Pedagogical Readiness Skills

Online faculty will benefit from many of the same pedagogical skills they used when teaching face-to-face courses in the classroom. If you need help understanding how to apply these teaching principles to your online courses, please contact our CSM Instructional Designers and/or Distance Education Coordinator.

Fundamental Online Teaching Principles

• Use learner-centered pedagogy where concepts of interactivity, instructor-led facilitation, and feedback are core elements.
• Create learning activities that actively engage students and which encourage top-down cognitive processing skills (such as synthesis and problem-solving tasks).
• Accommodate a variety of learning strategies in both content delivery and learning activities, using principles of Universal Design for Learning.
• Develop materials and assessments that require active learning.
• Understand how students use current technologies including social media.

Course Management and Interaction

• Follow guidelines for regular effective interaction with students in both synchronous and asynchronous modalities.
• Communicate and maintain clear learning objectives.
• Cultivate and develop learning communities through group activities.
• Create and maintain a safe and inclusive environment where all voices are represented and valued.
• Clarify participation requirements; facilitate and monitor interaction accordingly.
• Integrate practical tasks into learning activities to illustrate practical real-world content applications.
• Lead discussions rooted in an inquiry that challenge students to question and develop their own conclusions.
• Provide timely personalized feedback and suggestions for improving student performance.

Technology Integration

• Identify the most appropriate technologies for content and learning outcomes.
• Determine the modalities that are best used for course communication, discussion, and assessment.
• Present content that is easily navigable and accessible to all learning styles.
• Integrate multimedia content that meets the learning needs and technology access of all students as well as accessibility requirements.
• Encourage cooperative learning through group activities that utilize current technology.
• Vet third-party tools for accessibility, Section 508 compliance, ease of use and pedagogical appropriateness.

Assessment

• Provide multiple opportunities for ongoing authentic assessment that measure both student understanding of course content and participation.
• Ensure that assessment tools are linked to learning objectives.
• Use grading rubrics to help students know how they will be assessed.
• Use a variety of asynchronous assessment techniques in which students are able to demonstrate higher-order critical thinking skills.
• Employ multiple assessment strategies to maintain active student engagement.
• Make use of data from the assessment tools in Canvas to evaluate the validity and reliability of the various assessment instruments.
• Incorporate surveys to receive regular constructive student feedback and integrate it into the course structure.
• Apply best practices to ensure academic integrity and student authentication in the online environment.

Accessibility

• Create or modify all course content so that it is accessible to students with disabilities.
• Design the course layout so that it is easily navigable and readable and has alternate options for students with special needs.
• Ensure that external tools and content provide students with equal opportunities and access to materials and assessments.

Adapted from the Pasadena City College Distance Education Handbook Links to an external site.