You have a hot idea for an eCourse. You haven’t looked at the search volume numbers yet but you know the interest in the topic is there. You just feel it intuitively. As an eCourse seller you’ve been in this position right? Well let’s imagine we’re someone in this position now. Let’s imagine we’re a construction worker or an architect and we want to teach people how to build their own home. This is the topic we’re obsessed about and we just assume the entire world is as well. The good news is that this "feeling" or "intuition" is an important first step in your long tail marketing strategy. You have to get started somewhere. But at some point you have to let intuition pass off the baton to data. Then, near the end of the process, data once again passes the baton back to intuition. Let me explain how this works. STEP 1: LET’S START WITH VERIFYING OUR INTUITION You don’t just need data to tell you if your intuition is right or wrong, you need that data to tell you how to best plan your eCourse marketing campaign. So how do we do that? Well it’s not that hard… it just takes some time. If we have an idea for an online course we need to make sure the interest in there. The good news is, that due to the global nature of the internet, the interest is almost always there. It’s just a matter of finding out how much. Now, Academy of Mine members get access to some pretty cool research tools and I’m going to be using those tools for the rest of this tutorial, but you can use Google Analytics to do much of what I’m going to do here. So let’s start by looking at global search volumes for the term "how to build a home". That’s got to be a big term right? Well let’s see. These results come back and my heart sinks. I thought the entire world would want to know this information and I thought at least half the world would enroll in my online course. However, 1350 people is only slightly larger than the population of Allenwood, NJ. A far cry from the population of the planet. No offence Allenwood. STEP 2: DON’T GIVE UP. DIG DEEPER The great thing we do in the system we use for our clients is we jump over to the adwords tab and start using that tool to help us brainstorm ideas for alternative and larger search terms. We need to find what people are searching for because in this case our intuition was wrong. As you can see (below) as we start to sift through the data we see alternative terms like "build your own house" . Great! So let’s click on that term to see how it compares. NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE Okay, now we can see our newly suggested search term is much more popular. So we’re going in the right direction with our keyword research. STEP 3: VOLUME ISN’T EVERYTHING Size matters, but it’s not everything. There are many things you need to take into consideration when you’re looking at global volume data around any search term. The first and most obvious question you need to ask yourself is "how competitive is this search term"? You can see above that the search term "building a house" is actually a fairly competitive term based on the advertiser competition metric. However, we shouldn’t give up hope here. While you can often draw a direct line between advertiser competition and organic competition, you still need to check. Don’t make the assumption that because 5000 companies are competing heavily to rank for that term in paid listings, that the same companies are optimizing organically. So let’s look at a few other metics. The numbers come back and it doesn’t look as bad as the advertiser competition made the term look. A Good metric to look at here is the "URLS - In Anchor & Title". This really points to  pages that seem to be actively optimizing for that search term. If I was an eCourse seller in this niche I would "flag" this term as a potential term that I would build content around and try to optimize for. And the reason it’s important to do this research and double check all of your work (especially if you’re just starting out) is because it helps you ensure you’re going after "low hanging fruit". For example, let’s imagine you’re a new eCourse seller and there are two terms you’re thinking about going after. One shows 1000 global average volume, the other shows 10,000 global average volume. If you’re just starting out you might try to go for the "easy" one first. The "low hanging fruit" so to speak. This strategy of getting quick-wins is a good strategy for beginner eCourse sellers. However, volume alone doesn’t tell you how low the fruit is hanging. Remember our less than popular initial search term idea (how to build a home)? Remember it had only 1300 searches / month. Well look below and look at the domain metric "urls - in anchor and title". This terms actually appears as though it would be harder to rank for in organic search. It seems easier to rank for in paid search which is why I recommend you always double check this information. STEP 4: SEARCHER INTENT Volume data combined with organic and paid competition data is a great way for you to start building a list of potential search terms that you want to target. However, it’s not enough. The last macro indicator I want you to look at is "searcher intent". This is when data needs to hand the baton back to your intuition. At this point you need to step back from the data and ask yourself "what is this searcher looking for and how closely does that relate to my eCourse"? For example, the term "dream homes" shows up in our suggested terms results above (when we were brainstorming for ideas). At first glance it meets our volume standards and our low(er) competition standards. So do we put it on the list? Not likely. The searcher intent just isn’t there. This is the delicate art and science of keyword research for eCourse sellers. Have fun with your keyword research. Spend a lot of time here. It will save you a lot of time down the road    

In a recent blog post we talked about ways to analyze long tail search volume data. This data is important because for this of us with limited time (i.e. all of us) because we need to make sure that when we begin implementing a content marketing strategy for our online courses, that we’re spending our energies on realistic goals. You don’t want begin the content marketing process by choosing 10 keywords that you want to optimize for that are highly relevant to your eCourse’s niche only to find out that they are the 10 most competitive terms in organic and paid search. Trying to rank for those terms would be similar to trying to Run the Boston Marathon before first learning how to run around the block. In this poll we wanted to ask our eCourse selling audience just how long they spend each month doing keyword research? Do you do keyword research for your online course at all or do you rely solely on intuition and guesswork? We’d love to know! Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

We’ve been on a little bit of a keyword kick lately. We’re obsessed with this topic and this is one area that we really focus on helping our eCourse selling members succeed. We provide training, strategy and tools that help eCourse sellers grow their educational companies by allowing them to research keywords and phrases and then reverse engineer those terms to find out, not only what the global average volume and advertiser competition is for those terms, but also how competitive the terms are in organic search. In a recent poll we asked "how much time / month do you spend on keyword planning" for your eCourse? In another article we talked about various ways to analyze keyword data to ensure you’re chasing after the "low hanging fruit". However, in this poll we wanted to ask you a strategy question. We want to know how many search terms you’re actively engaged in optimizing your e-Course site for? The keyword here is "actively". If you are publishing 10 blog posts / month on your eCourse website, but not doing anything other than posting those articles on Facebook and Twitter and then moving on to your next piece of content, we wouldn’t consider that "actively". We want to know how many pages within your site you’re actively trying to get on page 1 for. This means that you’ll be engaged in page, title, social and link optimization (to name only a few activities). Without, of course, over-optimizing. Essentially, if you were to think about your organic ranking as a race, how many terms are your really focused on winning for (showing up on the main results page)? Are you hyper-focused on 1, 5, 25 or 500 terms? We find that for many people we talk to, this is often just an "accidental process". We’ve heard people say "if it happens it happens… if not… we’ll we’ll just keep publishing until one sticks". You can vote below using our poll, but we encourage you to talk about your specific strategy in the comments section below. We’d love to hear your suggestions and ideas about strategies you’ve used that have worked in helping you gain additional organic search exposure for your online courses. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

To be clear, I’m a huge supporter of Waldorf education. Mainly because I’m a huge supporter of options. The more, the better. It’s inspiring to see students presented with so many unique educational options. For example, take a look at this video about the Albany Free School which doesn’t give kids any curriculum at all. ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION IS ONLY AN ALTERNATIVE FOR A FEW However, as the video we’re about to watch below points out, these "alternative" options are usually  fee based options, which is one of the main problems plaguing these "alternatives" in the first place. Often, students who need access to "alternatives" the most, are the ones who can’t afford to have it. Poor kids, you stay in bad schools, rich kids… well here are some good public schools for you, and if you want to spend a bit more money here are some private options, and lastly, if you really want to to spread your wings and find an educational philosophy that’s specific to your needs as a learner, well here are an assortment of alternatives for you as well. And the vicious cycle of access based on income continues. Now the video I’m about to show you points out the criticisms and controversies of one of these alternative schools: The Waldorf School. One critic in the video goes as far to say that "the government shouldn’t waste state funds on schools that teach nonsense". He fails to define what "nonsense" is and also also doesn’t provide any insight into how state schools provide only non-nonsensical education. But he seems to have an underlying distaste for the Waldorf System. ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM But the accusations get worse. One of the biggest criticisms of the Waldorf School system is that its founder, Rudolf Steiner, had his writing sprinkled with racist leanings. Some argue that the writings are not racists at all. You can see this post which shows some of the writings and defends them. Now some of the people who defend Rudolf Steiner say that the language he used wasn’t considered racists in the 20′s and therefore shouldn’t be looked at in the same light today. Defenders say that in the 20′s it was the lingo of the day. Based on what I’ve seen myself, I would consider some of his writings racists. However, that is not to say that I am against Waldorf Education. Let me explain. I’ve been to Waldorf schools. A wide variety of races attend the ones I’ve seen and they draw in an eclectic group of parents and teachers. There was no racists teaching activities or behaviours in any of the Waldorf schools that I’ve seen. But before we go any further, let’s first watch the video so you can see what you think for yourself. After the video is over, the discussion will carry on below, at which time I encourage you to add your voice to the comments section. I’d love to know your thoughts on this. Watch on youtube. After watching this video, I’m overwhelmed by one glaring oversight; and that’s that if we’re to judge any educational system based on it’s historical record on racism…. then let’s not hold state funded public education on a pedestal. I’ll put it bluntly; as racist as Steiner’s writings might be, his educational history is sparkling clean compared to that of state sponsored schools. Around this time of Steiner’s writings, you had President Woodrow Wilson ordering the segregation of Federal public services including schools (1913) . Woodrow is also documented as defending the  KKK when he mentioned that "The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation. . .until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country." Or in Canada you have government educators who saw it fit to create a residential schooling system which forcibly took aboriginal children from their communities in an effort to ""Kill the Indian in him" 1 . In many cases students were assaulted, raped or threatened in these schools. These people and governments didn’t write about these things… they did them. We’re all linked to this racists past. This is our collective history. And to this day, we all interact and support these same institutions who did these horrible things in the past. It’s just that the institutions have learnt from their mistakes, and we’ve learnt to forgive. STATE EDUCATORS: HOW SOON YOU FORGET So to state educators criticizing alternative forms of education based on their histories, I would say; get off your high horse. Not only do you teach equally as much nonsense but you’ve also been much more abusive, racists and hateful. Now, as students, teachers, parents and tax payers today, we need to be a little bit smarter than this. I think the trouble here is that we’re having a hard time co-existing with our dirty histories. And we’re all guilty; Steiner, the guy sitting behind the computer in the video above, you, me…. everyone. I think the fact that Waldorf schools are attached to a name (rather than a nameless bureaucracy) makes it a little harder to forgive and also makes it easier for state educators to forget their own pasts. The idea is, to try to overcome our past and then look for ways to peacefully co-exist with it. Not an easy task to say the least, as it often requires that we come face to face with our own hypocrisy.  When we look back into our past it’s upsetting to see all of our ideological faults. But the fact remains that these public, private and alternative institutions have the ability to accomplish extraordinary things. We just need to be able to learn from our mistakes and move on. What do you think of the video above? Do you have experience with the Waldorf School system? If so, what are your thoughts?         Can you appreciate a whitney

I remember seeing the documentary "A Class Divided" a long time ago. As educators we often read through statistics and summaries on the impact that different teaching strategies have on student performance. However, statistics lack a human quality that I feel is so important for true understanding. That is what I love about the documentary A Class Divided. The documentary gives you a saddening glimpse into the consequences of judgemental teaching. Jane’s documentary is amazing because it makes the subject matter really easy to understand. She implements a strategy and you see the positive or negative repercussions of that teaching strategy almost right away. It’s fascinating to say the least. This has repercussions on so many of teaching environments today. For example, if you’re teaching a group of students and your consistently giving a student 52% on their test results…. what bigger impact is that having on them? If you’re an educator, that’s an important question you need to ask yourself. I don’t think Jane Elliott’s documentary about discrimination would be allowed to take place today, but I feel as a community such a documentary is so important to help us humanize what some of the data on educational techniques mean, and it shines a light (a very bright light) on the consequences of making your students feel inferior. The lesson: treat your students as inferior and they will act inferior. You can see the film here.

If you’re selling a course online you’re probably intimately familiar with the process and importance of content marketing. You likely work hard to create high quality content that potential students will use to gauge your level of professionalism and ultimately decide if they will enroll in your online course or not. Creating that free content requires a lot of work, but ranking for it can be even harder. In a previous tutorial we talked about ways to look for "low hanging fruit" in the world of content marketing by looking at global average volume, paid competition, organic competition and searcher intent.  You can read that article on chasing the long tail of search here. In this follow-up blog post, we want to take that research a step further and teach you how to improve search engine ranking after your initial content launch. Many people don’t know what to do with their content after they’ve created it and they’ve done their initial "push". That initial push might be enough to start to rank but it’s not likely going to get you in the top spot is it? Unfortunately, many content marketers forget about their posts after that initial push.  They just move onto the next piece of content  without looking back. A CASE STUDY To highlight the importance of not turning your back on your old blog content let’s look at a real world example. Let’s use a case study from our own site to show how this process looks. The key-phrase we’ve researched and decided to optimize for was the term "WordPress teaching plugin". It’s a very small "long tail" term but it’s highly targeted for us and therefore worth going after. KEYWORD RESEARCH: LOOK FOR LOW HANGING FRUIT As an Academy of Mine member you get access to a lot of great tools. One of them is an amazing research tool that helps you find search terms which we call "low hanging fruit" (decent volume and low competition). Below you can see our research for this term. It shows very small global volume, but virtually no competition. Therefore we put this term on our list to create content around. STARTING TO RANK IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP A few things to note. When we’re creating our content marketing schedule we need to stay organized. We do this by creating "tags" that allow us to see quickly which terms have had content created for them and which ones are still pending. As you can see this term is tagged as "done" which means the content is created. In this case we can see that it’s also already ranking. Now you’ll see our ranking for this term over the last month in graph form. From the time we created it until now. You’ll also see important metrics like "CTR". Essentially, these are engagement metrics which are important quality indicators that search engines use to determine your page placement. Think of this process as having your individual blog post "auditioned" for that particular search term you’re trying to optimize for. Low Click Through Rates (CTR’s) and high bounce rates are "flags" to search engines that the searcher didn’t find what they were looking for. This of course, can be remedied by satisfying search engines and searchers need for quality content. PAGE AUDIT DAYS What we recommend you do is put aside at least one page audit day each month. If you’re actively trying to rank one of your pages for a particular search term you need to remember that showing up on the first page is essential. Showing up as the 457th result is only just slightly better than not ranking at all. Of course, if your goal is content optimization then you’ll see your 457th rank as your starting point. Not your ending point. From this starting position you can then start your climb to the top. Remember, that a first spot position in Google gets roughly 33% of clicks, 2nd spot gets 18%, 3rd spot gets 11% while the 10th position gets only 2%. If you’re chasing that "global volume" number then you have huge incentive to rank in the top 3 spots. Even if you have a term with the global volume of 1000, you might only be seeing 333 clicks from that term if you rank #1. Of course, the math gets more complicated then that, but you get the point. ACTION STEPS & THINGS WE CAN DO After you find your initial position you’ll need to take steps to rank higher. So in our case, we started out not ranking, came into the index at around 30, jumped to 20 pretty quickly and now we’re hovering around 10. During an audit what we need to do is look at that page and figure out how far away it is from ranking for the term. Your strategy moving forward at this point will depend on many things. Namely, how far away you are from achieving a first spot ranking and how competitive that search term is. We used the search term above because it’s a "quick win". it’s our low hanging fruit so to speak. Again, it doesn’t bring in much traffic, but every little bit helps and it’s useful for demonstration purposes for this tutorial. 1: INCREASE QUALITY AND ENGAGEMENT One of the best things you can do for the content on your eCourse site is increase the quality of the content to increase engagement metrics. There are many ways you can do this but let me explain a couple. You might want to start by trying to increase the CTR of your term in organic search. Again, let’s look at the chart we were looking at above to find the CTR. Notice this page in question has a CTR of 5.9%. Not bad, but there is room for improvement. We can make this metric more impressive by analyzing and changing our meta data (title and description) as it shows up in search to make the page more appealing to click on. Another thing you can do to increase engagement on a page is to focus on lowing the bounce rate (ours was 9% in this case) and increasing the time spent on the page. Both are huge quality and engagement indicators. To do this, find those metrics for the page in question. Below you’ll see our page url and the average time on site. Both are okay, but we could do a little bit better on both. 2: IMPROVE SOCIAL SIGNALS Now let’s talk about social indicators. Google has stated that they take social into consideration as a ranking indicator. Depending on who you’re listening to, the importance varies, but many people believe social signals account for roughly 10% of your ranking "juice". When I look at this particular page I can see that we have no social love on it whatsoever. So the first thing we should do is publish it on our various social accounts and ask for others to do the same through sharing and re-tweeting. If you’re just getting started it might be worth using Facebook Ads or Twitter Ads, not to make sales, but to help you get some social recognition which will help you in your rankings. 3: SEEK QUALITY LINK PARTNERS AND FORM DIGITAL RELATIONSHIPS The last macro indicator we’re going to look at right now is the number of links pointing to this page. In our case, because we’re so close be getting the number one spot, and we’re not fighting for a competitive search term, this won’t require much work from us. In fact, it might even be enough just to pass some "juice" from one of our other authoritative internal pages. So we’re going to test that out. However, if you’re really far back in the race you’re going to need to focus on building quality back-links. You can do this in many ways: You can do this naturally, by building strong digital relationships By Adding links to wikis Writing press releases Adding your links to blog comments Adding your links on SlideShare Forum signatures Adding your link on article sites Adding your link internally on authoritative pages So we’re going to get to work on implementing these three changes and we’ll update this blog post as soon as we see a change in ranking.        

The vast benefits of online education for both teachers and students is well documented. As a result the eLearning industry is currently experiencing explosive growth, which is having impacts far greater than we could have ever imagined.  We are currently witnessing the democratization of education as we know it. However, with online education dramatically gaining in popularity, new methods of keeping track of credits and accomplishments are required. In the past, this process was fairly straightforward. A student enrols in a school, undergoes their training for a set duration of time, and is required to achieve a certain grade before being awarded a certificate, diploma or degree. The "piece of paper" was meant to confirm that the student did in fact complete the course and show competency in the course material. Beyond showing competency it was also meant to give the student additional "value" depending on who issued the piece of paper to them. Students are generally willing to invest more in their education if the standards and/or brand behind the issuing institution is recognized and looked upon favorably. This information is important for potential clients, customers, employers and post graduate schools. In a lot of ways these people and institutions are looking for schools to help them "filter" candidates, and this piece of paper helped validated  student learning and teacher training standards. However, times are changing quickly. Very quickly. There are countless MOOCs online now, and others are using a mashup of various WordPress educational plugins to offer their courses online. This has changed the educational landscape and has forced us to reconsider how we validate learning and teaching. As we’ll discuss below, the use of digital badges as micro-credentials are a great way to achieve this goal. VALIDATING LEARNING There are many parties involved who want to be able to validate learning. The learner him or herself will want to ensure that learning actually took place (as we discuss in this podcast here). The more evidence they have to suggest whether their educational investment paid off, the better. Similarly, instructors will want to create an educational system that is undergoing constant improvement. For instance, they can start with student outcomes in mind and then from there, they can monitor their own progress as educators, keeping their finger on the pulse of how close their students came to reaching their educational objectives. They can use the data from the validation process as a way to re-think and improve their educational methods. Lastly, employers, clients, customers, grad schools and potential business partners all have an interest in being able to validate the learning of the people who they are considering working with. VALIDATING TEACHING Validating teaching is as important as validating learning. For example, imagine you want to hire an designer to design a logo for your company or a computer programer to create a hyper-specialized app for you. When you start hunting for candidates for this position there are methods you will want to use to find the most suitable person. Wouldn’t it be great to have access to their test scores, portfolios, school reputation grades and so on? The great news is, with online learning this is totally possible. THIS IS WHERE MICRO-CREDENTIALS AND DIGITAL BADGES COME IN This is an exciting time for students and teachers alike, because we’re now entering into a time where the linear "start here and end here" approach to education is being replaced by lifelong learning which draws on different educational experiences from different places (online courses, continuing education courses, blended learning, libraries, colleges, personal consulting and so on). The trick is trying to find a way to validate this "mash up" of these various educational platforms. The good news is that there are people, organizations and companies working on this right now. For example, Mozilla Open Badges project is working to introduce a micr-credential / digital badge system that helps with the online educational verification process. On their website they describe a badge as: A digital badge is an online representation of a skill you’ve earned. Open Badges take that concept one step further, and allows you to verify your skills, interests and achievements through credible organizations. And because the system is based on an open standard, you can combine multiple badges from different issuers to tell the complete story of your achievements — both online and off. Display your badges wherever you want them on the web, and share them for employment, education or lifelong learning. To add onto the potential of this system, in a related Forbes Article it was stated that: These digital credentials are not mere images. Rather, the badge image links back to verification information on servers that enable anyone looking at the badge to quickly verify the issuing institution, the person to whom the badge was issued, the criteria for receiving the badge, and even evidence and testimonials related to the credential. Pretty amazing isn’t it? This is a step in the right direction for all parties involved who are interested in having learning verified. Now of course, not all learning needs to be verified. However, what I like about this is that it gives credit for lifelong learners engaged in the practice of self-learning and it helps validate great teachers who want to work outside of the traditional school system. It will be interesting to see how this technology is adopted by learners, teachers and employers. What do you think about micro-credentials and badges? Are you currently using this technology to teach or to display your badges as students? How helpful has this technology been to you? Let us know in the comments section below.  

If you’re an educator and you’re offering your courses online have you ever stopped to wonder who provided the internet for you to offer your courses on in the first place? If not, this video walks you through the process of the invention of the internet. IT’s created by a team of designers, journalist, musicians who want to make science look beautiful.

The Council of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI) is a professional association whose sole mission is improving the places where children learn. CEFPI members — individuals, institutions and corporations — are actively involved in planning, designing, building, equipping and maintaining schools and colleges. Below you’ll see a video from a recent CEFPI school design competition done by a group of students from Eastview Middle School in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. One of the things they spoke about that I think most educators fail to properly incorporate into their educational strategy, is how their schools plan to interact with the outside community. In the video below the students propose two interesting initiatives. One; the school itself is on public property and can be used by the general public (with restrictions of course) both during school hours and off hours as well. Not only that, but student training doesn’t only take place within the school. The school itself reaches out to different companies, organizations and institutions within the community that will help support their education as well. Places like hospitals, business schools, creative studios, libraries, theatres and computer training centers to name only a few. What do you think of the proposal?

In a recent blog post we talked about the advantages of using badges as micr0-credentials to verify online educational accomplishments. Badges don’t cost anything to implement. You can simply use open source tools like the Mozilla Open Badge project and integrate their verification system into the classes you’re teaching online. In the blog post linked to above we talked about the benefits of verification from both the students’ and teachers’ perspectives. We also talked about the importance of micro-credentials for potential employers, schools, collaborators or business partners. There are numerous people who have stakes in verifying (and at a deeper level… measuring) what type of learning took place in an online environment. So we’re curious to ask people offering courses online… Are you using this open source verification technology in your online classes? You can answer the question by filling out our poll below. Thanks for participating!   Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

In this 20 minute video discussion, various educational leaders from MOOC entrepreneurs to professors, sit around and discuss the progression of MOOCs so far. One of the biggest criticisms of MOOCs to date is that studies show they are not solving the "real" problems of education. As Diana Laurillard asks in this video "what are the problems of education that this [MOOCs] solves? I don’t think we specified as one of our major problems how best to give high quality education to well qualified professionals for free". WHO ARE MOOCS DESIGNED TO SERVE? This obviously brings up a major concern, which is, who are MOOCs designed to serve? Laura Czerniewicz, points out that MOOCs never asked what people who needed the service most wanted. Not only that, but there are obvious language and localization issues. This leads many to criticize MOOCs as being nothing more than a clever marketing plan that seeks to introduce students to elite educational brands in the hopes of funnelling them to either a paid campus course, or a paid online course. As discussed in this video, even though MOOCs have altruism built into them by default, their main role isn’t altruistic. Many of them are managed and receive funding from a school’s marketing department. In a Forbes article when Daphne Koller, one of the founders of Coursera (a free MOOC), was asked if they would need to go public she said "We have outside investors, and they expect a return." This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s worth noting that many of the players in "free" education are companies backed by venture capitalists… not philanthropists. You can watch the discussion below. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

In this 40 minute documentary entitled "building the machine" which clearly states which side of the debate the filmmakers are on, educators and policy makers duke it out over the implications of common core standards. Being "career and college ready" might sound great on the surface, but at what price? At the foundation of any educational standardization program rests the assumption that centralization, systemization and data collection are good for students. What do you think about this common core documentary? Is this system dumbing us down or enlightening us?

As an online science teacher and one-to-one tutor the single biggest challenge to teaching online is to create a stimulating and engaging learning environment in a virtual setting. The bottom line is I communicate with students who are on the other side of the world and I need to know that they are engaged and ideally enjoying the course. In short I wish students to be online and on time at the scheduled time, so the question is how can we ensure this happens without having to resort to coercive measures? Creating study groups and learning communities Most of my classes number 4-6 students and are all mixed ability. The very first thing I noticed about on teaching online is that students actually want to be there and this clearly is pre-cursor to student enthusiasm and therefore engagement with the subject. To foster and develop this I encourage all my student groups to form study groups and learning workshops outside of the virtual classroom. Students are able to share knowledge, help and get to know each other and in essence work together to hit their goals. The teaching feels more real to them and they connect as small learning community and feel more confident. Students also take their work very seriously; I have had more apologies for late homework and assignments than I have ever received in a classroom. As with any social setting there will be personality clashes and issues between students, if they feel that they belong to a community these problems will be resolved quickly and positively. Make the learning relevant to their situation. Here there are additional fantastic opportunities to reinforce the content of the course. I teach a student in the Midwest of the US, he lives not too far from tornado alley. I live some 6000 miles away and have never seen a Tornado. At the time we were doing weather patterns and air masses as part of the physical and environmental science course. You can see where this is going, he actually has to go and hide in a shelter and so for the next lesson rather than me tell him how a tornado works, roles were reversed. In online settings it is vital that these learning opportunities are (for want of a better expression) thoroughly exploited. Using the right resources We all know students have different learning styles and so the more media you can employ to accommodate this, the greater will be the overall achievement of all students. I teach one student with major ADHD issues and the only way I can keep her engaged is by having several different activities with different ways of presenting the content. This is nothing unique and obviously applies equally to classroom settings. However, the techniques you employ (often with the cooperation of parents and guardians) need to be even more refined. You don’t need to be an SEN expert but you do need to pay extra attention and be exceptionally flexible. This is by no means an exhaustive list but simply an article which seeks to inculcate that teaching online requires adaptation to your established teaching skills.

By its nature online teaching tents to be highly modular and unit focused. This means that course content tends to be developed so that one or two core concepts are taught in a lesson. In addition, the lessons themselves tend to be shorter than in real school classroom setting. Obviously then, the resources which you employ to teach a lesson and fulfill the learning objectives need to be succinct and to the point. I am fortunate in that I have access to pre-prepared lesson plans and assessment modules of which there are student and teacher versions. However, to facilitate clear delivery and so enhance student understanding there is huge scope to augment these plans with supplemental resources. To ensure that students are actually following the course objectives (remember they can be thousands of miles away) set your assignments to directly reflect the content you have referred them to. For instance, if you send a podcast or YouTube link make sure students use a certain number of quotes from the material. The best way to do this is to have them quote from the beginning, middle and end to support (or not) a given point of view. There are a myriad of websites offering teaching materials specifically geared to online settings. Speak with your course coordinators, Heads of department and indeed parents to ascertain the most appropriate resources for your students. End of unit assessments In an online setting a formal exam has less relevance than in a school setting. Put simply, although students do demonstrate integrity and are trustworthy, the simple fact is that you are not there to invigilate them. I do set end of term exams and students receive direct to their learning portal at the appropriate time, but if they are at home there is nothing to stop them looking up the answers. Even with the benefit of a web-cam without strict supervision formal exams become less valid as an assessment tool. A better method of assessment is to set students a formal project assignment where they have an opportunity to apply what they have learned to the environment where they live. Students are able to analyse and evaluate within a flexible framework. For example I taught ecology to a grade 10 biology student, who lives on a corn farm. After approval from the course coordinator she was required to use a quadrat square to compare the diversity of soil organisms in different fields. This particular student finds key words and terminology difficult and so her assessment was focused on using appropriate scientific language to describe and explain her findings. To ensure that the work was actually done she was required to produce a video diary using an ordinary portable device. In online settings there are ample opportunities to scaffold learning to a particular students overall experience. They have very real and definite scope to adapt formal instruction and apply it and therefore connect their learning with the real world.

It is fair to say that no teacher will ever forget the sleepless night before they stood up for real in front of their first class and the sheer feeling of unmitigated terror when they actually had to do it. Ok, I’m exaggerating but you get the point, sweaty palms and extreme nervousness was the norm for me and this was equally true of the first online lesson I ever presented, especially as the head teacher of the organisation "sat in" for the first few lessons. What I perhaps forgot was that the students were just as nervous as me. This was perhaps exacerbated because I was teaching students from the US. Their big concern (I found out later), was that they wouldn’t understand me and that UK teachers like to shout at students. Both fears proved to be unfounded and we settled down and got on with the course very quickly. I can honestly say and without sounding blasé about it that both classroom and online settings are no longer the daunting prospect they once were. So, to all you new teachers "that" feeling will pass, so how can you accelerate the process of building relationships with students in virtual classrooms? Introduce yourself: Its obvious but true if you explain why your there and perhaps what your qualifications are and how you got to be where you are, students will automatically begin to feel at ease with you. They will also see that you are normal person and not some disembodied robot on the end of an internet connection. It is also helpful to give students access to an edited version of your profile Get them to reciprocate as well as to each other and you’re well on the way to forming productive teaching relationships. This final point is also essential for developing your study groups and learning community. Ice breaking: Again it’s obvious but supremely relevant but add in some fun and relevant activity and you’ll both feel less nervous. For me I added in a google maps link with the village I live in so they could see where I lived. When I said I lived on a working farm they were convinced I was some sort of farmer, which I am not. The point is you need your students to feel at ease with you and vice versa and there are various teaching plugins you can use to accomplish this. As the course progresses you will find that on Monday when you ask how they are, that students will start to tell you about their weekend and also ask you about yours. You start to build rapport and make jokes and basically enjoy your time together. Keep in touch and check your courses: Remember online learning tends to be in a distance learning setting. So as the course progresses respond to emails and do what you say you are going to do. If you are going to be absent let your classes know and set appropriate cover work. Staying in touch is easy I have set up circles and groups for all my classes, so that all students know what is going on. You will find that in the long run that there is productive and positive relationship which is respected by both students and parents. You can be sure that students and their parents or guardian will discuss you and the course, so you have got to get this right. There is no "right" answer just treat your students the way you would like to be treated yourself. Again, this is not an exhaustive list but merely a few pointers to get you started, only you can actually get to know your students. It is an organic process enjoy it as strand of your overall development as an online educator.

One of the topmost concerns of teaching online is making sure that the interaction between teacher and student is sustained and does not fall into the category of merely talking through cyber space. If it already is a challenge for teachers to keep the attention of students in traditional classroom settings, how much more when the environment that connects students and teachers is virtual? So this is a pressing issue among teachers, who are always in need of more ways to keep their students’ attention while of course maximizing the lesson period to ensure that students learn as much as they can. Here are a few tips on what you can do as online educators to keep your students engaged and interested: Built Rapport The first step in online teaching should always be rapport-building. It is very hard to encourage a student that you are not able to connect with. This does not mean that you have to be close buddies in order for you to be an effective teacher, but students have to be comfortable with you for them to be able to open up and receive easily. In order to achieve this, set apart a time during your lessons to get to know your student, make small talk, discover your students’ likes and dislikes, etc. However, make sure that this does not take too long or students might feel that they are being short-changed. Provide as Many Visual Aids as Possible Because you are limited to text chat, audio chat or video calling, there is a big difference in the amount of things that you can do while teaching. This entails that you have to be more creative than most when coming up with teaching aids and lesson ideas. One of the things that can help engage your students during the lesson is the use of appropriate interactive visual aids or materials. This means that you should not be simply talking most of the time. There has to be materials that students can download and use for the lesson so that it would be easier for them to follow discussions or understand ideas that you present to them. Make Lessons Relevant to Everyday Situations There are certain lessons or topics that are already very much relevant to society, everyday issues, etc., and so in these cases you don’t have to exert too much effort to make connections between the significance of the lesson and actual life situations. But topics like grammar can sometimes be thought of as not too relevant in actual life. To make sure that your lessons are engaging, present life applications that will illustrate the importance of lessons learned to students’ success in whatever field it is that they are involved in. The more relevant the lessons are to actual life situations, the more the students will feel motivated to learn them.

Like in all other things, if we fail to plan and prepare for our online lessons, they will most likely be a failure. If you are teaching online, failing to meet the needs of your students is definitely not something that you want to happen. And so, to keep your lessons engaging and effective, you have to prepare and follow certain teaching strategies that are best suited for the kind of online lessons that you give. But the question remains: How do we know that a teaching strategy is going to work? What are the characteristics of an effective strategy? Here are some ways: Matches Student Level This means that you have to determine how much they know and how much they don’t know. The manner of teaching will largely depend upon the current knowledge and skill level of your students. Failure to identify this and weave this information into your teaching strategy will result in a mismatch between your teaching style and your student’s capability to receive and learn. In order to determine your student’s level, you can at first give diagnostic exams, have a sample of works sent to you, or you can even simply have a chat, veering towards you finding out your student’s experiences and knowledge. Fine-Tuned to the Subject Matter There are different ways to teach, like there are different ways to tell a story. Knowing your subject matter well will enable you to make sure that the techniques that you use are well suited to the subject matter you are teaching. This means that the way you teach has to be relevant and significant to what you are going to teach. The techniques should be learning experiences as much as the lesson is. Makes the Lesson Interesting and Fun What many teachers often forget is that learning should not only be an educational experience but also a fun one. We should not neglect the enjoyment of students while gaining new knowledge, because actually, it if more often than not the fun factor that encourages students to keep at it, to stay motivated and interested in the lessons. As teachers, this is our goal: To make sure our students are more and more encouraged to keep learning. Therefore, an effective teaching strategy is one that makes provision for a fun time. This is very important with online lessons, because there is very little that we can work with to make lessons interesting and fun. So the more we are able to achieve it in our lessons, the better our lessons are. Perhaps this entails a change in the way we start our lessons, the way we speak, the kind of materials that we give out.

The medium really is the message, where teaching aids and assessments involving active learning can enhance content retention amongst your clients. Building upon the ideas discussed in the previous article (Multimedia for Multiple Intelligences) concerning Howard Gardner’s book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, we will be taking a look at how one of the nine multiple intelligences that he discusses plays a large role in information retention, particularly amongst adult learners. Another paradigm that many educators subscribe to is the concept of The Learning Pyramid or The Cone of Experience diagram, often attributed publicly to the NTL (National Training Laboratories) Institute for Applied Behavioral Science located in Bethel, Maine in the United States. There has been some dispute as to the complete origins of this diagram, but it has been linked to a study done at NLT during the 1960s when it was affiliated with the American National Education Association (Adult Education Division). Measuring student retention levels Although there are a few educators and other experts in cognitive development that have critiqued the validity of the concept, it has been pervasive and widely-supported throughout contemporary pedagogical theory and educational studies, and it has continued to find popularity due to its success in demonstrating results with student involvement in active learning. Despite any minor controversy that the paradigm of The Learning Pyramid may have surrounding it, I believe that it still very much an important factor in student learning and information retention, particularly in regards to Gardner’s multiple intelligence involving the Bodily- Kinesthetic learner. For those that are not familiar with The Learning Pyramid, it is a diagram that depicts the amount of new information retained by a student when learning new concepts — dependent upon the method of content delivery - expressed as a percentage of overall retention, with the lowest base-level of the pyramid illustrating the largest percentage and the smallest percentage marked at the tip. Lecturing course content to a class of learners is the least successful, with only 5% of new information being retained. The most successful method of content delivery is through the instruction of one person to another, or immediate use of newfound knowledge, is an impressive 90% retention rate. The second- most successful method of content-delivery is "practicing by doing," which sits at a not-too-shabby rate of 75% retention. Although this is less than ideal, it is the most practical method of delivering content to your client via online courses, and therefore should be one of the most important methods used to develop teaching aids for your clients. As discussed in the previous article, a well thought-out course curriculum will be developed with a variety of teaching aids in mind, in order to satisfy the majority of learning needs of your client base to keep your course offerings effective and efficient. However, knowing that 75% of content retention is activity-based, a deliberate effort should be made to ensure that your course content is delivered with teaching aids designed to have your clients perform an activity connected with introduced material. You can use this as a diagnostic assessment to determine your client’s initial level of familiarity with your course content, as a formative assessment while you progress through your course, or as a summative assessment to fully gauge how successful you were in delivering the content to your client once the course has been completed. Feedback is always useful! Now that you know this… how can you implement it into your eCourse? However, even when keeping this in mind while designing your course curriculum, how do you implement this concept practically? Online courses may be seen as the antithesis of what it means to "learn by doing." But much like the creative approach required to effectively use the concept of multiple intelligences with your students, an open mind with a flair for thinking outside-the-box is also needed to synthesize a "learning by doing" approach to online course development. In teaching the concept of editing and brevity of words to get a point across in English class, I have proposed the idea of using the limitations of Twitter to get students both doing and learning at the same time, all the while involving a practical application many people are already using themselves on their own time. Twitter only permits 140 characters per post, so students would be tasked with transcribing a pre-determined amount of text into a message that would satisfy the limits that Twitter imposes on user posts. The activity would require students to demonstrate content retention of lessons that cover editing techniques, which would include the importance of developing a strong vocabulary while avoiding overuse of the passive voice in one’s writing, and the assessment would actually involve an activity already used in students’ day-to-day lives. When thinking of writing online, many would scoff at the idea of writing well and succinctly, yet an online application itself can be used as a useful teaching aid and assessment for formal, in-class student learning, provided that the instructor is willing to see opportunity where others may only see a roadblock. Be that opportunity for your clients, and see how far you can succeed!

Creative use of multimedia-sourced teaching aids to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your client’s learning experience. Many contemporary educators subscribe to the idea of multiple intelligences, as outlined in 1983 by Harvard-educated PhD, developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. For those who may be unfamiliar with the concept, Gardner’s theory proposes that each individual learns and processes new information according to varying degrees within nine specific areas of understanding, namely: Verbal-Linguistic, Visual-Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Mathematic-Logical, Musical-Rhythmic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic, and Existential. Although it is understood that these areas of intelligence are present in everyone, the theory further acknowledges that individuals are stronger in some areas while less developed in the others. This variance is believed to explain why people grasp new learning in different ways and different rates from one another. But what does this mean for you and your potential eLearning students? It means that regardless of what new content you may wish to introduce to them through your online course, you will not be having as much of an impact on their learning experience if you do not take the concept of multiple intelligences into account in your content delivery through your teaching aids. Using different learning styles in education If business accepts that time equals money, then you will want to ensure you are maximizing your students’ or clients’ success in learning and retaining the content of your course in the shortest amount of time reasonably possible. They will not be interested in signing up for courses where they are finding content too difficult to understand, or a course that takes too long to master. In today’s busy world where many households are juggling multiple interests both inside and outside of the home, you will want take the time to not only provide content that students will be interested in, but also content delivered in a way that is both appealing and easy to learn. On the plus side, with contemporary society being what it is, the modern multimedia tools available to us in both online and offline formats is definitely an advantage that we can use to our benefit when creating teaching aids. The written word With efficiency in mind, the most common and accessible form of content-delivery is the written word on a (web) page. Therefore it is no surprise that this is the building block many will start with when creating teaching aids for a course, and it is a strong one to build the content of a curriculum around. However, it is also too easy to fall into the routine of creating content in this manner, and the teaching aids that you create will too often fall into this category. The problem is that this method of content delivery only appeals to one of the nine multiple intelligences. What if your student learns better when seeing what is being described (Visual-Spatial)? An online video could be of benefit to this type of learner, or perhaps a Venn diagram and a few pie graphs. Perhaps these videos could be three-dimensional, and the glasses required to view this content could be included in your course fee with delivery to their home. What about a client whose strength is found in Musical-Rhythmic intelligence? Several generations of English-speaking children the world over have learned the ABCs through singing a simple pre-school song about the letters of the alphabet. Bodily-Kinesthetic learners do not have to be limited by the logistics of an online course either, provided you are willing to get creative with how you wish to integrate your students’ learning into their lives. If your eCourse requires some physical activities to master, you could create a downloadable MP3 track outlining routines you have set out in your course for completion that a client can listen to and follow at their own pace when it is convenient to them. Many self-help authors and public speakers have used this form of content delivery with success, and there is no reason why you cannot achieve success with your content as well. Sprinkle in a variety of multimedia Granted, not all course content automatically lends itself to being delivered to a student or client with learning aids appealing to all nine of the intelligences outlined in Gardner’s theory. An online course involving aircraft engine maintenance may not be easily tailored to creation of teaching aids with an Interpersonal or Intrapersonal intelligence-learner perspective. A student whose strength lies within the Existential intelligence may not be entirely catered to with teaching aids explaining how to create a no-fat, low-sugar blueberry bran muffin. But this is where you and your creativity with your course content delivery model can do so well, particularly if you are looking for a niche market. If you can take the time to come up with a myriad of ideas for teaching aids that best use the multimedia realities of 2014 for your client’s learning experience, it is not far-fetched to see many potential learners flocking to you and your course offerings. But the key is sprinkling a variety of teaching aids in each lesson, teaching point, or module that make up the curriculum of your course. Of course it is not possible to include teaching aids that appeal to all of the intelligences all of the time, and nor should you try to, but your student’s success - and in turn, your success - will be greatly enhanced if you account for Gardner’s theory as much as possible. After all, the only thing better than a secret weapon for student satisfaction is a toolbox full of them. So start getting creative!

Delivering course content to your clients with stand-alone modules for self-paced distance learning. Previous articles in this series have covered the ideas of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and the simple concept of using practical activities as both teaching aids and assessment tools when delivering the content of your course to your students. However, the one driving force that threads its way through all of these articles is the central idea that the way you choose to deliver the content of your course to your students is directly related to your success through effective and efficient delivery. Achieving this effectiveness and efficiency requires several variables to be considered, and many of these considerations involve you and how you tailor your content specifically for your student base. Diligent attention to student loyalty is a large cornerstone in any successful educational business philosophy, from the largest eLearning corporations to the smallest course vendors offering niche products in smaller markets, and this attention will be a must for your course offerings to succeed as well. Design an eCourse that fits into your students daily lives Therefore, the attention to detail that you demonstrate for your students and clients will be illustrated by how well you create a course that fits into their daily lives. Just as we have discussed how important your method of delivery is for you to stand out amongst others that may be offering similar or other closely-related content, the pace at which you deliver this content must also be taken into consideration when keeping the needs of your students in mind. Many universities, colleges and other post-secondary education providers are now involved with some form of online distance learning to connect to students who may be interested in their courses, but not within physical proximity to the institution to attend in-person. Since distance learning is essentially all that you are doing, how you approach its delivery is of the utmost importance. This is where the pace of content delivery comes into play. Besides the obvious benefits of being able to learn from an institution that is kilometres away, distance learning truly becomes distance e-learning when you consider the Learning Management Systems (LMS) used to deliver this content. But these applications only cover the "e" portion of the equation, and it is the learning part that you have to address. This where you as the content provider must be flexible and put that personal touch to the material that you are delivering to your students. Creating an effective Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) will require you to look at the overall content that you wish to include in your course, and determining the best way to formulate a curriculum that can be properly managed in smaller portions for your students. Breaking your content down into smaller Teaching Points (TPs) The reason that this process is vital is because the medium of e-learning not only has the benefit of facilitating distance learning, but also allowing students to determine when and where they can complete the lessons and assignments determined necessary to successfully complete the course. In order for you to do this for your clients, you must look at your material overall and break it down into smaller teaching points (TPs) that can be strung together according to a larger theme or concept. Once this has been done, you can rearrange and group together similarly-themed TPs into smaller modules that students can complete in spurts throughout the timeframe you have allocated for overall course completion. Broken down in this way, students will find it easier to absorb, comprehend, and reflect upon the content that they have just learned. If they wish to go over it again, all they have to do is repeat the same module over again until they have mastered the TPs within, without having to go through a much larger section just to cover a few small details. Alternatively, students may find your content easy to absorb and do not require the need to go over one particular section again, but the smaller modules will still allow them to fit their e-learning more easily into their busy lives and hectic work schedules. If your students find themselves with a weekend they are free, they can go through several modules in one sitting, and yet return to one module at a time once Monday returns and the work week begins anew. Of course, the content of your course may be very specific in the order that your students must learn the material, and any rearrangement of TPs according to a common theme or concept may be impossible. This is ok too, as long as you remember to break the material down into smaller units that can be absorbed more easily, allowing your students to determine their own pace. Be flexible Flexibility is truly the key when it comes to maximizing the benefits of using e-learning to facilitate your student’s comprehension of your content, Your unique position as a subject matter expert is truly to your advantage in being able to determine the best way to ensure your students thoroughly learn your material, regardless of whether they are already well-versed in the material, or if they are green-horned, first-time learners. Academic administrators in other institutions who do not know the subject matter inside and out like you do may cut vital TPs out or miss entire chunks of information altogether, if they were to be tasked with simply tailoring course material to fit into smaller, easier to-understand portions. Conversely, someone who is very familiar with specific content may forget what it means to be new to the material, and first-time learners may feel overwhelmed if they receive too much information too soon in a short amount of time. Therefore you have a very special role in being able to bridge the subject to the learner, and this type of attention to your clients’ learning needs will help ensure that client loyalty will never be an issue that you have to be concerned about. You are truly the key to your client’s success!

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!