Especially For UR Faculty
UR faculty interested in improving their online teaching skills can take advantage of these special opportunities:
Interested in hearing what other UR faculty felt about these experiences and how they benefitted from them? A complete video collection of faculty stories shared during the UR Online Learning Symposium is available here.
To access additional valuable information and to learn more about online learning across the University, visit Online Learning at the University of Rochester.
Warner Courses for Online Teaching
The Warner School of Education and Human Development offers courses for Online Teaching. Hundreds of University of Rochester faculty members have taken these for-credit courses since the start of the pandemic. These courses have provided them with the following essential skills and experiences:
- Thoughtful reflection on the affordance and constraints of online learning
- The foundational opportunity to be an online student and thus “experience as learners” the potential gains and challenges of online learning
- Focus on creating a learning community in the course, by paying attention to Student-Instructor, Student-Student and Student-Content interactions
- Become aware of and benefit from research and best practices in online education
- Be guided through a careful instructional design and planning process, which results in using a systematic model for the design and development of their online courses which is completed by the end of the Warner course
Recommended courses for UR faculty:
University of Rochester faculty members can take the following courses tuition-free, thanks to the generous tuition benefits offered by the University of Rochester and an additional scholarship offered by the Warner School.
- EDE486: Design and Development of Online Courses (3 credits)
OR EDE472: UR Faculty Online Course Development (3 credits) - EDF488: Online Teaching Practicum (3 credits)
As described in more detail below, these courses are designed specifically to work with faculty who are actively developing and revising an online course, and most of the “homework” in this program will apply directly to this work.
EDE486: Design and Development of Online Courses (3 credits)
This course will focus on developing the knowledge and skills needed to design, create and teach entire courses online. The course will start by examining the faculty perspective on online learning. The course will review institutional views and motivations for engaging in online education, as well as the programs and support that are necessary to be successful. Students will explore national trends and research on online teaching, building a foundation of evidence for effective online learning. A conceptual framework for online teaching and learning will be developed based on learning theory and different models of instructional design will be considered. Students will have practical experience with instructional resources and Web 2.0 tools and their affordances and constraints in the online learning environment. In addition to working through the opportunities and challenges of creating an entire online course, students will consider effective online teaching strategies to create an engaged, online learning community. Special topics related to online teaching such as intellectual property, copyright, and plagiarism will also be discussed. The course is going to be offered fully online, so students in the course can personally experience this modality as learners.
Learning Objectives: By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Define and explain key concepts in Online Learning
- Summarize and describe current research on online teaching
- Demonstrate and use basic instructional design concepts
- Construct and demonstrate online resources and activities with Web 2.0 tools
- Apply instructional design concepts and create an online course environment
EDE472: UR Faculty Online Course Development (3 credits)
This is a 6 week version of EDE486, offered to groups of UR faculty from the same department or school – contact Eric Fredericksen if interested
EDF488: Practicum in Online Teaching (3 credits) (Pre-requisite: EDE486 OR EDE472; permission of instructor required)
The Practicum in Online Teaching is intended to provide students with a mentored experience where they actually put into practice what they learned about online teaching in previous coursework. More specifically, students engaging in this Practicum will have to be responsible for various aspects of online teaching, in authentic contexts (i.e., real courses/professional development offerings) and with on-going support provided by a mentor. Students will also be required to produce a number of artifacts related to these experiences that will serve as evidence of having achieved proficiency with respect to specific aspects of online teaching.
In this practicum experience, students are expected to demonstrate:
- Awareness of and proficiency in using a rich set of online tools, technologies, resources and best practices for online teaching;
- Proficiency in designing and implementing high-quality online learning experiences and courses;
- Proficiency in the rigorous evaluation of online learning experiences and courses to improve future practice.
University of Rochester faculty members who are interested in obtaining a formal graduate advanced certificate approved by the New York State Department of Education may want to explore the Warner school’s Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching.
Workshops on Online Learning
As a UR faculty member, you have access to a series of informative workshops to learn more about specific aspects of online learning and teaching.
These workshops are offered every semester through Zoom.
A current list and schedule is available here: UR Online Teaching Resources
Online Resources for Online Teaching
If you need “just-in-time” learning to help you put together your first online course or just want a refresher of best practices to refine your online courses, you can access the following online resources prepared by Dr. Eric Fredericksen and Dr. Lisa Brown and publicly available on the University of Rochester website.
- Online Faculty Guide to Online Learning: Sequence of online readings and activities to support the process of putting together an online course
- Teaching During Times of Disruption: Collection of resources, including video tutorials, put together during the COVID-10 pandemic to support emergency remote teaching – but can also be very valuable for any online instructor
- Learning During Times of Disruption: Collection of resources, including video tutorials, put together during the COVID-10 pandemic to support students during emergency remote teaching – but can be a valuable reference for any online student
To access additional valuable information and to learn more about online learning across the University, visit Online Learning at the University of Rochester.