FLOf 2019 Course Goals

Joerdis Weilandt

Welcome to 

FLOf 2019 Facilitating Learning Online

What is the overall vision for this course?

Given your active participation in the weekly readings, team discussions and individual learning activities, this course will be your opportunity to build or enhance your proficiency in:

  • facilitating engaging online learning courses,
  • integrating adult and online learning theories and principles into effective learning activities,
  • purposefully applying a variety of learning-facilitation techniques and strategies,
  • giving and receiving constructive feedback to enhance the learning experience of your online students,
  • moderating assessments that align with the learning outcomes in your course(s).

The FLOf course is designed for you to build competency in the facilitation of blended and online courses. In this course you can apply online learning theories to the learning activities you are planning, create engaging learning activities that promote critical thinking and collaboration, and experiment with a variety of learning-facilitation strategies. Throughout the course you will also give and receive constructive feedback, work in online teams, and reflect on concepts learned in the course. This course is designed to help you successfully teach your own online modules or courses. Active participation in the modules of this course outlined below will allow you to build/ enhance the following online facilitation skills.

It is important to note that the participation in a facilitated run of FLOf will allow you to experience online learning from the perspective of a student, which might be valuable when wanting to discern barriers or challenges that your own students could be facing in your online teaching environments.

Modules in this Course:

  1. Building Community
  2. Working with the Online Learner
  3. Online Classroom Dynamics
  4. Facilitating Learning and Assessment Activities
  5. Reflective Practice

 

Core FLO Facilitation Skills Description
Building Community
  • Build a safe and supportive learning community.
  • Use strategies to build rapport with learners.
  • Use guidelines for constructive feedback.
  • Model respectful, appreciative dialogue.
  • Encourage learners to identify norms of behaviour.
  • Communicate goals and roles for group- and individual-learning activities.
Working with the Online Learner  

  • Respect and welcome diverse perspectives and experiences.
  • Create collaborative learning opportunities.
  • Engage students by providing choice in topics, assessments, etc.
  • Engage learners by providing choice for how to demonstrate learning.
  • Explore new pedagogical approaches to enrich facilitation practice.
  • Explore open learning resources to engage learners in the activities.
  • Share content in varied ways.
Online Classroom Dynamics  

  • Support learners to develop effective online learning strategies.
  • Encourage participatory, connected learning.
  • Promote reflective practice and critical/creative thinking.
  • Provide timely, formative feedback to individuals and groups.
  • Plan facilitation of online courses in accordance with student numbers.
  • Assist learners to develop positive responses to conflicts.
  • Build strategies to deal with difficult learners in ethical and effective ways.
Facilitating Assessment and Learning Activities
  • Model a positive and professional collaboration throughout the course.
  • Manage time effectively.
  • Maintain a balanced participant presence throughout the course.
  • Engage in and model own reflective practice.
  • Develop technical skills and explore new tools.
Reflective Practice
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of online facilitation of learning to make appropriate modification.
  • Plan your implementation of applicable facilitation strategies to your own teaching practice.

 

You can access the mid-term FLOf 2019 Mid term report here.

Credit Notice:  The name as well as some of the ideas for this online course were derived from the SCoPE courses of the same name available as OER from https://scope.bccampus.ca/course/index.php?categoryid=16

NOTE:

The materials are from a facilitated online faculty development course that was paced by the instructors. You are free to move in between the chapters as you please. Since you are working with this resource in an independent way, you will not need to do any of the assigned activities. You may if you think that elevates your online course planning. You can also reach out to the Teaching Centre for individualized support at any point in time.

 

License

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FLOf - Facilitating Learning Online Copyright © 2019 by Joerdis Weilandt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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