LESSONS FROM THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM by Rena M. Palloff & Keith Pratt

Author:Rena M. Palloff & Keith Pratt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

TEACHING COURSES DEVELOPED BY OTHERS

Increasingly, online distance learning instructors are being asked to deliver a course they did not develop or design. There are several reasons for this trend, but the main one is that institutions are discovering that creating an effective online course requires more than just transferring classroom materials online. Creating high-quality online courses that promote the achievement of learning outcomes is time-consuming and expensive. In addition, larger institutions find that having courses developed individually each term is not a sustainable model as enrollments increase. Some institutions are offering training and incentives for instructors to develop courses. However, once the course is developed, the instructor who designed it may not be the one to teach it.

Instructors are teaching courses designed by others for a number of reasons:

An instructor may be asked to develop a course for online use and then leave the institution. Another instructor may then be asked to take over the course and teach it as it has been created.

Institutions are hiring instructors as content experts specifically to design—but not deliver—online courses. This may be done to create a uniform look and feel to all courses that the institution delivers or to save money on costly course development time.

Institutions are purchasing or licensing courses from another organization whose business it is to develop courses for online use.

Instructors are opting to use digital textbooks, which provide text material, exercises, quizzes, a grade book, and the ability to hold discussions on a website that belongs to the publisher.

Some institutions are contracting with organizations that specialize in what are termed total solutions: instructors submit material to the company to be converted into an online course. The course is then installed on that company's server, and other instructors from the academic institution can use it as well.

There may be a need to offer multiple sections of the same course. In order to create consistency across courses and work toward the same learning outcomes, the same course design and materials need to be used.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.