Where Do I Begin? Designing Online Learning Courses Which Work

One of the greatest needs of faculty in adult and higher education today is to understand how to design distance learning courses which address the needs of their current and prospective students while upholding academic excellence and remaining feasible to develop (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009; Palloff & Pratt, 2004). This article provides an overview of the rapidly changing field of distance learning with a focus on trends and lessons for faculty course design and facilitation. Beginning with distance learning, the article illustrates not only the possibilities for teaching and learning through a variety of inexpensive, popular and easy technologies, but will also leads into how to plan, design and facilitate courses which incorporate them. The basis for this model is 13 years of distance learning research, design and teaching, as well as extensive continued literature reviews. The aim is to assist faculty in identifying how to envision, plan, design and facilitate online classes which will best address the many demands they have to satisfy.