Scaling up E-learning: Best Practices for Teaching Online Classes with a Large Enrollment
Abstract: This best practices session focuses on teaching of large online-only classes and what methods, literature, and processes best support online and blended courses with large enrollments (eg, over 50 students) Because the suggested class size for online courses is 25 to 30 students (Arbaugh & Benbunan-Finch, 2005), it can be inferred that teaching larger online courses present specific challenges such as lack of feedback from the instructor and a sense of impersonalization in the course, due to size This brief paper focuses on syllabus design, ways to provide social and teacher presence, structure of online resources, due date calendars, and digital outreach and communications, as well as a focus on the role of course policies and expectations, with a focus on large online courses The framework we draw on includes the Community of Inquiry framework (eg, Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007) We will share how we structure our syllabuses to teach large online courses while engaging students