S This chapter focused on how to organize a successful online course.

. To do so, we must shift our focus not just from classroom teaching principles to online best practices, but also from children learners to adult learners. While any good syllabus must be well defined, it also should be left open ended to allow the course to move in unanticipated directions. (pg. 130) These directions are unique to the online learner. The chapter stressed that course activities arent so much about how much material is taught, but what resources could be explored by the learner to make the material meaningful. It mentioned how online courses are more easily suited for activities that are less factual based, unlike the sciences and mathematics. If the subjects are topic-driven, the course may look different with items such as mini-lectures, and additional supplementary material being given. Objectives and expectations should be clearly defined with a distinct goal at the end of the course to be the aim. The chapter also outlined the basic setup for an online course such as the professional guidelines, and pointers for creating a successful discussion board. A I can see this chapter being immensely helpful towards the creation of an online course. While its widely known that in teaching you need a clear objective or goal, the common question I had previous to this chapter was How do you accomplish this goal while leaving room for organic growth. The discussion board example and guidelines help embed how to include the human element into your course. The syllabuss role in an effective online course is to give the student a sense of structure within the course. The student should have no question what is expected of them, what is expected from their instructor, how to be involved in the course, or how they will be evaluated.

O I feel that this chapter sets up a sound groundwork towards the creation of an online course. I believe that the more ways you can differentiate how to meet with your students online (video conferences, skype, online chat sessions, message boards, ect.) the more likely the students will buy in towards the class. I also liked the clear examples of what the best practices of each part of the online course will look like. Sample instructor expectations and other similar examples I found very valuable because they showed concrete instances of how components of your online course could look like. Q In terms of a student workload, do more subjects lend themselves to requiring more time per week online than they would in a traditional classroom situation? Do some courses need more exploration time because they are done entirely online? When developing my own course this chapter will be a great asset to because of the guidelines and examples it provides. I will use to student and instructor expectations examples as guidelines when I develop my own. I also enjoyed the section with examples on how to implement choice within your online course. This is extremely important because the individual nature of online learning is in many ways, what makes online learning so unique. The chapter later brings up the interesting thought of how to incorporate ease of access to students while also trying to reach them in multiple ways.