Online education: The foundations of online teaching

Welcome to Week 1! This week we will discuss and review the evolution of online course design. Advancements in technology have fundamentally changed the way learners can study. Students and learners can now choose from a range of course model types and most current course models have an online learning component. It is expected that online learning will continue to grow in popularity as more and more students gain access to the internet throughout the world.

Welcome to Week 2! This week you will explore the key concept of transactional distance, a phrase coined by Michael Moore in 1998. Being physically distant from your students presents a number of challenges but building on online presence can reduce some of these issues. We will also explore three key concepts related to Moore’s early work developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000), and built into their Critical Community of Inquiry Model. The concepts are 1) teacher presence, 2) social presence and 3) cognitive presence. These three concepts inform teacher behaviours and learning design characteristics that are crucial to the successful delivery and online learning experience of students.

Welcome to Week 3! This week we will examine the concept of cognitive load. As educators, we need to be mindful that cognitive load pressures can adversely affect our student's ability to learn. So, this week we will explore some practical tips and techniques to prevent cognitive overload. We will also discuss the importance of creating a supportive, inclusive and welcoming online learning environment and will show you some practical tips and techniques to set up your online course where your students can thrive.

Welcome to Week 4! This week we will define the term 'learning community', then learn how to create a learning community using online discussion forums. Research tells us that meaningful, inclusive and supportive learning communities help students feel a sense of belonging. This sense of belonging can support deep learning and as a result improve student performance. As you will learn this week, discussion forums are popular tools that online educators can use to build learning effective learning communities of their very own.