Week 8 Blog: Best Practices Blog

My personal philosophy is somewhat laxed. I believe that a community is what makes a traditional and an online learning environment successful. My Christian spin on my philosophy is to, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6, ESV) 

 When there is a community of dedicated learners, then the instruction or teaching part becomes a breeze and is fun. Merrie Kaas states that she tries to develop creative ways to make a maintain a sense of community online. (Kaas, 2012)

Before you can understand someones philosphy of best practices in distance education, you must first understand the concept behind a best practice and distance education. Best practices in eduation is the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way by which society transmits its accumulated knowledge and skills from one generation to another. (Baghdadi, 2011)) In other words, a teacher or instructor must be able to communicate learning in the best possible way as quickly and seamlessly as possibly in the least amount of time. Distance education is a form of education where the instructor and the students are separated by distance and/or time. (Hutchens & Kaas, 2009) When combining the two, it is my outlook that it is imperative that a teacher who now is considered more of a guide, purpose is to create a condusive environment that is student-centered and capable of developing a course curriculum that will appeal to students by increasing enjoyment and interest in the material. 

Miller and Hutchins findings also showed that instructional technology sginificantly increases student satisfaction. (3) Students reported that they enjoyed the use of online discussions, chats, assignments, simulations, demonstrations, PowerPoints shows, and the ability to check their grades using the course management tools. 

As an instructor, online, a best practice that I agree with is that the instructor must actively participate in all dimensions of the online classroom. (Baghdadi, 2011) A great example of an active instructor would be Dr. Courdoff. She has participated in every aspect of our planning and implementation of our projects for EDUC 633. An online instructor should serve as a guide to cacilitate learning and must do that in a more pronounced way because of the lack of face-to-face interaction. (Baghdadi, 2011) Its a good practice to create and manitain a well developed syllabus addressing proactively  many of the course dynamics and the use of frequently asked questions..." and by having a welll developed syllabus, this would construct a learning environment where the students guidelines and expectations for the course is set. 

These are the some of the best practices that I would use to enhance my online classroom. I have always been one who believed in creating a "fun," yet condusive environment for my students whether it be in the classroom or online. 

References

Baghdadi, Ziad; (2011). Best practices in online education: Online instructors, courses, and administratiors. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education. July 2011. 

Hutchens, Scott; (2009). 21st century teaching technology: Bes practices and effectiveness in teaching psychology.

Kaas, Merrie J.; (2012). Lessons Learned: Providing Access through Distance Education. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses; 4 January 2012.