LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Developing Your Online Course: Online course syllabus

Syllabus for the course Developing Your Online Course designed to help teachers develop strategies for building online courses.

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Welcome to Developing Your Online Course. We will be together online, learning and growing during this six-module course. My goal is to facilitate your learning and to help you succeed in reaching your goals. I look forward to working with you as you develop your own online course.

Any new class brings with it a certain degree of uncertainty and doubt, and it is important to remember that everyone begins this course with different skills and experience, needs, learners to consider, and personalities. The focus in this course should be on your own personal growth. The goal is to develop a general outline of your entire course and the equivalent of one week of your online course. We need to keep in mind that some will be revising an already existing course, retrofitting a face-to-face for online, or starting from the beginning in creating a course. Because of this, we want to learn from one another but be careful how we compare ourselves to others.

Prerequisites

You must successfully complete the following courses before enrolling in this course:

Resources

All course materials are provided. The readings for each module can be found at the end of each module.

Technical requirements

  • Internet access (broadband is recommended)
  • Microsoft Word
  • Basic computer skills

Contact information

  • Facilitator:
  • Home Office Number:
  • Cell (Emergencies only):
  • AOL IM:

Preferred methods of contact: IM and Moodle Email.

General course description

Development of an entire online course takes a long time, usually three months to a year. This course will help you complete an outline of your course, provide you with a framework to complete your course, and introduce tools to enhance your course. During this course, you will plan your course layout, create some of your course information documents, and complete one week or module of your intended course.

We will explore and discuss issues relating to course development. You will engage a variety of activities and assignments including readings, discussions, worksheets, and one peer review to help you develop effective online materials. Everything you do in this course will relate to developing your course. Successful completion of the course will be based on full participation and completion of activities. You will receive participation feedback from me following each module.

Overarching course goal

The overall goal of this course is to provide a collaborative environment where a variety of activities and assignments will help you learn the specifics of successful online course pedagogy and apply them to the development of an online course.

Learning outcomes

  • Apply the pedagogy of online courses in course development.
  • Apply techniques for successfully building a learning community in an online course.
  • Apply theories of online discussion techniques to an online course.
  • Experience providing and receiving peer feedback on a developing online course.
  • Develop the general content for an online course.
  • Fully develop the materials, content, and layout that make up an entire week or unit of your future course.
  • Apply basic alternate methods of assessing students.
  • Conduct a formative evaluation with intended learners

Lessons and assignments

Lessons and assignments are located in each individual module. An overview of the lessons and assignments can be found in the module overviews. Most of your assignments will involve the development of your online course and will result in your final course development project. You will use a course guide to help you. Take a few moments to become familiar with this guide.

Final course development project

Development of your online course will take place gradually over the course. By the end of module four you should have a general course outline, detailed outline of the first week/module/unit of your course, an overview document for the the first week/module/unit of your course, and the assignments. By the middle of module five, you should have completed all the assessments. You will participate in peer review and conduct a formative learner evaluation. In module six, you should revise your work and post your final course development project.

Alternative access to materials

At times, participants have had difficulty accessing the course materials through links in the assignment pages. As a backup, course development templates, worksheets, the course guide, and peer review form will be provided in a separate Course Materials folder located at the end of the course modules.

Class procedures and policies

Attendance and participation requirements

Don’t allow yourself to get behind! With each new module, a new set of tasks is assigned, each building on readings and assignments from the previous week. To be considered in attendance and full participation during an online week, you must complete the assignments. You must be in attendance for all five modules, meet the required postings each module, and complete your course development project. Feedback will not be provided on work posted late.

Quantity and quality are both important considerations when it comes to participation. Quantity is discussed above. Quality means adding something of substance to the discussion - your perspectives and ideas, examples from your work or life experience, questions, etc. A message that says simply, “I agree,” for example, would not constitute participation since it does not add anything of substance to the discussion. You will find it much easier to keep up with an online class and of greater value to you, if you are logging in often.

Late assignments

  • All discussion postings must be made on time
  • All peer review and feedback must be posted on time
  • Late assignment postings may be excused if they do not impact others in the class and you notify me that you will are having difficulty completing them on time.

Academic honesty

Academic honesty is highly valued at LEARN NC. If any words or ideas are used that do not represent the student’s original words or ideas, please indicate the relevant source.
Confidentiality and Proprietary Information

You are encouraged to share your personal and professional experiences as a means to integrate the knowledge through reflecting on its application. However, it is important to note that we all are bound by confidentiality in this class. In order to assure that we can have a free and open discussion in which you may elect to discuss your work and personal experiences as they apply to the course material, I expect each person to respect the confidentiality of what your classmates are willing to share.

Grading

Feedback

At the end of each module, I will provide feedback on participation and assignments within three to five days of the end of the module via Moodle email. Notification of feedback will appear as an announcement in the Announcement section. If you do not receive your feedback, please contact me right away.

Methods for feedback

  • All assignments will be graded incomplete/complete. To help us both keep track.
  • I will either use “My grades” or use an assignment spreadsheet to communicate what assignments you have or have not completed.
  • Rubrics are located at the end of each module.

Requirements for earning four CEU’s

  • Attendance throughout the course
  • Completion of all assignments
  • Completion of the peer review
  • Submission of a final project

Note: Exceptions may be made in emergency cases if notification is given. Partial credit may be given.

Time commitment

You will most likely need five to ten hours per week to work on class assignments. This will depend a great deal on you and how much time you need to prepare documents for the course you will be developing. By showing up regularly each week and keeping up on the project assignments and other assignments will help you to feel more engaged and more organized.