Teach Online Step by Step:
Online Course Design

Be sure to check with your campus online learning office and/or online instructional design support services for campus-specific tools, resources, recommendations, policies, and processes.

---

Step 1: Reflect

• Know yourself
  • Interested in Teaching Online? – What do you know or assume about teaching online? – self-paced resource.
  • Online Faculty Readiness – What technical skills will you need? – self-assessment resource.
  • Who are you, and how do you want to represent yourself and your discipline online? – Take a look at some examples of how other faculty have designed their courses.
    • Fully Online Courses for Observation in Various Disciplines | Exemplar Fully Online Courses for Observation – requires SUNY login.
• Know your learners

Step 2: Connect

• Draft a set of Course Information Documents

Step 3: Organize

• Create a Logical Consistent Modular Course Structure

Step 4: Build

• Design Online Learning Activities
  • The Community of Inquiry Framework
  • Effective Practices for Teaching and Learning Well Online
  • Findability, useability, regular and substantive interaction, and diversity, equity and inclusion
  • Accessibility.
• Design Authentic Online Assessments (Cognitive & Teaching Presences)
• Develop Class Community & Interaction (Social & Teaching Presences)
• Asynchronous Interaction & Content Presentation (Teaching & Social Presences)
• Synchronous Interaction

Step 5: Refine

• Review & Get Feedback

The OSCQR Rubric provides a set of 50 standards that you can use as you build, refine, and review the instructional design of your online course to help you inform and improve your online course design with effective online practices.

• • Before you teach your course online, review your course information documents and update them, especially the Course Schedule, Assignments, Grading Scheme, etc. Review your course content and learning activities. Review your plans and instructions for interaction and collaboration. Review your assessments and plans for providing feedback. Don’t forget to spell check.
  • Check with your campus instructional designer for any campus-specific course review processes.

Step 6: Implement

• Teach Your Online Course
• End your Online Course

Step 7: Evolve

• Improve your course design OSCQR Review and Refresh
  • Self-assess with OSCQR (download OLC .pdf)
  • OSCQR

---

Resources

• Online Teaching Handbook: Step-by-Step
• Courses for Observation – BlackBoard examples via federated SUNY authentication.
• Interviews with Online Faculty– podcast.
• Discipline-Specific Resources
• Roadmap for new online instructors– John’s Hopkins
• Essential Resources For Faculty Building (or Improving) Online Courses
• 12 Key Ideas: An Introduction to Teaching Online – Dave Cormier and Ashlyne O’Neil
• Tips and Strategies for Large Online Courses