Using comparative life-experience analogies to introduce students to new concepts. Arguably, one of the most important facets of learning how to teach online courses is that you are sharing your knowledge with students from all over the world. There are virtually no limits to how far you can connect with people willing and ready to learn what you are aiming to teach them. But are you ready to teach them? The fact that you have a global reach means that you will be presenting content to students coming to you from a myriad of different backgrounds, education levels, life experiences, and day-to-day cultural realities. They will be coming to you with different levels of understanding concerning the content that you will be presenting them with: some of your students will have already been well-versed in the subject matter that you will be instructing them in, whilst others may be completely fresh-faced and new to the material, having never had an experience with it prior to enrolling in your course. Keep in mind that this is also all on top of the learning concept that we have discussed previously concerning Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (Multimedia for Multiple Intelligences). So how do you further connect with your students to ensure that they are getting the most out of your course, regardless of their previous experience with the content that you are providing them with? One way that you can do this is to use examples in your lessons that can relate to the life experiences that your students may have already had, regardless of their previous experience with your specific content. You will most undoubtedly need to provide examples in your lessons anyway, since you will be concerning yourself with improving the content retention amongst your students to maximize their benefit from taking your course. You’re a Subject Matter Expert… But Also a Human Being But if your examples are about apples, how will your students understand what you are explaining to them if all they are familiar with are oranges? The answer lies in realizing that as a teacher, you are not only a subject matter expert, but you are also a human being! There are many experiences in life that we share with millions of others around the world, without ever having set foot in each other’s homes, countries, or continents. To say that certain realities in life are universal may seem clichéd and trite, but there is a reason why they have endured in many forms of media - it is because it works on a certain level for many different people. Relating to Students on a Human Level Helps Them on an Educational Level as Well But you do not have to follow common convention to create any of the examples that you decide to use to further illustrate the content of your course. Instead, you should look to relate to your students in a way that has not been done before by teachers they have encountered in the past. A good way to do this is to just be human with your teaching, understanding that your students see you as both a teacher and as a person. If you can go out of your way to relate to them on a human level, it will go a long towards reaching them at a teacher/student level as well. However, to avoid cliché, stay away from platitudes such as "from the beginning of time," or "it has always been said," or other such tired conventions often overused in Hollywood and other mass- market media sources. Your students will see right through this type of material, and you may lose their trust. But do not lose your motivation to connect with them! An Example An example of a life-experience analogy I have used involved explaining the British monarchy in its relationship to former British colonies like Canada, Australia, and Jamaica. To help explain that difficult and contentious legal concept, I drew a comparison to a grandmother who comes to visit you in your home. You realize that your household comes from her lineage, she is still present in your life through the occasional visit, you may even respect a little of what she still has to say to you and your family when she visits, and as one of her many grand- children, you still do your small part in helping to support her both morally and financially as she ages. Yet you both understand that she no longer has a real say in the day-to-day affairs of your household, that you still respect your history garnered from her, regardless of what future your family has with or without her in your lives, and that any advice she shares is completely up to you to either regard or dismiss as you see fit. An example like this puts an abstract legal concept into terms that many people are more likely to understand, despite never having any previous experience discussing legal issues surrounding the British monarchy and its former colonies before. Once there is a context that your students can explore new concepts within, the more likely they are to grasp further material that builds upon and progresses from those new ideas within the terms that you choose to teach them. Using this tactic to turn apples into oranges will truly allow you to be a teaching magician!

Using diagnostic assessments to plan your approach when introducing new concepts. In the previous article Turning Apples into Oranges, we discussed the importance of you as a teacher recognizing that your students will be coming to your course from a variety of different backgrounds, educational levels, life experiences, and cultural realities. The overall diversity of these variables is exponential if you consider the global reach of your course due to its online nature. This is all, of course, on top of the realities surrounding individual learning-styles and Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (Multimedia for Multiple Intelligences). The development of content delivery must always take these variables into consideration, as we have already accepted that the success of online courses can be determined by the effective and efficient delivery of course curriculum. But now that you are open and sensitive to the nature of international students from an online global community, how do you go about assessing just where they are coming to your course from? The Diagnostic Assessment… The What? Well something that is called diagnostic assessment is the key to doing just that. For those that are unfamiliar with the term, diagnostic assessment involves the teacher creating an evaluation that gauges the general breadth of knowledge that a body of students has, in reference to the upcoming content that is to be taught , whether it is at the beginning of the course, starting a new unit, or simply a difficult new concept. This assessment can take the form of a short quiz, a more formal examination, practice dialogue performance (for language courses), a research essay, or some other practical, written, or verbal assessment to determine where each student is when it comes to the content being taught. Obviously, this assessment must be done in advance of any actual lesson being taught to students, but it does not have to be well in advance. It can be performed as the very first exercise in an opening class, or it can be done to conclude an opening lesson of a course. It can even be done weeks in advance of a course starting, perhaps taking the form of a quick survey to be completed and submitted on the first day of class. But a key element of diagnostic assessment is that is of benefit to the instructor in preparation of content delivery. It is not meant to be used as an assessment for grading students and should not be used as such. To do so would not only be unfair to students, but also ineffective in being an accurate gauge of student content retention. After all, since this kind of assessment is intended for use at the beginning of an online course, how could it give any accurate indication of students’ abilities after course content has been taught? How Can Data be Used to a Student’s Benefit? However, this also brings up another useful facet of diagnostic assessment, and arguably the most important one. Once all assessments have been collected from the students, how can that data be used to their benefit? How can you incorporate the results into your online teaching strategy? The answer is that it can be used to give your course that added touch that sets it above other courses being offered online - you use the information gathered to tailor your course content delivery to the needs of your students. If you find that many of your students have little background in the content that you are planning to teach them, you can be sure to add more background information in your curriculum to ensure that your students are not lost once you start covering the more advanced material. If the results of your diagnostic assessment demonstrate that your students have a generally-advanced knowledge of your course content, then you can adjust your curriculum-planning to spend less time on basic material and more time on the more advanced concepts. Not Just For Use at the Start of an Online Course Furthermore, the use of diagnostic assessments does not have to be restricted to just the beginning of the online course, but can be used any time a new unit of study in your course begins, or if you are about to introduce a large and/or difficult concept. If you have the time and inclination to do this for new units and concepts, you will further refine the tailored experience that your students will benefit from, and further sharpen the focus of your teaching during the course. This ability to adjust your course as required according to the needs of your students will prove to be both a boon to you and your students. They will benefit the most by receiving just the right amount of instruction that they need to get the most out of your course, and you will benefit with the maximization of both your time and effort. Not to mention that excellent word-of-mouth reviews will spread about the flexibility and student-friendly nature of your course delivery. Remember, students who benefit the most form your course are more likely to become loyal to your courses and help generate more interest in the content that you are offering. So it’s worth the investment in time to develop online teaching strategies that work for both you and your students. Take the time to keep yourself flexible with effective use of diagnostic assessments, and you should find teaching your courses that much easier through focusing your efforts on the right things - not the ineffective ones - and that is beneficial to both students and teacher alike!

Using formative assessments to fine-tune your approach while delivering course content. Expectedly, a natural follow-up to the article Planning Your Online Teaching Strategy would be a discussion concerning the delivery of material to students throughout the curriculum of a course, long after introductory lessons are completed. As was discussed in the previous article, the effective and consistent use of diagnostic assessments is a great way to decide how to best tailor course content delivery prior to introducing new material to students. They can be used either at the beginning of a course, weeks before a course, at the beginning of every new unit throughout the curriculum, or even when introducing difficult material not covered previously. However, depending on how large each unit in a course is, there will be opportunities to gauge where students are retention-wise as they progress through each lesson that is covered. These opportunities should be noted and planned for throughout course curriculum, and it is in these points where formative assessments should be scheduled to occur. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, formative assessments refer to evaluations that a teacher uses to gauge student content-retention throughout the duration of a unit within a course. These evaluations can take the form of quizzes, short tests, a small research assignment, or any short-term activity that can be graded in a meaningful, quantifiable manner. Once several lessons have been taught to your students, you will want to see how well they are grasping the material that you have covered within that timeframe. Don’t let Your Students Get Lost in Your Curriculum The last thing you want to do is get to the end of a unit and discover that your students are lost as far as your curriculum is concerned (see online course design and development strategies that work). This is not only a waste of your time and effort spent teaching the last several lessons since your last (diagnostic) assessment, but it is a waste of time and money for students taking your course, who are expecting to learn something from you. eCourse Sellers: Word of Mouth Spreads Quickly Online Negative experiences like this do not bode well for your online course or the future of your teaching career if we consider how quickly it takes for word-of-mouth to spread online. So this is something you will really want to avoid if you wish to truly achieve success in facilitating your online course. Ultimately, formative assessments form the bread and butter of the collective feedback that teachers receive from students, since they form the bulk of evaluations that are collected from students throughout the course. They will allow teachers to tweak their approach when teaching the material of their curriculum, so that they can maximize teaching efficiency and the effectiveness of student learning. Formative Assessments: Tripple Purpose If some students are struggling to understand the material, you can alter the timeframe of your course schedule to allow for review of previously covered teaching points, or you can create further exercises for your students to practice and master - flexibility is key, and smaller units within your curriculum will help with this (Portion-Sized e-Learning). If some of your other students are stronger, you can use this knowledge to also adjust your methods of teaching your lessons. For example, rather than assign an activity to your students to complete and submit individually, you can assign group-work (virtually, through Skype or some other form of teleconferencing), so that weaker students have the opportunity to work with stronger students. This will serve the triple propose of respecting your own internal deadlines for unit completion, allow weaker students to get the opportunity to learn from fellow students for a fresher perspective, and prevent stronger students from getting bored going through previously-mastered material through a traditional review. An adjustment such as this can make all the difference between the success or failure of your course, simply through keeping yourself continually abreast of your students’ retention-level with liberal use of formative assessments throughout the course. Demonstrate your Creativity as an Online Teacher Do not be afraid to use these assessments to demonstrate your creativity as a teacher, since the sheer amount of opportunities throughout your curriculum will allow you to keep things interesting for your students, using a variety of different activities that appeal to different learners (Multimedia for Multiple Intelligences). After all, the more positive notes you hit amongst your students and their learning experience through your course, the better the music - so wave that baton with gusto, Maestro!

Understanding the importance of planning student assessment design. In a previous article discussing assessments ([Evaluating Your Students] Plotting Your Teaching Strategy), we discussed how the nature of developing effective summative assessments for your students can assist you in plotting out your online course curriculum and planning the best way to break down your eCourse content into smaller units and sub-sections. In that article, it was emphasized how important it is to ensure that summative assessments are comprehensive in nature, so that the evaluation of your online students is as complete as possible to ensure the most accurate and fair grading of student content-mastery. In addition to accurate assessment, a comprehensive approach to assessment development compels the online teacher to take a closer look at exactly what the student is learning in each unit within the curriculum, and make decisions about the best way to evaluate content retention. As a result, this closer look will also include a review of any diagnostic and formative assessments that have been scheduled to be conducted throughout the course. And this is definitely a good thing! Why? Because any top-down approach to curriculum design goes hand-in-hand with a complete dissection and break-down of student learning and evaluation. Assessment development One option to consider is applying a standard in assessment-development that was implemented by the Ministry of Education in Ontario, a province in Canada. This standard breaks down assessments into four specific strands: Knowledge and Understanding Thinking and Inquiry Communication Application. These four strands are themselves derived from Bloom’s Taxonomy, a framework in which internationally-renown American educational psychologist, Benjamin Bloom, developed his theory concerning mastery-learning and achievement of educational objectives. Bloom’s Taxonomy Expanding this concept further, Bloom’s Taxonomy - from which the Ontario assessment- development standard find its basis - places an emphasis on a hierarchy of learning where varying levels of understanding are sorted between higher-order and lower-order thinking skills. It is not a coincidence that this hierarchy is ordered in such a way that it is inversely proportionate to the concept of the Learning Pyramid, once you have put the two charts outlining each concept side-by-side. Although the Ontario standard of assessment-development does not necessarily rank one strand of learning over another, it gives the teacher a different perspective to consider when devising assessments appropriate for the content being taught. This perspective allows teachers to ask themselves two important questions: 1) is this assessment applicable to what I am trying to evaluate my students for, after they have learned this content? 2) Is this assessment effectively addressing the different levels of learning and understanding, according to the Learning Pyramid and Bloom’s Taxonomy? Design and delivery: A two way street In this way, the development of your assessments allows you to really focus on how to best develop the curriculum of your online course, since it provides you with the opportunity to see how your own content is best taught as you progress from theory to practical application. If your assessments do not properly evaluate what your students need to master, then you can revise the delivery of your content. If content in your course requires a specific method of assessment (i.e. completion of complicated equations in a test to demonstrate learned skills in a mathematics course), then you can include and/or adjust that as well. The inter-relationship between assessment design and course content delivery is certainly a two-way street, and so there is really no reason why you cannot use this to your advantage when planning out the best assessment design for your online course. The next series of articles will go further in-depth with regards to the four strands of Ontario’s standard for assessment-development, so come along for the tour!

Using summative assessments to both evaluate your students as well as your curriculum-planning. Finally, in a wrap-up to the theme of assessments covered in previous articles, we will be discussing the method (and providing a definition) in which you evaluate your online students for cumulative grades. We’ll also discuss how you can use this information to your benefit as a teacher. In the first article (Online Teaching Strategies), we discussed the importance of using diagnostic assessments at the beginning of an eCourse, a unit, or lesson, and before introducing new intensive online educational content, in order to evaluate your students’ previous experience with the material. This allows you to tailor the curriculum of your course to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of your students’ learning experience with you. The second article - Adjusting Your Online Teaching Strategy -  covered the use of formative assessments scheduled throughout your curriculum, in order to evaluate and keep track of how well your students are retaining content, and adjusting content delivery to further ensure that your teaching is efficient and effective. It only makes sense then that we talk about assessing your online students at the end of a unit, course, or other sub-section of content that you have broken down and scheduled into your curriculum. Due to the cumulative nature of this type of student evaluation, these are referred to as summative assessments, and are absolutely necessary for you as a teacher to evaluate and ultimately grade your students. The three main characteristics below help provide a definition for what summative assessments are and how they should be used in an online learning environment. 1st characteristic - summative assessments "weigh" on both the teacher and the student The three essential characteristics of these assessments are that they are weighted, they occur as the final evaluation before beginning new content, and they should aim to be comprehensive. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, summative assessments are evaluations that teachers use to evaluate student content-retention and mastery at the end of a unit within a course, and the course as a whole. These are the assessments that you use to actually grade students and determine their standing within the course, and therefore are arguably the most important evaluations for the student/teacher relationship, as they are the numbers (or letters, if you decide to use that grading system) that you as a teacher are willing to stand by when your student passes or fails your course. Evaluations like these do not necessarily differ in format from the other two types of assessments (diagnostic, formative), so they can also take the form of quizzes, short tests, small research assignments, or any other short-term activities. However, the first and most important characteristic to keep in mind with summative assessments is that they are weighted. Although all assessments require grading in order to evaluate students, weighted assessments are evaluations that the teacher keeps on permanent record, and therefore uses to ultimately determine a student’s final grade in a course. This is why you will want to make sure that you put the most amount of thought into developing the summative assessments that you place in your course and that you make clear to your students in advance what they are worth. In this way, the importance of these assessments "weighs" on both the teacher and the student simultaneously. The student will have to prepare and stand by the work they submit to you for evaluation, and you will have already prepared (when you created the assessment) and are ready to stand by the grade you assign to the student’s work. 2nd characteristic - placement of summative assessments Furthermore, the second characteristic of summative assessments is that they must only be scheduled at the end of whatever sub-section or unit that you schedule into your course, including course-end. There should be no time where a summative assessment occurs in the middle of a unit, sub- section of course content, or any other obvious break between course material. You should only schedule a summative assessment once you are ready to move onto something new in your curriculum, since you are looking to see if your students have mastered the content you have just finished teaching them previously. 3rd characteristic - comprehensive It is with this concept in mind that we realize why we need to design these assessments to be comprehensive in nature - the third characteristic of summative assessments. Since we want to use these assessments to determine whether or not our students have mastered the material we have just taught, we will want to ensure that these evaluations cover all of the different lessons, teaching points, and information that have been taught in the course up to that point. It is this element of assessment design that has prompted many teachers, when developing course curriculum, to plan the delivery of their course starting with summative assessments as major plot points, and working out unit breaks and content sub-sections backwards. Much like a fiction novelist may begin with the climax and work the plot in reverse to establish character and setting, teachers can use the planning of summative assessments to develop effective course curriculum-planning. Do you have what it takes to be the next Agatha Christie or J.K Rowling of online e-teaching?

Delving further into the philosophy of planning student assessment design. Following up from the Definition of Summative Assessment - Part I, it is important to go further into depth concerning the four strands of the Ontario standard for online student assessment. The previous article discussed the importance of understanding that effective assessment-development is critical for both the teacher’s curriculum design and the student’s learning experience. It also illustrated the inversely-proportionate relationship between the Learning Pyramid, Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy, and the subsequent development of the standard for assessment-development from the Ministry of Education in Ontario, a province in Canada. Although Bloom’s Taxonomy explicitly establishes a clear hierarchy of learning objectives for students to achieve in order to progressively demonstrate content mastery, Ontario’s standard for assessment-development - which is derived from Bloom’s work - does not necessarily prioritize the different strands that a student’s assessment should take into account in its evaluation. The four strands of Knowledge and Understanding, Thinking and Inquiry, Communication, and Application are areas of focus that teachers in Ontario use to ensure that the assessments being developed for their classes are effective, meaningful, fair, and useful. There is an attempt made to ensure that each of these strands are covered throughout assessments scheduled within each unit or sub- section of course curriculum (diagnostic assessments, formative assessments), resulting in a cumulative assignment (summative assessments) at the end that includes - if possible - all four strands at once, thus ensuring a fully comprehensive assessment of a student’s learning. It is understood by many Ontario teachers that not every assessment will include all four strands, since the sheer variety of assessments available to use and the myriad of course content delivery methods will create an exponential amount of different possibilities to consider. However, the priority is always there to try and include as many of the strands as realistically possible for every assessment that is created for evaluating students. Furthermore, the attempt to rank each of the four strands in direct correlation with Bloom’s Taxonomy is not necessarily prioritized in the exact same way as ensuring their inclusion in general. Clearly, cumulative activities used as summative assessments for your students will be more likely to be best-suited for inclusion of all four strands, since their cumulative nature allows for a more comprehensive evaluation of student mastery of learned content. With this in mind, it can be observed then that some strands lend themselves to particular types of assessments more than others. The four strands For example, the Knowledge and Understanding strand - though not entirely a direct correlation to Bloom’s Remember learning objective - is more likely to be best-suited for diagnostic and formative assessments, since these assessments are also more likely designed to evaluate content-retention amongst your students early on in the course and/or unit when you are teaching new material such as subject-specific terminology, processes, or other theoretical content. The Thinking and Inquiry strand looks for assessments that require students to research further upon the new material that they have learned, thus demonstrating a more focused approach to content relevant to general information already learned in class. Communication involves assessments that permit more creativity on the part of students, further giving them the opportunity to demonstrate learning-mastery through communication with the teacher and the rest of the class about what they have learned. And finally, the Application strand of Ontario’s standard for assessment-development involves assessment that allows students a chance to demonstrate an ability to process the knowledge gained in class and develop it further into new ideas and theories. Although these four strands were specifically designed for Ontario’s elementary and secondary school curricula, the Application strand in-use is best demonstrated amongst post-secondary PhD candidates in universities, when they are required to research and develop a thesis that they must defend in front of a panel of superior scholars in their respective fields (subject matter experts, much like yourself). Sound pedagogical philosophy is relevant and applicable no matter what the level of learning, age-range of students, or medium of content delivery (i.e. online eLearning, etc.) - so use it to your advantage!

It’s no secret that all of us here at Academy of Mine are data geeks. Everything we do has data and metrics built into it in some way or another. One area that I personally find very exciting is the intersection where data and content marketing meet. The intersection of data and content marketing In many cases a strong content marketing campaign is responsible for helping our online course selling members generate between 70% - 90% of their eCourse sales. Therefore we believe it’s of paramount importance to spend some time digging around in the data related to your content marketing campaign in order to help you identify what’s working… and what’s not. eCourse sellers often mistakingly think that all content is created equal if it’s targeted towards their specific niche. However, nothing could be further from the truth. And we have data… and lots of it, to help us prove our point. Essentially, this misguided thinking goes something like this: Let’s say, for example, that an eCourse seller published 10 posts in one month and each posts gets 100 unique views that month (equalling 1000 views / month). And let’s say that during this month they made 10 eCourse sales (1% CR).Therefore, they might give equal credit to all posts and pages that helped them generate those sales. They might even have a nice little metrics spreadsheet where they can mark down that they received 1000 unique visitors, 10 sales and a 1% eCourse conversion rate. Simple enough right? They might even use the exact same content marketing strategy next month. It worked this month, so why not use it again next month? As the old adage goes "if it’s not broke, why fix it?" Because if you look closely you’ll see that it’s sort of broken It’s true that you could use the same content marketing strategy month after month. And the truth is that you might even do well. But if you’re not using data to make content creation and marketing decisions then you’re not even close to realizing the full financial potential of your eCourse company. This is where Academy of Mine members have a huge edge over their competition. Our members use data to help them identify what specific pieces of content are helping them achieve important business goals. A case study In the case below we’re looking only at eCourse sales but we also could just as easily look at a newsletter sign ups (or other important objectives as well). However, for the sake of simplicity let’s focus on the bottom line… eCourse sales. Before we go any further, take a look at the data sheet below. What you see is 6 rows. The top row is the site wide average and the next 5 rows are the data from 5 different pages that were optimized around 5 unique search terms in a specific niche. Pay special attention to the last column in this chart (Avg Page Value). Notice that 3 of the 5 pages have no commercial value at all. Combined, these three pages brought in 13, 867 page views in one month, but this led to no purchases. What does this data tell us? This data tells us a lot, but for the purpose of this blog post it tells us that we missed the target on 3 pages. For these three pages our member did their keyword research and picked related topics, but the pages just didn’t impact the bottom line… at all. Therefore, if we looked at this data without looking specifically at the data related to each individual piece of content then we would mistakingly give sales credit to the average site traffic. Which would be a big mistakes because…. Not all traffic is created equal If we drill deeper than this we can analyze why some pages under-perform. But first we need to figure out what the problem is. Is it searcher intent? Is it the writing style of those pages? Is there a weak call to action? The list of potential problems can go on and on. However, without this data we can’t ask those questions in the first place. In many cases we find that although content is created for a specific niche it often doesn’t capture the visitor at the right stage in the buying cycle. Or the content, even though it’s related to your course, might not be tied in close enough to your specific course topic. There are many reasons why a page might under perform. Either way, knowing which pages are performing well and which ones are under-performing is crucial if you plan on running an efficient content marketing campaign for your eCourse. Content marketing without data can be a waste of time In the example above we’re just looking at 5 pieces of content, but remember, 3 of them did absolutely nothing. Imagine the time that was used to create those three pages was put into creating 3 pages that converted visitors into customers. That’s why the old adage "if it’s not broke don’t fix it" doesn’t really work in this case. While it is possible to grow an eCourse company without using this data, it’s not the most efficient growth strategy. In the case above, our member spent 60% of their time creating content that gained them traffic, but no sales. Notice I didn’t use the phrase "wasted their time". The reason for this is that it’s natural to have pages under-perform. You often have to test out content ideas and that means that you’ll have many failed posts on your site. That’s totally normal. It only becomes a waste of time, if you ignore the data and repeatedly make the same mistakes over… and over… and over again. So go out there, put your data geek hat on and be an efficient content marketer. Your eCourse sales will tell you how good of a job you’re doing Have fun.      

How to keep cool when things do not go as planned. There are many resources that deal with how to work out plans in preparation for teaching lessons and courses online, finding teaching aids, and developing online assessments. Often there is discussion concerning best practices and methodologies, and connections to various resources designed to produce the best plan possible for teaching students are provided. FAILING TO PLAN MEANS PLANNING TO FAIL However, there can be no true advancement in educational standards and efficiencies unless there is a willingness amongst educators to talk about what it means to be an effective teacher, and sharing open and honest discussions concerning pedagogy. It only makes sense to have this kind of openness and sharing amongst peers in education, because experience and first-hand anecdotal evidence informs theoretical discussion with proper context. And this type of context can only come about with candour and honesty, including the development of individual plans to improve one’s own teaching skills and educational philosophy. After all, if you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail. Success is not achieved by accident and educators must be willing to talk about what works, and what does not. However, what may work in one scenario may not work with another, and even then, it only works when things go according to plan. And any teacher who has had any experience at all knows very well that this is rarely the case. KEEPING COOL UNDER PRESSURE But how do you keep cool under pressure when things do not go as expected? Having confidence in your teaching is the key, particularly having confidence that you can persevere through any obstacles that you may encounter when things do not go according to plan. And to achieve this confidence, you need to have knowledge, preparation, and honesty. Thankfully, the first piece of the puzzle is well within your grasp. As an online subject matter expert, knowledge is definitely one resource that you have an abundance of, so you can use that to your advantage. Since you have so much previous experience working with your subject matter, your comfort level with the material should be second-to-none, and this allows you to be flexible and able to focus on correcting the situation that may be going wrong for you. For example, those that may be required to teach a class about a topic that they have never taught before, will be relying heavily upon their lesson plan and may struggle to find a balance between remembering content and trying to solve issues that come up outside of the lesson plan. Flexibility is not often a viable option for these teachers, since there is little to no comfort with the material prior to delivering the lesson - at least not to the level that you as an expert in your field will have with your subject matter - and any setback that this teacher could potentially encounter would only be exacerbating their predicament. CONTENT MASTERY As a subject matter expert, you will not have this challenge, since you will already have a thorough knowledge of the content that you are teaching your students. You know your material inside and out, and you will not need to rely on cue cards, lesson plans, or any other pre-prepared documentation or resources that you may have created for your lesson- delivery. Any lesson plans that you have - and you will have them, since that is one of the hallmarks of an effective and efficient teacher - should only serve as a "bookmark" for you to keep track of where you are during your lesson, and not as a crutch. Therefore, any unexpected issues that may come up (i.e. technical issues, audio-visual problems, unexpected questions, etc.) can be the focus of your attention, since content mastery will not be an issue for you. In this way, the wealth of knowledge and experience you bring to your students is not only a benefit to them, but a benefit to you too! To read further about how to remain confident when things go wrong, refer to A Wrench in the Works - Part II.

How to continue keeping your cool when things do not go as planned. The previous blog article, A Wrench in the Works - Part I, discussed how quite often there is a great amount of discourse amongst educators and other stake-holders in the study of education that explores the best methods in lesson and course preparation, teaching aid and resource acquisition, and assessment / evaluation-development. This type of internal discussion is not uncommon amongst professionals in any industry, and the various individual experiences and personal perspectives help to provide the proper context in which to discuss theoretical concepts about best practices and effective pedagogy. TALK IS CHEAP But even with context garnered from real-life experiences, like most discourse on methodology, there are a lot of hypothetical theories involved, since not every approach that achieves success in one circumstance will produce similar results in another. So what happens when things go wrong? How does one correct a situation so that the lesson unfolds as it was expected to? The answer is having confidence in your teaching, and to achieve this confidence, you need to have knowledge, preparation, and honesty. In A Wrench in the Works - Part I, the importance of having thorough knowledge of the subject matter that you are teaching in order to have the confidence to be calm when dealing with problems was highlighted. It was noted that as subject matter experts, you already have the advantage in mastering this vital aspect to keeping your cool when things go wrong, such as technical difficulties (i.e. Learning System Management issues), audio/visual/digital media problems (teaching aids not working), and any other unexpected scenarios. Lesson plans and any other resources that you prepare in advance for each of your lessons will act more like "bookmarks" that assist you in keeping track of where you are in a lesson, but will not be a crutch for you. But you will still need to make sure that you have lesson plans and other organizational documents with you as you teach, since the hallmark of any good online teacher is preparation in advance.   PREPARATION FOR ONLINE CLASSES Furthermore, this preparation is the second element that you will need to help keep your confidence during your lesson if something goes wrong. Although knowledge is already part of your arsenal, preparation is not, but it can be and should be if you make the deliberate choice to do so. After all, even if things do not go according to plan, simply having a plan in place to begin with is half the battle…but you have to go out of your way to ensure that you have prepared in advance. It just does not happen by itself! And lesson plans are only just the beginning of what your planning should involve when preparing for your lessons, since they are simply a script that you will follow during each session of your class. But unlike a Hollywood script-writer, as an edupreneur you have the ability to go beyond simply writing a script. YOU ARE THE TEACHING / DIRECTOR / ACTOR + For your online course, you are also the actor, the producer, the director, the stunt-person, the camera operator, the marketing promoter, and everything in between. You may not necessarily be the one operating all the technical or logistical aspects of your course facilitation (since Academy of Mine takes care of this for you), but you are still the one person who is in the best position to plan for each uncertainty that may arise in advance. Keep flexible and avoid planning your lessons in such a rigid manner that they cannot be altered or rescheduled for the next session if something goes wrong. A good way of doing this is breaking your course curriculum into small portions (Portion-Sized e-Learning), so that lessons adjacent in your schedule can perhaps be swapped for each other, if required. If one of your teaching aids has an audio/visual component to be streamed live during your lesson, be sure to have an alternative learning aid that can be emailed out after your lesson is completed, in the event that there is a problem during your session. Many instructors often provide an electronic copy of their PowerPoint slide presentations for just such a situation, just as an example. Be proactive in getting to know exactly what is involved in your course’s Learning Management System, and plan for - as unlikely as it may be - the possibility of something going wrong. This way, you will not miss a step or skip a beat in the delivery of your lesson to your students, and your students will not miss out on the great material that you are teaching them! To read further about how to remain confident when things go wrong, refer to A Wrench in the Works - Part III.

How to continue keeping your cool when things do not go as planned. In the previous two blog articles A Wrench in the Works - Part I and A Wrench in the Works - Part II, there was an introduction and further elaboration, respectively, into the concept of professional discussion amongst educators across various areas of online instruction about the best practices in contemporary pedagogy. Like most professions, teaching online has its own practice of sharing both formal and informal information amongst peers, covering topics that look at the best approaches to specific teaching situations, acquisition of teaching aids and other resources, and other developments in both practical and theoretical teaching methodologies. SHARING OF EXPERIENCES Of course, this is a benefit to both educators and learners alike, since the sharing of experiences and knowledge beyond the theoretical allows for improvement in both teaching and learning, regardless of the instructional environment. Although this discourse involves a heavy portion of hands-on experience and anecdotal accounts being shared, the nuggets of truth that come out are still only theoretical, since success in one particular learning environment or situation does not guarantee success in another. The conclusions that come about are still very theoretical in nature because of this, and therefore untested in less-than-ideal situations. So how can you use this type of professional discourse and shared knowledge when things go wrong in your class? How do you keep calm when things do not go as expected? Simply put, it comes from confidence in your teaching. And as a teacher, you can find this confidence through knowledge, preparation, and honesty. ENSURE YOU HAVE COMPREHENSIVE KNOWLEDGE The previous two blog articles that first introduced and explored the source for teaching confidence outlined and highlighted - respectively - the importance of having comprehensive knowledge of your subject matter, and being diligent in pre-class preparations. Here in this blog article, we explore the third and final component in keeping cool and confident when things go wrong while you are teaching: honesty. Being honest with others is often considered a virtue and an oh-so-forgotten aspect of interacting with the world around us, but it is also - perhaps because of its perceived rarity - another tool for your online teaching toolbox. Simply put, you are a human being first and a teacher second (How to Teach Online Courses: Start By Being Human). Mistakes are made, things go wrong, and we are certainly not perfect. Sometimes things happen that are very much out of our control. This is part of the reality of being a human being. Of course there is something to be said for maintaining professionalism at all times, particularly if you want to be a successful edupreneur, but being professional does not and should not preclude us from being imperfect. BEING PROFESSIONAL DOES NOT MEAN BEING PERFECT Essentially, being honest takes the pressure off of you trying to maintain the illusion of perfection. "Professional" does not mean "perfect," even though we are often conditioned to think that way. If a question comes up from any of your online students that you cannot answer right away, be honest about it. You do not have to say "I don’t know" per se; after all, you are selling yourself as a subject matter expert and the livelihood of your online course depends upon that reputation. But you do not want to lie about it either, because this could be much worse for your credibility than simply not knowing the answer to one question could ever be. However, being honest does not necessarily mean being candid either, so there is nothing wrong with having a pre-prepared go-to phrase or statement to use when you are asked a question that you may not have anticipated. You can say that you are in the process of studying a particular aspect concerning the question being asked, and that you will get back to the student once you have that information upon further research. And be sure to get back to that student too! If you say you will do something, then make sure that you follow-through with your word. After all, your credibility is at-stake. If something technical goes wrong during your class, be honest about that as well. Openly state that to your students, but also reassure them that you have an alternative plan - something that will be true, of course, because you have already accounted for this type of scenario occurring (A Wrench in the Works - Part II) and have created a suitable contingency plan for just such an occasion! And you are, of course, in the best position to determine the most appropriate kind of "Plan B" for your lesson, because you are the subject matter expert and have the knowledge (A Wrench in the Works - Part I) required to create a flexible, comprehensive, and well-designed course curriculum (Portion-Sized e-Learning).   PREPARE IN ADVANCE AND BE HONEST WITH YOUR STUDENTS With all of these variables in your favour, you have every reason to be — and most importantly — every ability to be confident when you face obstacles that may arise during your lesson or course delivery. As long as you do not forget that you are the expert in your field, you prepare well in advance before every lesson, and you remember to be honest with your students, you will have the confidence to persevere!