Online Teaching and Learning Programs

The following is a sampling of the online teaching and learning programs offered by the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Check our schedule of upcoming programs and contact us for more information.

Workshop Topics

Description:
The Quality Matters (QM) Rubric identifies the characteristics of high-quality online courses that promote engagement and support student learning, based on an extensive body of research on online learning. In this day-long workshop, you will learn about the QM Rubric and its use in reviewing the design of online and blended courses by discussing the standards and conducting a partial course review. It is intended for a broad audience, including but not limited to faculty, instructors, instructional designers, and administrators who wish to understand more about the QM process and perhaps become QM Peer Reviewers. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
8 hours

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Teaching an online course is not so different from teaching a face-to-face course. You still need to communicate with your students, grade student work, and support their learning. There are some differences, though, and research has shown that following some best practices can increase student success. In this online workshop, find out how to best support your students in the online environment. In this online workshop will discover practical strategies you can implement in your own online courses. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Sometimes a picture says a thousand words. You can enhance your course by adding images, icons, and other media into the online learning environment. Although images are plentiful online you still must consider the copyright of items you choose, even for educational purposes. In this workshop you will learn about helpful repositories that are free for you to use and how to find, evaluate, and incorporate visuals into your online course. Advanced registration required.

Duration:
1 hours

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Online students can feel isolated, but they don't have to be. In this workshop, you will explore how usability and accessibility can set students up for success. You will also learn how to connect students with valuable support services. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
How do you encourage students to be fully engaged in an online course? By designing engaging and active, which foster interaction with you, the other students, and the content. In this workshop, you will be introduced to some strategies to build learning activities which connect to your course objectives, as well as engage students in their own learning. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
Add

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Once you have established objectives and the assessments to measure them, the next step is to create and/or curate course content and instructional materials to support the learning objectives. It is also important to clearly explain the purpose, source, and alignment of instructional materials. In this online workshop, you will learn about creating and curating course content from quality sources as well as communicating them to your students. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
How do you know if your online course is good? More importantly, how do you make it better? In this workshop, you will learn about why quality is important and how to create more student-centered online courses by using the Quality Matters rubric (a nationally-recognized benchmark for online course design based on research-supported best practices). After the workshop, you will be prepared to develop or improve an online course that is designed to promote student learning. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Getting Started... at Last? Now that you have designed a high quality online course based on the other standards, you are ready to introduce it to your students. Set the right tone and support student success by helping them get started with a welcome, a course tour, or a navigation guide. In this workshop you will explore best practices for introducing your course structure to your students and building community. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
In an online course, it is important for students to know the goals of the course and how they will achieve them. Clear learning objectives establish a foundation upon which the rest of the course is built, and assessments evaluate student progress in achieving those objectives. In this online workshop, you will learn to write student-centered module-level learning objectives that align to course-level learning objectives, to design assessments that measure the stated learning objectives, and to establish clear policies and criteria for grading. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
In an online course, technology is necessary for connecting with students, engaging them in learning, and assessing their knowledge. It's important to choose the right tools that support the learning objectives but are also obtainable and suitable for student use. In this online workshop, you will learn how to ensure technology in an online course supports learning and discover some tools you can incorporate into an online course. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Teaching an online course is not so different from teaching a F2F course. You still need to communicate with your students, grade student work, and support their learning. There are some differences, though, and research has shown that following some best practices can increase student success. In this online workshop, find out how to best support your students in the online environment. You will discover practical strategies you can implement in your own online courses. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Students in an online course need feedback early and often, so that they can track their progress and improve their performance. There are many ways you can provide your online students with great feedback. This workshop will introduce you to some strategies to incorporate into your online teaching. You will discover some innovative ideas for faculty, student-to-student, and reflective feedback in this workshop. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
Research suggests that building a strong sense of connectedness in an online course promotes student success, engages students, and retains students. This requires that you establish a strong teaching presence within the course, and that you create structures for students to form a community. In this workshop, you will learn strategies to make your online course more personal and techniques to build faculty and student presence in your online course. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Description:
We often tell students that they need to be organized to manage their workload when they take an online course. But, it is even more important for you to manage your own time when teaching an online course. The lack of pre-defined, scheduled class times, combined with navigating the tools for online grading and communication can make it feel overwhelming. This workshop will introduce you to some strategies for keeping up with the course, techniques that can save you time, and best practices to manage student expectations of you, including some simple suggestions for saving time and increasing your efficiency. Advance registration is required.

Duration:
1 hour

Prerequisites:
None

Contact Us

Center for Innovative
Teaching and Learning

Phone: 815-753-0595
Email: citl@niu.edu

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