Harnessing online course development skills: a crisis- prompted but carefully planned EAP course

MacDiarmid, C. and Rolinska, A. (2021) Harnessing online course development skills: a crisis- prompted but carefully planned EAP course. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 9(2), pp. 159-168. (doi: 10.14297/jpaap.v9i2.490)

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Publisher's URL: https://jpaap.napier.ac.uk/index.php/JPAAP/article/view/490

Abstract

This paper explores how lessons learned from developing a fully online course were employed in the momentous move to online delivery in the late spring and summer of 2020. Our context was one in which, rather than having to get through to the end of the last teaching semester of the year, we were about to commence large-scale,intensive academic English courses, delivered throughout the summer. While the pivot online did mean as Gacs, Goertler and Spasova (2020, p.380) say ‘crisis‐prompted remote teaching’, our previous experiences enabled us to provide effective, principled support to course designers, and induction for teachers who would deliver courses. Drawing on principles of effective online learning, constructive and social constructivist pedagogies for both language and content learning, we show how these newly flipped courses were planned and scaffolded. We also illustrate how teacher induction was designed to incorporate not only pedagogical and content knowledge but also aspects of technological pedagogical knowledge (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). Support was also provided by organising teaching teams with diversified skills and encouraging the sharing of expertise.The resulting courses were quite different from the previous face-to-face classroom-heavy immersive learning provision. Yet our reflection will show how the careful but essentially simple approaches used to course design and teacher induction afforded engagement and ultimately very successful outcomes, at scale. We identify aspects that we believe can be applied in different contexts, along with areas that need further development and which can be built on as colleagues develop the skills and confidence to continue online delivery. This paper, then, aims to show that essential skills sets can be developed with relatively minimal but carefully thought out principled, structured and streamlined support from the outset.

Item Type:Articles
Keywords:Online pedagogy, online course design, flipped learning, TPACK, teacher induction.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:MacDiarmid, Dr Carole and Rolinska, Ms Anna
Authors: MacDiarmid, C., and Rolinska, A.
Subjects:L Education > L Education (General)
L Education > LC Special aspects of education
P Language and Literature > PE English
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Journal Name:Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice
Journal Abbr.:JPAAP
Publisher:Edinburgh Napier University
ISSN:2051-9788
ISSN (Online):2051-9788
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2021 Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice
First Published:First published in Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice 9(2): 159-168
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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