2.5 How to facilitate an online course
In this section, we give a brief overview of how to effectively facilitate an online course, drawing on the literature. One of the first theories with respect to distance education was the theory of transactional distance put forward by Moore (1991) which highlighted the importance of the dialogue and interaction to mitigate against the separation of the student and the educator. Promoting interactions between students and educators has positive impact on student outcomes (Walters, Grover, Turner, & Alexander, 2017). Facilitating online courses is mainly concerned with supporting these interactions. Martin et al. (2019) put forward an interpretation of online course facilitation, in which it “.. broadly refers to how, what, when, and why an online faculty member makes decisions and takes actions to help students meet the learning outcomes” (Martin et al., 2019, p. 36). However, the pedagogical approaches to online teaching may differ between online educators as they bring different perspectives, personal beliefs, attitudes and dispositions to online teaching and the use of technology (Borup & Evmenova, 2019; Coker, 2018).
Online course design
Clear, consistent and systematic online course design is a very important for effective teaching online. Student engagement can be supported by a well-designed online course which promotes interaction, presence and creates a clear, purposeful learning journey (Farrell & Brunton, 2020). Organising the course into weekly topics or assignments, chunking content and providing clear signposting are elements of course design that facilitate student learning (Martin et al., 2019; Meyer & McNeal, 2011; Peacock & Cowan, 2019). Consistency in structure from week to week allows students to know where they are within the learning process (Martin et al., 2019; Trammell & LaForge, 2017).
In order to engage students, and “make the materials alive” (Martin et al., 2019, p. 39) in the online environment it is recommended that consideration is given to the type and variety of the learning activities and to include experiential learning, real word or job related experiences, and online scenarios (Gómez-Rey et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2019; Meyer & McNeal, 2011; Shattuck et al., 2011; Trammell & LaForge, 2017). The selection and use of a variety of tools, approaches and media such as providing audio and visual resources or using discussion forums, blogs or wikis for discourse will also influence how effective the learning activities are. Further, integrating online collaborative activities and opportunities for reflection will enhance the student learning experience.
Online course design approaches vary considerably, but most fully online courses use a combination of:
- Asynchronous activities such as quizzes, interactive content, and short videos
- Asynchronous communication channels such as discussion forums and chat groups
- Online collaborative activities like wikis, blogs, glossaries