Improving Online Learning

Do you take time to reflect and remember your greatest victories as a teacher? It can be easy to remember the difficulties of a challenging distance learning semester but it takes more time to think about the lesson we taught well, the student whose eyes lit up in understanding, and the evaluation that we passed with flying colors. As hybrid and blended learning become the new norm, we can build on our successes for improving online learning.

Remembering the successes is vital because it helps create awareness of how to succeed and examine practices for improvement. It’s also a phenomenal way to gently remind ourselves when we’re feeling a little down: “I’ve done something similar like this before, I can make it happen again.” 

With course development in mind, I was thinking about which one of our online PD courses is the most popular. It’s not easy to determine because each online continuing education course has been available for a different amount of time. So I started looking through the feedback and began to identify and understand which courses teachers found extremely useful. This helps when I’m planning future online PD classes.

Some food for thought:

• What part of distance learning was successful for you as a teacher? 
• Think about successes you’ve had in the classroom. How can you implement the same strategies for improving online learning?

Teaching online can be challenging, and we’re here to help. Get the Online Teaching Package to access 6 online professional development courses for distance learning!

About the Author
Ellen Paxton is a respected expert in education and best known as the Chief Learning Officer of Professional Learning Board. As a two-time National Board Certified Teacher, Ellen has successfully published and customized online professional development courses and Learning Management Systems for 20 years to help teachers meet their state continuing education renewal credit requirements. Through ProfessionalLearningBoard.com, RenewaTeachingLicense.com, and ConnectedPD.com. Ellen has established solutions and maintained partnerships with several accredited universities, higher education institutions, teachers’ unions and state Departments of Education while setting strategic direction that makes a difference and overseeing implementation of popular online PD.