Basic Elements of On Line Teaching

The greatest strength of instructional design for on-line teaching is leveraging active and collaborative learning. I rank those two elements on the top because they can really improve the quality and quantity of learning.

Other elements like defining the end goal, measurement and assessment of what has been learnt, remediation and enrichment are traditional aspects of instructional design that have existed in the pedagogy. What is new is the virtual class room where everything happens asynchronously and learning happens on the forum and discussion group.

Learners become teachers and teachers become mentors and guide the discussion to reach the end goal. The fear of public speaking, being shy and any kind of handicap is swept aside and unified goal of pursuing or understanding a concept or an idea becomes the object of intense scrutiny and search by the virtual student body.

As a developer of online instruction the basics are still true: Motivate the learner, Explain what is to be learned, Recall and rehash any previous knowledge, Present new concepts to be learned in more than one way, Challenge students for active involvement, Assess the learning, Re-mediate if necessary and Enrich.

In a way everything has changed but feel like nothing has changed