use of video tutorials, all of which have both a written transcript in PDF format. Some have the option to play with closed captions. To play a video with closed captions, click on the CC button in the control tray.

About this Course

This course was developed by EdTech Leaders Online (http://edtechleaders.org) at Education Development Center. EdTech Leaders Online provides capacity building training and online courses for school districts, state departments of education, and colleges and universities.

© 2015 Education Development Center, Inc., through its project, EdTech Leaders® Online, http://edtechleaders.org. All rights reserved. This course cannot be copied or modified except by written permission of EDC.