So today we are going to look at chapter 2 in Teaching Online. The chapter title is Scouting the Territory: Exploring Your Institution’s Resources. This chapter is all about the questions you need to ask of your institution in order to arm yourself with the knowledge to move ahead with your plan of teaching online.
Some of the questions included things like:
- Does your institution already provide courses online, either completely or blended
- What courses do they offer online
- Who teaches them
- Who put the courses together
- Is there a policy in place for those who want to teach online?
- Are there requirements for synchronous vs. asynchronous teaching/learning
- Is there an orientation to prepare students for online learning and technical staff to support them
As I read down the list, I can answer most of those questions for GLCC, and I see a few short comings that I think we, as an institution, need to address. We offer classes online, fully and blended. In fact I think right now a majority of our classes have some sort of online component to them. That means many of our professors use Moodle and to my knowledge, they all put their own classes together. I’m not sure , but I don’t think that we have any sort of policy about teaching our online courses or teaching a blended course. I know that we don’t have anything in place right now as far as synchronous vs. asynchronous learning. The final point is where I really think we need to work on. Especially for those classes that are fully online. I feel we need to make it a point to have a good flow of information to our online students, helping them to understand what will be expected of them, as well as what they can expect from the institution and the professor.
The author went on to set three scenarios after you answer these questions. Basically, how ready is your institution. Low Readiness, Mid-Range Readiness, and High Readiness. According to the book, we are currently at High Readiness. And while we have a lot of stuff in place to help with the process, there is still a lot a teacher has to do to be ready to teach online. The next section of the book, is going to take us through planning an online class.
Thank you again for reading, I told you I would keep this one short. Again, any comments you may have, I would love to hear them.
Peace.
