Rubric for Online Instruction

Rubric for Online Instruction
This is a great rubric to consult when designing an online course because it reminds the instructional designer of all the different things you should consider. It almost felt like a checklist to me. In fact, it relates strongly to the principle of “determining the suitability of a course for online delivery” that I discuss in Principles of Online Design forum. This rubric could be converted into a checklist for making that determination. A similar use would be to evaluate existing courses to see how they could be improved or if moving them to an online format was a poor choice given the limitations of the current technology.

One of the ideas suggested in the rubric was to make sure the learning objectives and the course activities are closely integrated. I think this is very important to help keep the class focused on the topic and I will try to select activities for my course that match this goal. Since I am designing an online course I will also try to optimize the students use of the Internet to help them learn more effectively. I am planning a couple of activities where the students will search the National Park website in the same way to how they would search for information when planning a real vacation.

One area that often gets neglected or only briefly included in some online course are links to information about being an online learner, using online resources such as library access, or course-specific resources. I will review my class topic and look for places where I can include these type of links. As part of this I will also look at the National Park Service website and see if they already have a tutorial or “How to use this site” area created.

Anne Gossett