Question: What is the most effective method for creating better online teachers and courses?

Goal: Create a resource that teachers can use to educate themselves on how to teach online.

Demographics: University faculty

I was responsible for content related to effective learning objectives, giving proper feedback, inclusivity and accessibility, academic integrity, building community, and proactive communication. My colleague was responsible for all the content related to the learning management system (Blackboard Ultra) itself, assignments, assessments, discussions, standards of excellence, and gradebooks and analytics.

We came to this decision after the initial brainstorming of core topics we wanted to cover. We wrote down these topics in a shared Google Doc and chose them based on our personal experiences with faculty and students along with data on important facets of online teaching. We then wrote our names down next to the topic we wanted to cover in the course.

We began working on the course in Blackboard Ultra. We wanted to include various deliveries of the content so we used videos, text, interactive images, etc. I reviewed various research articles and other information sources to synthesize appropriate and effective information for each of my topics. These resources were all referenced in case the learner wanted to gain more knowledge on the topics.

After completing the initial draft, we gave our fellow team members access to the course to gain their feedback. Afterwards, we released the course to a small subset of professors to ensure that the course was meeting the needs of our intended audience. We gave them all a link to an online survey where they could submit their comments and a deadline for submission. We took their comments and used them to make the appropriate edits to the course. Afterwards, we released the course and allowed for those who were interested in the content to gain access.