Online Teaching: FAQs
Many trainers find that making the transition from strictly traditional classroom into hybrid or blended courses confusing. The following FAQs are meant to serve as a guide for those instructors who are about to take this plunge.
What are some of the pre-planning strategies I need to consider before converting to hybrid courses?
The trainer certainly needs to assess his/her students’ technological ability to access both the online training modules and the documents stored on a server. While many office employees are familiar with servers, there will still be some minor training involved prior to beginning the courses.
What aspects of his original training program could be enhanced in the distance learning format?
Building asynchronous discussion opportunities into the trainer’s course could certainly improve classroom communication. Shy and reticent students often feel more comfortable sharing with peers in an online setting. By adding more voices to the conversation, the trainer may find the increased dialogue he was originally searching for.
How will my role, as trainer, change in a distance learning environment?
In a distance learning environment the trainer may have to learn how to take a back seat. Some traditional face-to-face instructors build courses that are teacher-centered, where the students are observers and recorders of the teacher’s knowledge. Distance learning, on the other hand, is student-centered. The trainer will act as coach, guide, and counselor but it will be the student that creates (not records) the knowledge.
What steps should I take to encourage my trainees to communicate online?
Online communication can be encouraged through positive reinforcement by bringing the online communication into the classroom discussions. Online communication can also be encouraged by building it into the syllabus and assessing the quality of the contributions, like we do in our Walden courses.
