Syllabus - Teaching in Online and Blended Classrooms

Course developer and facilitator:
Karen Fasimpaur

Preferred contact methods:
email: karen at k12opened dot com
chat or skype by appointment
online office hours - TBA

We will also be having several synchronous web sessions, schedule to be announced.

Webinar #1 - What works and what doesn't?
This webinar will include several online course facilitators and will give participants a chance to ask questions about what works best in online and blended learning.

Webinar #2 - Online learning showcase
This webinar will give participants a chance to show what they're working on and exchange ideas with others.

For each week's goals and tasks, see individual week's content for more detail.

Week 1 (Sept. 26-Oct. 2) - Creating your customized plan for this course

Goals:

• Get to know each other
• Make your own plans for this course, including identifying the online instructional materials you will develop
• Discuss possible team collaborations
• Explore the benefits and challenges of blended and online instruction
   

Tasks/assignments:

• Introduce yourself
• Set your own objectives for participating in this course, including specifying the materials you will develop in this course
• Identify others you might collaborate with

Week 2 (Oct. 3-9) - Thinking about effective instructional design for blended learning

Goals:

• Think about how learning goals, content, activities, instruction, learning, and assessment work together to make an effective instructional design and begin to formulate a design for your own materials
• Identify the learning goals for the instructional materials you will develop in this course
• Begin setting up the course that will house your materials
   

Tasks/assignments:

• Think and write about your target learners and what instructional design elements might best serve them
• Write learning goals for the instructional materials you will develop in this course
• Set up your course in the platform of your choice (if you haven't already)

Week 3-6 (Oct. 10-Nov. 6) - Developing your online instructional materials

Goals:

• Develop your online instructional materials
• Learn more about the following topics and apply them to your materials development
  • Content (especially open-licensed content that you can use in your course)
  • Student engagement, including the use of Web 2.0 tools
  • Student-centered learning and learner independence
  • Differentiation
  • Assessment
  • Other topics of your choice
• Collaborate with others to discuss these topics as they relate to your instructional environments and to evaluate your course materials and iteratively improve them
   

Tasks/assignments:

• Work on your online instructional materials
• Explore one or more of the special topics in this section and apply the information you learn to your own materials
• Participate in collaborative sessions with others in the course to talk about what is working well for you and what is not and critique each others' course materials
• Reflect on what you've learned and developed in their course