As a US History instructor, I tend to lean most heavily on summative assessments in my online courses. I use quizzes and exams to assess my students' comprehension and their ability to apply historical learned content to well-crafted written essays. I would also like to employ formative assessments within my courses but believe that might "overload" my students' assessment requirements. Can students handle an array of formative assessments along with summative assessments??

The two sections I found very enlightening were creating "Most Frequently Asked Questions" and "scaffolding" to which I can implement and use in my online history courses. I have attempted to apply general scaffolding within my courses, but have not made it a conscious deliberate effort in course design - now that I see how essential it is to carry out my student learning outcomes I will definitely apply it to my future courses.  

As I have learned through "trial and error" delivering a thoughtful and relevant course module that addresses my students' course learning outcomes is absolutely essential in helping my students learn history in a distance learning venue. The area of authoring a vibrant course module takes time and experience that forces one to constantly "tweak" your course module to fit your pedagogical everchanging priorities of your course and how to best deliver your course to your students.

This section has reminded me that as continue on as an online instructor I need to become familiar with the types of various students learners and adapt my role as their history instructor to meet their respective needs and achieve my learning outcomes as to deliver an effective and engaging online course.

I have found that procrastination is the #1 area that students have struggled with in my online courses - and one way of the ways I have had to mitigate this issue with students is to send out two announcements per week reminding students of upcoming assignments and also personal emails to students who are more falling further behind in the course.  

I completely agree that posting timely and encouraging feedback is paramount in keeping your students level of focus on the course high and on target.

Regarding "projecting your presence," I wholeheartedly agree that establishing a positive healthy relationship from the beginning of the term in distance learning is critical! I send out numerous announcements that contain a short bio of me as well as pertinent fun facts about myself ie Beatles lover and reach out to me students to offer me their favorite bands and historical figures...

Even though I have taught online for three years, I was delighted to revisit important themes such as understanding the CMS in order to best organize my course for effective and efficient delivery while also being engaging in the best interactive process.