Online Teaching: Pedagogy

New CET Resources

Sign up here for the CET Accelerated Online Teaching Intensive for USC faculty

Attend a live training event or review recordings of previous events.

Independent Review Resources for Online Teaching is a self-paced version of the CET Accelerated Online Teaching Intensive (above), and is available to USC faculty, staff, and students.

Blackboard course templates to give instructors a head start on preparing their online or unground course

Course Models for Fall Instruction

Flipped Course Model is important to developing effective online courses that have both synchronous and asynchronous components. The flipped course model can also assist planning for hybrid online/onground courses in the fall 2020 semester.

Hybrid Streaming Model provides a hybrid format for face-to-face and online students. Students may attend face-to-face synchronous class sessions on ground, or participate online, either synchronously (streaming) or asynchronously (Blackboard). The instructor provides simultaneous instruction for students participating both in class and online.

Residential Model  provides examples for how residential experiences may be planned, and a list of considerations for instructors who will be teaching residential experiences–meaning they will teach students in person in a physical classroom at least part of the time during the semester and follow university and departmental guidelines for physical distancing.

Table of Contents

Click on a hyperlink to go directly to a section on this page.

• General considerations
• Plan your online course
• Prepare your Blackboard course site
• Create assignments and tests
• Provide course content to your students via Blackboard and Zoom
• Plan discussions in Bb Discussion forums or live Zoom sessions
• Plan Zoom sessions
• Manage student accommodations
• Conduct live Zoom sessions
• Share Zoom recordings
• Administer exams
• Provide feedback to students on graded work

General considerations

• Fostering student success in online courses Basic tips on switching to the online modality
• What online students want
• Minimize cheating through course design
• The faculty decision chart assists faculty with supporting students in common situations.  For each situation, required or recommended actions are specified.  Where indicated, some reporting is mandatory for faculty as responsible employees.
• Educational Terminology is a glossary that explains common educational terms, particularly used in online teaching, you will likely encounter used in CET resources and institutes.

Course workload

• Contact hours and course credit provides UCOC guidelines on satisfying contact hours requirements in online courses.
• UCOC standard contact hours reference chart
• Course workload estimator (from Rice University)

Plan your online course

General course structure

• CET syllabus template can be used as a starting point for a new or revised syllabus.
• Flipped Course Design is important to developing effective online courses that have both synchronous and asynchronous components.
• Research into the efficacy of flipped courses has been summarized by the USC Marshall School of Business.
• Pedagogical Planning for Residential Programs offers examples and considerations for rotating students through on-campus classes.

Develop course learning objectives

• Writing learning objectives reviews important factors in developing effective learning objectives.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy is a model for examining student learning goals that many faculty find useful in developing their courses
• The learning objectives FAQ answers common questions faculty have about the development and uses of learning objectives

Plan assessments aligned with the course learning objectives

• The course alignment grid is a practical method for ensuring that your course is coherent and achieves your learning objectives
• Planning online assessment reviews principles of developing and conducting online assessments
• Selecting online assessments provides an overview of types of assessments used in online courses and their typical applications
• Assessing fieldwork & practicums online including applied clinical skills
• Assessing handwritten student work which is common in STEM fields (structures, equations) and the arts (drawings)
• Conducting online qualifying exams

Plan synchronous and asynchronous course components

• Deciding between synchronous & asynchronous modes of teaching informs your decision on when, why, and how course materials and activities should be accomplished asynchronously or synchronously
• Engaging students with instructors, peers, and content

Create course policies consistent with online teaching

• Writing course-specific policies introduces general guidelines for composing policies and includes examples of communication, participation (in-class work), and technology policies
• Netiquette policies inform students of the expected behavior in online settings
• Menu of discussion norms lists diverse behavioral norms
• In-class work as participation details process for holding students accountable for in-class participation

Review syllabus

• The CET syllabus evaluation tools help faculty identify areas for improvement in their own syllabi. Checklists are available for a variety of course types: online and unground, synchronous and asynchronous
• The diversity & inclusion syllabus checklist can aid in ensuring that syllabi are consistent with diversity, inclusion, and equity goals.

Prepare your Blackboard course site

• Preparing for online teaching: Set up Blackboard and Zoom (video)
• Blackboard course template to give instructors a head start on preparing their online or unground course
• Upload the syllabus to Blackboard
• Make the Blackboard course available to students
• Communicate with your students through Blackboard

Create assignments and tests

Develop aligned assessments

• The course alignment grid is a practical method for ensuring that your course is coherent and achieves your learning objectives
• Planning online assessment reviews principles of developing and conducting online assessments
• Selecting online assessments provides an overview of types of assessments used in online courses and their typical applications
• Open-book exams reviews the design of exams that allow students to access resources such as textbooks and the Internet
• Test question design reviews types of questions common in online tests and tips on their use.
• Handwritten student work provides procedures for having remote students submit work that is typically not digital in nature, such as handwritten equations and drawings

Compose assignment descriptions

• The CET assignment description template is a guide for developing informative assignment descriptions for online courses. Sample assignment descriptions
• Design academic reflection assignments
• Teaching and grading creativity
• Use of social media contains considerations and suggestions for the use of social media in assignments
• Make Blackboard assignments

Prepare online assessments and exams

• Planning online assessment reviews principles of developing and conducting online assessments
• Selecting online assessments provides an overview of types of assessments used in online courses and their typical applications
• Test question design reviews the types of questions usable in Blackboard tests and when to use them
• Make Blackboard tests and quizzes
• Assessing students in Zoom explains when and how to perform live testing of students in Zoom
• Conducting online qualifying exams
• Turnitin assignments check for plagiarized text

Make discussion forums in Blackboard

• General manual for online discussion forums

Develop rubrics

• Tips for designing grading rubrics
• Create and grade with a rubric in Blackboard
• Blackboard rubric resources
• Grade Turnitin assignments in Blackboard (video)

Provide course content to your students via Blackboard and Zoom

Blackboard organization

• Organize course content with folders

Lecture in online courses

• Lecture in online courses presents options for delivering basic content in online courses (recorded training session)
• Record a PowerPoint lecture
• Save a PowerPoint lecture as an mp4 file
• 12 research-based principles of multimedia learning guide to making more effective presentations
• Tips for recording lectures
• Upload videos to YouTube

Provide resources

• Upload course materials/files in Blackboard
• Explore use of OERs (Open Educational Resources) to increase accessibility
• Make resources available to students through the USC Libraries’s ARES system
• USC Libraries support services for online content

Plan discussions in Bb Discussion forums or live Zoom sessions

• Choosing between instructor-led and student-led discussions
• Strategic questions engage students and promote a lively conversation
• Challenging Discussions is a series of modules reviewing how to plan for and conduct effective in-class discussions. It also introduces techniques for addressing upset students.
• Student-led discussions is an overview and detailed recommendations for implementation
• How to create a Blackboard discussion forum
• More Blackboard resources on discussion forums
• Manual for online discussion forums

Plan Zoom sessions

• Schedule Zoom sessions in Blackboard (video)
• Practice holding a session without students
• Adjust your Zoom account settings (video)
• Use online icebreakers during Zoom session (video)

Active Learning Facilitation

• Active learning facilitation is a guide to important components to plan for before, during, and after an active-learning exercise
• Observation guide for the active learning classroom is a checklist for the evaluation of active-learning experiences
• 15 Active Learning Strategies
• Active learning in the large classroom details activities that can be scaled up to any size of class
• Make a guest speaker an active-learning opportunity
• How to make a USC Librarian’s visit to your class an active-learning experience
• Collaborative quizzes as an active-learning experience
• Case-Based Role Play
• Use of structured critique, or peer review, in courses
• A peer-feedback form for group presentations
• Students learn through teaching. A description of how almost any class activity typically led by an instructor can be led by students as an active learning experience, sample activities, and how to structure such an activity.

Effective groupwork

• Strategies for promoting and evaluating effective groupwork
• Zoom breakout rooms (video) (training video)
• Using USC Google Drive to collaborate online

Manage student accommodations

• Guidance for faculty regarding student accommodations
• Tips for accessibility in the online environment

Conduct live Zoom sessions

• Record a Zoom session (video)
• Make a TA the co-host
• Share handwritten content in Zoom
• Share your screen with participants (video)
• Use breakout rooms to facilitate student groups (video) (recorded training session)
• Use the raise-hand feature (video)
• Use Zoom polling (video)
• Using the chat feature (video) (recorded training session)
• Using the whiteboard feature (video) (recorded training session)
• Change your Zoom background (video)

Share Zoom recordings

• Review, share, and delete Zoom cloud recordings
• Zoom cloud recording passwords

Administer exams

• Remote proctoring tools including Respondus
• Blackboard testing and options

Provide feedback to students on graded work

• Entering and managing grades
• Effective instructor feedback in online environment (video)