Unit 4 Notes: Looking Back, Looking Forward....

Online Management Strategies

For the new online facilitator, reading and responding to postings, providing high-quality feedback, and answering student questions responsively can often be overwhelming.

Highly-effective, experienced instructors have developed strategies for managing time and expectations in online courses. It’s a good idea to review your course before you begin teaching to help determine what strategies you’ll employ to manage it effectively. Will you have virtual office hours? Will you have regular and/or consistent times that you’ll be online? Are participants aware of your specific facilitation style?

Wherever possible, these strategies should be transparent to your participants, so they clearly understand your expectations and boundaries.

Please read the required readings for this unit, listed here. You will read that one of the best ways that faculty members can effectively manage their online course environments is to ask questions of themselves that help to clarify how they should be designing, facilitating, and analyzing learning activities that promote effective student-student interactions. By seeking answers to these questions faculty members stay focused on what’s essential in maintaining and managing an effective learning environment.

Alicia Wilkes (1:19)

Jen Walinga (1:07)

Mike Thompson (:38)