Updated Online Teaching and Learning Guide

When I worked as an Online Learning Specialist at the VCU Center for Teaching Excellence, we typically had four types of clients who wished to transition their courses online.  First, there were faculty interested in moving courses online who took advantage of our year-long course development process, which involved a summer retreat, a mock online course where they were the students, a semester building their course, and a semester teaching the course for the first time with consultant assist.  Second, we had faculty who took advantage of our 12-week online faculty development course.  Third, we had faculty who took advantage of our series of workshops, and finally, we had faculty who were interested but preferred a DIY approach.  To provide some help to this last group, Jeff Nugent, Bud Deihl and I spent several months eleven years ago developing an Online Teaching and Learning Resource Guide (OTLRG), which we housed on the CTE website.

Over the years, a number of faculty both at VCU and at other institutions have commented on how they found this guide useful as they moved courses online..or helped other faculty who were moving online.  Unfortunately, after the CTE transitioned into AltLab in 2014 – and I left for Northeastern University – the OTLRG was taken down, though you can still view it on the Wayback Machine.

In 2017, after retiring at Northeastern, I did some consulting work for the School of Social Work at VCU.  One of the first tasks they requested was that I provide them with a copy of the OTLRG, which I loaded on to their Blackboard organization.  So even though it was dated, some still saw value in it.

When the pandemic hit in March of this year, I saw many great organizations providing quick resources to help K12 and higher education teachers and faculty who suddenly needed to teach online.  I thought to myself that maybe it was time to update the OTLRG, and since I already had a blog, this seemed a good place to house it.

So after 8 weeks of work, the Online Teaching and Learning Guide is available to anyone who wishes to use it.  The drop-down menu works with mouse overs, with the submenu tied to the main menu on the left.

The organization of the Guide is as follows:

This work is licensed under Creative Commons, so feel free to use or share in an alike manner.  If you have suggestions for improvement, please use “comments” to provide feedback.

In some ways, this was a trip down memory lane.  I hope everyone stays safe and figures out what the new normal is.  This Guide might be of some help to that end.

 

3 thoughts on “Updated Online Teaching and Learning Guide

  1. Thank you for sharing these resources with us. The world of education has been caught with their pants down. We are now forced to concede that good teaching practices can and need to translate online. I look forward to using these resources in my practice.

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