Unless you wind up at a small liberal arts college, you will likely have to do some teaching online (and even small liberal arts colleges often offer online courses over summer). Being willing and able to teach online courses is often a good way to obtain a summer teaching assignment if you are so interested, and likely makes up part of the course load of most full time and part time faculty today. Online teaching is a bit different from teaching in person, but like all good courses, preparation is key. A well designed online course requires a great deal of work upfront, but once the course is completely built, teaching online can often be a bit of a time saver: you are not spending any time physically in class, although you will likely have many more student emails to respond to when teaching an online section.

 

Online Teaching

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The first thing to consider is this: What type of online course am I am teaching? 

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Asynchronous: There is no "live" meeting of the class or time at which the instructor and students must all be online simultaneously. Students review course material at their own pace and meet weekly or unit based deadlines. 

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Synchronous: Courses meet live over a video platform such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Courses have set meeting times at which the instructor and students must be online. The goal is to create the "in-person" class experience in some sense. These were popular during the pandemic, although the format doesn't seem to have had much staying power (The for profit community college Campus bases its teaching model on synchronous online courses, however). 

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Hybrid/HyFlex format: In hybrid courses, some course sessions occur in person while the majority of course work is completed online. This could involve, say, requiring students to come to campus for in person for exams, complete lab work, or have one meeting each week in person and one meeting online, or some other mix of in person and online learning. 

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Even courses that are listed as asynchronous online courses may allow for certain in person elements, such as proctored exams, so it's worth investigating what exactly "online" means at your college when assigned to teach an online course. 

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General Guidelines for Teaching Online

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Have a clear, well-organized course is critical for online teaching. It is important that students understand what is due when, as well as what activities/readings they should do to help them complete their graded assignments. When teaching online, you want to design your course in terms of modules, or weekly units. E.g., for this three week unit on free will, students should complete x readings, make use of z discussion board, and complete y assignments all by the end of the module. 

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Offer students a variety of material types to help them digest the course material: Posted lecture notes, video lectures you create, existing resources on the web made by others, podcasts, etc. You want to distinguish between materials students are required to interact with and optional resources they can make use of if they wish. See our section on Teaching Students with Disabilities, especially the discussion of Universal Design for Learning, which is highly applicable for teaching online. See below for resources to include in your course as well.

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Asynchronous courses

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This is the most common type of online course. As an instructor, especially if you have fully built the course before the official start date, it's easy to sort of "forget" about your asynchronous online course. A good idea is to create some kind of reminder, or keep a schedule, that encourages you to check in regularly on your online course: perhaps you log in first thing every morning, or put a reminder in your calendar; adopt a strategy that reminds you to be "present" in your online course. You don't need to monitor it constantly, but you should at least try to check in on the course every day or every other day during the work week. 

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Be available for your students: let students know you can meet online during office hours, respond to emails in a timely fashion, and be proactive to student issues. It's easy for an online students to feel alienated from their instructor, so it's important for students to get the impression that you are readily available.  

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Don't have assignments due on midnight on Sunday each week--this is a common mistake I see in first time online teachers, as it seems "natural" to have assignments due at the end of each week. If you do go with this natural seeming deadline, students will be invariably trying to get a hold of you Sunday afternoon to ask for an extension, ask a clarifying question, or to tell you that Grandma died. Unless you want to be checking work emails on Sunday, have assignments due Monday at midnight (or any other day really). If assignments are due at Monday at midnight, you have your regular work to to respond to and address most student concerns. 

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Here is a short list of ten best practices for teaching asynchronous courses from a leading educator on online teaching, Judith Boettcher.

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And here is some advice about designing online courses. Mary Burns at eLearning has a number of articles on designing better online courses.

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Here is a podcast from Teaching in Higher Ed on teaching more effectively online with Flower Darby. Darby's written a book with James Lang Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes.

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The American Philosophical Association put together a panel webinar on teaching philosophy online with Merritt Rehn-DeBraal, Kristina Grob, and Fritz McDonald. The APA Blog is also a source of teaching advice during this time. For example, Sabrina MisirHiralall has a post on the APA blog, "A Foundation for Online Teaching and Learning," with suggestions about how to transition in person courses to online. And Matt Deaton has a discussion about how to use collective feedback.

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Hybrid-Flexible

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Brian Beatty, one of the developers of HyFlex, gives an overview of HyFlex learning. Scroll down for some testimonials.

 

Derek Bruff, Director of Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching, shares some ideas about active learning in a hybrid environment.

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And here is a more in depth look, in a shared google doc by Kevin Kelly, at what a class session in a hybrid-flexible format might look like.

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Useful resources for building online courses

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Building an online course from scratch can seem like a dauting exercise at first. The way to make it easier is to avoid reinventing the wheel: There are already good existing resources for you to call on, and these resources are your friend. Here are some you can draw on:

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WiPhi: WiPhi is a series of videos created by professional philosophers on a variety topics. These are great way to provide students with another avenue to access course content and they are typically 5-10 minutes in length. 

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Crash Course philosophy: Crash course is a well known online series on a variety of topics. I find the philosophy videos especially good.

 

Philosophy vibe: Philosophy vibe is another set of well made videos, although I find them a bit drier than WiPhi or Crash course. Nonetheless, a great resource.  

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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The majority of Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles are written at an undergraduate level, although some can be a bit more sophisticated, so read anything you want assign carefully ahead. IEP articles can serve as a great supplementary material that you can provide students on complex topics. 

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The Internet Classics Archive: Select from a list of 441 works of classical literature by 59 different authors, including user-driven commentary and "reader's choice" Web sites. Mainly Greco-Roman works (some Chinese and Persian), all in English translation

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Project Gutenberg: Another repository of works that have entered the public domain. Includes almost all the 'canonical' philosophical works prior to 1900. 

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Early Modern Texts: Jonathan Bennett's early modern texts feature translations/editions that are focused on making the original material a bit more accessible for the modern reader. Bennett's work is highlighted throughout TP101.

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1-25-26--D. Sackris

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