In the spring of 1999, I designed and taught English Composition 1 (Internet). This was IVCC's first course delivered in a completely online format, and one of the objectives of the course was for me to learn what teaching online is all about. Another objective was for me to share what I learned with other faculty members. This page summarizes some of the things I have learned about teaching online and presents suggestions for a successful online teaching experience.

1. Encourage or Require Students to Interact Regularly
Most of the interaction in English Composition 1 (Internet) occurred through WebBoard, and the students and I wrote a total of nearly 950 comments by the end of the semester. One student in the course commented that the other students were what really made the class special, and I replied that agree completely. About 250 of the comments were my own, but 700 or so comments from only 11 students is not bad! Some students entered the class WebBoard over 300 times in 16 weeks. That's over 18 times a week. I required students to do the WebBoard assignments, usually requiring a minimum of four of five comments from each students for each assignment. I also asked that some of the comments be responses to ideas from other class members. Intense student interaction helps establish a strong sense of community in an online course and helps make the experience more meaningful for students.

2. Be Very Specific with Instructions
Maybe this is obvious, but the instructions for assignments need to be explicit and detailed, including the instructions for any collaborative or discussion assignments. It's much better to go into depth and detail with your instructions than to face a barrage of questions about the assignment. In the classroom, it's easy to get immediate feedback from students to help you clarify an assignment, and it's easy to explain the assignment in more depth for the entire class. This may not be the case in an online course.

3. Communicate Effectively
E-mail messages are probably the least effective way that you can communicate with students in an online course, especially if you send e-mail messages to individual students. In English Composition 1 (Internet), I encouraged students to ask questions in WebBoard, allowing all students easy access to both the questions and the answers. Such communication seems to mimic well the environment of the traditional classroom, with each student able to benefit from the questions and answers that arise in the classroom. I tried to reserve e-mail messages to and from individual students for private matters, although I set up my e-mail service to allow me to send messages to the entire class, and such messages can be a good way to alert students to something of special importance.

4. Emphasize the Importance of Self-Discipline
Students must be highly self-disciplined and self-motivated to succeed in an online course. In the first few weeks of English Composition 1 (Internet), I send to students e-mail reminders of due dates for assignments. I soon quit sending the reminders, though, and left it up to students to get the work done by the due dates. Most did, but some did not. At the end of the semester, one student said that he learned something about himself--that he needs to be more responsible. I do not think instructors should have to remind online students about the due dates for all assignments, but I also think that instructors need to emphasize that students have to be responsible for getting the work done.

5. Encourage Students to See You "In Person"
While meaningful and intense interaction can be one strength of an online course, it is perhaps inevitable that some students will start to feel uncomfortable because of the lack of "real" contact with the instructor and other class members. One student in English Composition 1 (Internet) even suggested, at the end of the course, that there should have been required student-instructor conferences on campus. There was a required orientation on campus for all students at the beginning of the course, but I also began to feel the distance that is perhaps inherent with this delivery method. While not requiring face-to-face meetings makes an online course very convenient for students, the lack of such contact can make students and the instructor feel uncomfortable. In the future, I plan to spend more time encouraging students to call me or to come by my office to talk about the assignments and their work in the course.

6. Add a Personal Touch to Your Web Presence
In her evaluation of English Composition 1 (Internet), one student commented that she enjoyed the class even though there was no "physical teacher." In online courses, I think it's especially important that students regard their instructors as people, and not simply as graders out in cyberspace. Revealing a little personal information about himself or herself is one way for an instructor to do this, and a nice picture also helps.

7. Be Prepared to Deal with the Technology
Much to my surprise, students and I had relatively few problems with the technology used in English Composition 1 (Internet). Still, with only 11 students, I received an average of two or three questions a week about the technology, and, of course, students will turn to the instructor if anything goes wrong. The big problems--a cantankerous server, for example--are often beyond the control of the instructor, so close interaction between the instructor and Computer Services staff is important. Sometimes, all the instructor can do is wait (and tell students that all they can do it wait). Communication with students is especially important during times when the technology is not cooperating, so instructors should have different means of communicating with students. In English Composition 1 (Internet), students and I had at least three different means of communicating electronically: through Norton Connect.Net, through WebBoard, and through e-mail. Even human error could not bring down all of these systems at the same time!    

8. Expect to Devote Much Time to an Online Course
I have never heard any instructor talk about how much time he or she saved by teaching a class online instead of on campus. In fact, the consensus right now seems to be that an online class requires close to twice the amount of instructor time that an on-campus class requires. That should give us all something to think about. I hope that some of the heavy time requirement is because of the newness of this delivery method and that the time requirement will become more reasonable as we become more familiar with and adept at online teaching. I have just one bit of advice that might help you reduce the amount of time you have to devote to teaching an online course--see below!

9. Avoid the "Shoveling" of Course Material onto the Web
This is not my own idea, and I wish I could remember the name of the online instructor who emphasizes this important concept. I could probably best illustrate this idea with a specific example, unfortunately an example from my own course. Take a moment to look through some of the Class Notes I prepared for English Composition 1 (Internet). Preparing these notes took more time that I would like to admit. I especially would not like to admit the time it took when I consider in retrospect that I probably did not need to write such extensive notes for the class. Using a textbook that more effectively conveyed my beliefs about writing would have helped eliminate the need for such extensive notes. In addition, probably everything I say in those notes could be found somewhere else on the Web. At the time, I felt the need to convey my own ideas about good writing to students, but my ideas about good writing are by no means unique. Instead of "shoveling" all of this material onto the Web, I should have found more efficient and maybe even more effective ways to deliver this material to students. Students really seemed to appreciate the Class Notes, with some students even printing every page and keeping the pages in a notebook. Still, all of this "shoveling" of course material can be incredibly time consuming, and it might not be necessary. Usually, the material is already available somewhere, either in a good textbook and/or on the Web.

Every instructor has his or her own approach to teaching, but I hope the suggestions above will help others have a rewarding and successful experience teaching online.