“My Online Course is Ready - Now What?”

Link to Presentation Materials

Dr. Carole S. Robinson; Joan Van Duzer
Pasadena City College; Humboldt State University

Brief Description:
After faculty design an online course they often face the challenge of teaching content and managing students from a distance. The Assessing Online Facilitation (AOF) instrument recognizes different roles of an online facilitator, provides a framework addressing these challenges promoting online student success, and supplies a companion document to guide peer reviews of facilitator performance effectiveness.

The AOF is used to objectively evaluate course facilitation for strengths, areas for improvement and guides facilitator peer evaluation of their performance in the online classroom. http://www.humboldt.edu/~aof/

Many criteria influence student satisfaction and learning in any course, including online courses. Recent publications have included criteria specific to online courses. This presentation identifies criteria from many sources and categorizes them in the framework of the four roles of an online facilitator:

• Pedagogical: Guiding student learning with a focus on concepts, principles, and skills.
• Social: Creating a welcoming online community in which learning is promoted.
• Managerial: Handling organizational, procedural, and administrative tasks.
• Technical: Assisting participants to become comfortable with the technologies used to deliver the course.

Facilitation tasks vary throughout the course. Criteria are further divided into semester intervals:

• Before class begins
• During the first week
• Throughout the course
• During the last week

What three specific things will attendees learn from your session?

• Recognize the four different roles of an online facilitator.
• Identify effective online teaching performance indicators.
• How to objectively evaluate course facilitation strengths and areas for improvement.