Developing Online Courses
I have received my teaching assignment for the fall semester at the community college. I will be teaching Medical Coding & Insurance and the introduction to Electronic Medical Records. Both courses will be online and will be open to the public, as well as, the medical assisting students. The courses will be created from scratch using the Blackboard platform.
When I started using Blackboard I didn't like the structure. Partially, because I was already teaching online at another school and was more comfortable with their online platform. I will admit that I am a little spoiled because everything was already developed by instructional designers. The instructional designers along with a team of other professionals develop the curriculum, discussion board questions, grading rubric, course schedule, and select the textbook.
All instructors can make suggestions to these areas to improve instruction and the course overall. This leaves me with just the responsibility to facilitate the course, grading and communicate with my students.
Now, the responsibility for developing the course syllabus, course objectives, assignments, curriculum, discussion board, textbook selection and grading rubric will fall on my shoulders. Starting out as a new instructor, this is an exciting challenge for me. I will be able to set up the course based on my own parameters and creative talents. The scary part is the awesome responsibility that the Chair of the program has placed with me to develop these online courses.
Of course, I have anxiety about developing courses that meet the objectives of the program. Since the courses will be open to the public, I want to provide students and the community with the tools they need to succeed in a new career.
The fall semester starts on August 18th. So, I have a small window to create the courses. I have plenty of resources to help with the development of the course materials. I will be blogging over the next few weeks about my progress and maybe a few mishaps along the way.