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Online education has become increasingly popular in higher education, which is a trend that will continue as more universities have begun to heavily invest in online teaching due to student demand. While best practices for implementing online instruction are well documented in previous literature, factors identified in this review of literature serve as reminders that should be considered by higher education faculty to enhance the quality of their online courses. Teaching online requires a faculty member to think differently about teaching and learning, learn a host of new technological skills, and engage in ongoing faculty development for design and development of quality online instruction.
During the past few years, online education has become increasingly popular in higher education (Dunlap, Sobel, & Sands, 2007; Stoltenkamp, Kies, & Njenga, 2007). In 2004, over 54,000 online courses were offered within universities across the United States (Singh & Pan, 2004). Online learning is a trend that will continue as more universities have begun to heavily invest in online teaching (Appana, 2008) due to increased student demand (Gallien & Oomen-Early, 2008). While best practices for implementing online instruction are well documented in previous literature, the following factors serve as reminders that should be considered by higher education faculty to enhance the quality of their online courses.
THINK DIFFERENTL Y
Necessary measures to develop and teach quality online courses are considerably different compared to implementing conventional courses (Dunlap et al., 2007). Effective online course delivery requires more than simply repackaging existing traditional course content (Gallien & Oomen-Early, 2008) by means such as placing presentation slides and lecture notes into course management systems, which is frequently practiced by poorly trained faculty (Dunlap et al.). Faculty must restructure how course content is delivered, which takes type of content, student ability and course sequence within curriculum into consideration (Cornelius & Glasgow, 2007). Online teaching requires faculty to be able to communicate differently and by learning how to enhance relationships with students online (Dykman & Davis, 2008).
Delivering quality online courses is more difficult and time consuming compared to traditional courses (Almala, 2007; Darrington, 2008; Dykman & Davis, 2008; Li & Irby, 2008). Difficulty revolves around faculty having to create quality learning environments through virtual classroom communities (Darrington) in addition to faculty having...