Online Course Peer Review

Online Course Peer Review workshop participants came up with an impressive list of best practices over and above the list our LSC peer review leaders put together. Here are some of the highlights:

• Use a practice quiz to reinforce key concepts of the course: thegrading policy, plagiarism policy, how often to check into the course, etc.
• Remind students to bookmark the direct web address to the course in case the campus website goes down.
• Under “My Preferences” in D2L, instructors can click on “Appear Offline” (for those occasional times we want to work without students knowing we’re online!).
• Once you get the D2L gradebook set up the way you want it, take screen shots to know which settings to use next time (since the grading systemgoes back to the default settingevery semester).
• Create a student lounge discussion forum where students can talk about things not related to the course (much like the chit-chat that occurs before or after an on campus class).
• Use the D2L checklist feature–it really helps students organize. It can be placed on the navigation bar like the content or quizzes feature.

Any other great tips out there for making online instruction/learning easier?