The Interdisciplinary programme in Educational Technology at IIT Bombay has created a self-paced course titled "Online Teaching" to explain the intricacies of online teaching. To address the questions of what, why and how of effective online learning, the course highlights on some key principles, concepts, tools and self-check questions to go beyond the mere online delivery of content. Research and practice-based evidence have been recommended for effective teaching and learning in this new medium of education.
The course is structured into multiple modules mapping to the possible actions of an instructor while creating and offering an online course. The course talks about adapting the teaching style of the instructor in the online medium. A comprehensive plan is provided to aid the faculty in making critical decisions on synchronous vs. asynchronous modes, using their own teaching preferences on the online platform.
The course will introduce participants to a learner-centric MOOC (LCM) model, which forms a suitable conceptual basis of online learning. Mapping the components of face-to-face teaching with online instructions, the model comprises four key elements, including learning dialogs (classroom lectures), learning by doing (exercises and practice problems), learning extension trajectories (resources and references) and learner experience interactions (discussions and interactions). These pedagogical elements make the online learning process engaging and interactive for the students who are at the receiving end of this online learning process.
Along with the pedagogical concepts, the course also entails varied technology tools with elaborative guidelines on online content creation, content delivery, interacting with students and assessment strategies. Additionally, the course allows an open discussion platform where faculty can share their queries, thoughts, experiences, resources to brainstorming on ideas, crowdsourcing of resources and learn from each other.
Attempting to assist thousands of faculty members to move to a new online medium in an effective manner is rather a challenging goal. However, the instructors of "Online Teaching" are off to a good start; the course website has had 16K page views (from 5K users) within days of its being announced.
