Teaching fully online courses as if on-ground
Hi!
I have created multiple online courses, where I mimicked what I did when I was teaching on-ground.
When teaching on ground I would never use power points, I always would draw and write on the board, giving my students good notes to take home and study from.
I found it effective when I did exactly the same for my online courses: I have recording video lectures, where I wrote and drew on the screen, as if on a whiteboard. Most students really like this format, because they feel that it's almost the same as sitting in a classroom and taking notes from a lecturing professor, with an added benefit of being able to pause, rewind, replay, etc.
We do have mandatory discussions that go with each lecture, and they are based on what was covered in the video lecture, so students have to watch them to answer the posed questions, provide their thoughts, opinions, and/or feelings on the subject. Overall, I say, the engagement with the class is pretty good.
I can see where arriving with previous knowledge of having taught this subject/course on ground would be a huge benefit to transitioning to Online. Was learning the technology for presentation of the class challenging? If so, how did you overcome it? Also, how much lead time do you need to prepare all these learning tools, for this course?
