As a teacher, you are one of the front line who works daily with the course design and materials and reads the problems and complaints from students having problems with course content or the technology. By keeping up to date with what is going on in other institutions and with online education in general, you are more likely to keep your teaching skills updated and to offer valuable guidance when a course is modified. Courses are generally evaluated and modified at least once a year, more often if technical changes need to be made. Throughout the year, then, you can analyze what is working well and what can be improved.

Learning from Others’ Sites

Collaborating with colleagues is an important part of your job. You may not see them in person if you are working off site, especially far away from the physical institution, but you can keep up with what is going on in other classes. You should participate in the bulletin board postings and chat sessions held for online teachers. Share your ideas, and try what others are doing differently in their classes. Find out if you can visit another teacher’s course site, to view the types of feedback from students and the amount and types of communication between teacher and students.

Of course, that means that you should be open to having other teachers or administrators look at your online work, too. Being part of an active learning community of teachers working within the same institution is important to trying out new ideas and assignments and solving problems. Broadening your perspective about what is useful and what designs are best means that you also should visit sites hosted by others outside your institution. For example, teachers you meet at a conference may be able to share the URLs/URIs and passwords for demonstration sites. The demonstrations may have been created with different courseware, and you may prefer one to another. You may learn how other systems deal with downloadable text or graphics files, links to internal and external Web sites, e-mail to individuals and groups, chat rooms, whiteboards, calendars, gradebooks, and so on.

What should you look for when you visit another site or work with a demonstration of courseware? As much as you can ascertain, either from the site itself or the teacher, look at these elements. You might create a similar notesheet to evaluate other sites you visit.

For example, by reading the assignment descriptions, you know if the assignments are designed for an individual or a group, if they are to be completed in real time or at the learner’s leisure, and what type of interaction with the material or others is required. Looking at a course syllabus or assignment due date list gives you information about the number of assignments and the breakdown of assignments per learning segment.

When you look at another educator’s class site as a model, you probably have to ask the teacher for some information. For example, you should not be able to see the online gradebook that tells you how many students are completing the course. If you can, you want to get the teacher’s impressions of the course and students, and the strengths and weaknesses of the technology and the course design.

Documenting what you have learned is useful not only for your own teaching, but for administrators, who need to justify changes in course design or teaching methods. It may also be useful during accreditation processes.

Documentation also helps you more easily compare your course with others. This or a similar checklist helps you look at your course site more objectively. You can also track changes to the course by keeping print records of your evaluations. Using this type of checklist each time you teach a course is a good way to remind yourself (and others) of what is good about the course and what still could be improved. It provides documentation that you can use when your work is evaluated, too.

Submitting Your Ideas and Documentation

As you develop and teach online courses, you should be browsing the Web to find new materials, using your networks and contacts to find new information or bring new resources to learners, and testing new technology to see what might improve your course site. As well, through course evaluations and your interactions with learners, you have a good idea about what works well and what needs to be updated in each course.

At the end of a course or a natural time break, such as the end of a term or a fiscal year, submit a list of your suggestions and ideas for improving the course or curriculum to your supervisor. Any documentation that supports your suggestions should be included. It is part of your teaching responsibility to work with administrators and technical specialists to keep improving courses and to modify the curriculum as necessary. Get in the habit of submitting your ideas to administrators, beginning with your immediate supervisor or program coordinator, so that you can be more actively involved in the evaluation and curriculum-enhancement process.