Facilitating Online Learning

Online discussion groups are essential for successful online courses. As schools and businesses increasingly offer courses on the Internet, they will discover the challenge of fostering such dialogue for learning. Quality courses require skilled discussion facilitation. Facilitating Online Learning by Moving Out of the Middle - a 12-week online course offered in Blackboard 6 - teaches a full repertoire of strategies for online instructors and project leaders.

We have found that online courses are either useless to participants or overwhelming to instructors unless the course leader relies on cooperative knowledge construction by the group they facilitate. Then the learning takes off! But success with collaborative inquiry-based facilitation requires understanding of the patterns of dialogue that appear in course discussions. Facilitators need a new palette of strategies for focusing and deepening online, text-based dialogue toward essential course content.

Facilitating Online Learning by Moving Out of the Middle will expand the effectiveness of course instructors and moderators by providing new ways to think about when and how to intervene in online discussions. Network with other educators and business people online in an environment designed to foster participant awareness of key pedagogical principles when teaching on the 'Net.

Participants learn to:

• Focus netcourse dialogue to target learning objectives
• Optimize learning by deepening the dialogue around key topics
• Foster cohesive online communities
• Utilize a variety of voices, tones, and critical thinking strategies to meet these goals

The quality of learning that takes place online is highly dependent on the skills of the moderator, who must make effective but restrained interventions to optimally steer a group's learning process. At the same time, the moderator can move out of center stage and give learners added responsibility for their own learning.

Read more about expert facilitation in @Concord Newsletter:

• Speaking in Voices
• Why Don't F2F Teaching Strategies Work in the Virtual Classroom?

More Information

View or print out the Syllabus

Take a look at a sample activity

So our participants know what to expect in an online, collaborative learning environment, we ask each to read and agree to a Learner Support Agreement you may want to view.

Postings in the course are evaluated. Here is more information about our rubric for course contributions.

The Specifics

Schedule: The course design offers the flexibility of asynchronous scheduling: get online at your convenience while keeping up with weekly assignments. Participants should expect to spend approximately seven hours per week completing readings and participating in online discussions.

Course materials: The text, Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators (2000, Atwood) is required and must be ordered before class begins.

Public sessions are offered regularly. We welcome participants from around the globe. Groups may arrange for a private session at a mutually convenient time.

Graduate credit available through Fitchburg State College. Mark "yes" on your registration to get a credit application in the mail.

Facilitating Online Learning is presented in Blackboard 6 courseware by Blackboard.com over the World Wide Web. Access to Internet Explorer 4.x or Netscape 4.x is required for participation.

What participants are saying...

"The most valuable part of the course was taking questions to a deeper level."

"MOVING OUT OF THE MIDDLE helped me begin to identify how important moderator training really is. I've learned so many new strategies for fostering learning online."

"I am very impressed with the intellectual quality of the ideas we're dealing with!"

"Now I know how to craft interventions into an online dialogue and do it well."