Section outline

  • Collapse Expand

    Welcome and Start Here

    Collapse all Expand all

    Online Teaching Institute 2025

    Whether you are designing new online course components or updating existing ones, the Online Teaching Institute provides an introduction to the pedagogy and practical aspects of designing and facilitating effective online learning experiences. 

    This iteration of the institute combines self-paced learning modules with scheduled webinars and synchronous and asynchronous discussion opportunities scheduled for the week of August 11. 

    Institute Learning Outcomes 

    By the end of this course, you will be able to:  

    • Build and support a community of inquiry in an online course
    • Articulate learner-centered outcomes and objectives for an online course
    • Design effective online assessments aligned with course objectives
    • Develop synchronous and asynchonous assignments that promote active online learning 
    • Plan, organize, and create at least one online lesson plan on Moodle
  • Collapse Expand

    Pre-Workshop: Create a Community of Inquiry

    The Community of Inquiry framework provides a context for the components of teaching and learning in an online environment. The watch, read, and explore parts of this module explain the characteristics of a community of inquiry, why it is important, and how to foster it. The try part invites you to plan how you will foster a community of inquiry in your online course.   

    You no doubt participate in online communities of inquiry or practice within your own academic discipline. We encourage you to look to these discipline-specific communities both as resources for learning about online teaching practices in your discipline and as potential models for how (and how not) to design and foster an online community of inquiry.

    Outcomes

    By the end of this module, you will be able to:

    • Explain what a community of inquiry is and how it impacts online learning
    • Generate at least 2-3 ideas for create teaching, cognitive and social presence in your course
    • Devise an initial plan for building a community of inquiry in your course.
    • WATCH: Community of Inquiry URL

      Source: YouTube
      (Watch time: 4 min, 19 sec)

      Description: Garrison, Anderson, and Archer proposed a model for Community of Inquiry in their 2000 paper Critical Inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education. Here Owen Guthrie discusses a couple of important aspects of their model.

    • READ: "The Importance of Building a Community of Inquiry in Your Online Course" URL
      Students must
      Mark as done

      A more recent exploration of how these concepts might be applied to online course design. 

      Source: Mia Lamm, Johns Hopkins University 
      (Estimated reading time: 5 min; 1000 words)

    • TRY: Plan your community of inquiry approach File

      Using the table in this worksheet, choose the ways in which you plan to create a community of inquiry in your class. Make sure to have at least one option for each type of presence (teaching, cognitive, social).  A list of possible activities for each presence is beneath the table, along with a diagram of the cognitive process and tables of categories and indicators for each presence.

    • TRY: Introduce yourself to students via a 1-minute video Page
  • Collapse Expand

    Day 1: Create a Game Plan

    This module introduces the "backwards design" approach to course design, which takes your course learning outcomes as a starting point. Backwards design promotes student-centered learning by helping you communicate to students what they need to learn, design learning experiences focused on helping them learning these things, and ensuring your assessments of their work are aligned with those course objectives.

    Learning Outcomes

    By the end of this module, you will be able to develop a course framework that outlines your key learning objectives and how you will assess students mastery of them.

    • READ: "Backward Design" File
      Students must
      Mark as done

      Source: Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). "Backward Design." In Understanding by design. Retrieved from Bryn Mawr College, Tripod on 05/07/2020

    • WATCH: "Backward Design" URL
      Students must
      Mark as done

      (Watch time: 1 min, 4 sec)

      In this video, Oliver Schinkten explores how to develop a curriculum that not only identifies learning objectives for individual lessons, but also informs pedagogy and assessment strategies. It is part of a LinkedIn Learning course called "Teaching Techniques: Developing Curriculum."

      All Bryn Mawr students, faculty and staff have access to the full LinkedIn Learning through Bryn Mawr's institutional license. See our LinkedIn Learning: Overview for more information and instructions. 

    • WATCH: Bloom's Digital Taxonomy URL
      Students must
      Mark as done

      (Watch time: 4 min, 50 sec)
      Source: Common Sense Education (2016)