We encourage all NOVA Online faculty to take advantage of the many course design trainings available through NOVA. All courses and workshops are excellent opportunities for professional growth and can be written as such in your Faculty Development and Evaluation Plan.
Below are descriptions of trainings related to course design. Keep in mind that NOVA Online also offers many trainings related to online teaching that are not listed here. Please view the Instructional Technology Training and Certification site for information on teaching trainings and to see upcoming design and teaching workshop dates.
NOVA Online recently introduced a new virtual professional development center, a 365/24/7 resource you can access at any time to support your professional development. This entirely online professional development space will allow faculty to access training videos and written materials on demand, chat with colleagues, and track learning over time in an easy-to-navigate, visually engaging environment. NOVA Online will also have periodic live events in this space, which faculty can access with their NOVA credentials (i.e. myemailaddress@nvcc.edu and password).
EDU Courses
To sign up for the three-credit NOVA EDU courses, please follow these directions under Registration.
EDU 285: Teaching Online Program (TOP)
This course instructs educators in the method and practice for delivery of online course content. Includes instructional technology and instructional design theory and practice, with skills and strategies that educators will use to engage students and create a collaborative online environment.
View more information here.
EDU 287: Instructional Design for Online Learning (IDOL)
The course will prepare educators to design content, peer review courses, and create activities that encourage active learning and student participation in the online environment. IDOL is a twelve-week online course.
This course complements EDU 285, which addresses the roles and tasks of the online teacher. EDU 285 and 287 may be taken in any sequence.
View more information here.
EDU 295: The Science of Learning
EDU 295: The Science of Learning is a three-credit, twelve-week online course designed for VCCS faculty professional development. The course teaches current empirical research about the conditions that promote effective learning, and the neurocognitive theory that attempts to explain learning. This course provides a foundation for EDU 285, which addresses the roles and tasks of the online teacher, and EDU 287, which teaches the design of online courses. The content of this course also applies to classroom teaching.
View more information here.
TOTAL Workshops - Topics in Online Teaching and Learning
To sign up for TOTAL Workshops, please register through NOVA Academy.
Preparing Student Learning Objectives
This two week workshop has been designed to help you write measurable and clearly stated student learning objectives. Measurable and precise learning objectives are important for both you and your students. Your course-level and module-level student learning objectives should be used as your guide as you determine the content and instructional strategies for your course. They should also be used to guide the development of the formative/summative assessment strategies for your course and should drive how you evaluate student achievement. Additionally, your course-level and module-level student learning objectives will provide your students with a course road map and benchmarks by which they can track and measure their own learning. In other words, measurable and precisely stated student learning objectives will also help provide clear guidance to your students about what they need to do to be successful in your course.
View more information here.
Developing Collaborative Activities
Upon successful completion of this three week workshop, you will be able to develop and facilitate activities within online and blended courses that build collaborative relationship between students, and between students and instructors.
View more information here.
Designing Meaningful Discussion Activities
Interaction with classmates and instructors can help students learn to think critically about a subject. Canvas and Internet tools provide a particularly rich medium for reflective discussion in online courses. In this three week workshop, you will learn how discussion can support critical thinking. You will learn how to design meaningful discussion activities, and you will plan your strategy as a discussion facilitator to help guide students in effective discussion.
View more information here.
Designing Rubrics and Providing Feedback
Studies show that formative feedback is a key element of student success. Students value and use the feedback they receive from us to improve their results in our courses and to help them become self-regulated learners. During this four week workshop you will learn how to provide your students with timely, accurate, meaningful and easy to understand feedback on their assignments. You will also learn to how to develop and use grading rubrics to clarify expectations and improve consistency of grading.
View more information here.
Writing Directions
Communicating almost entirely in writing is one of the major adjustments to teaching online. This two week workshop will help you learn to write clear, concise, consistent directions and organize them for easy navigation. It is all about your audience.
View more information here.
Copyright, Fair Use, and TEACH Act
Understanding how copyright applies to teaching materials online is one of the biggest challenges that many faculty face. This workshop will help you recognize copyright do’s and don’ts and will help you to identify alternative resources to maintain copyright compliance.
View more information here.
Implementing Open Educational Resources (OER)
Many students face economic challenges due to the rising costs of college, especially the cost of textbooks. Teaching online provides the unique opportunity to explore open educational resources as an alternative to traditional textbooks and course materials. This three week workshop will help you define open educational resources and locate appropriate resources for your classes.
View more information here.
Making Your Courses Accessible
Accessibility of courses for those with disabilities is both a legal and ethical issue for online educators. In this four week workshop, you will learn about the barriers encountered by those with hearing and vision disabilities, and your responsibilities for making your course accessible to them. You will also learn how to make changes to your course materials to meet current national quality standards for accessibility.
View more information here.
Captioning Media
Learning resources housed online need to be accessible. Accessibility includes providing captions. In this three week workshop you will review the instructional reasons for using captioning and learn about the different types of captioning that can be applied to multimedia. You will then apply what you have learned to a multimedia project of your own.
View more information here.
