As an online teacher, I have designed classes, taught the class through forum interaction, graded papers, created class realia and videos, looked for outside sources for my class lessons and for student projects, created graphics for decorating the classroom, found innovative ways to write announcements to keep students on track and keep students motivated in learning, wrote lectures for Live Sessions, helped students one-on-one, giving feedback on discussion forums, giving feedback on papers, giving feedback on class projects, collaborating with the boss on projects, and classroom management.
Designed classes
Just like when I was a face to face teacher, I would look at the overall class objective (Teach students to write an academic paper) and then I had to figure out the lesson objectives of how to get students to learn how to write an academic paper within the time allotted to me. Week by week, I would give students assignments so that by the end of the class, they are able to write their research paper. It takes a lot of time to create a class because you have to have all your objectives align, then your lessons have to align with your readings and assessments. You also have to work with Tech Support to make sure all the links work in your classroom as part of the class design before the class goes live.
Creating an online class is very time consuming, but if you align all your objectives--school objective, program objective, class objective, learning objective--learning activities all align--readings, forums, assignments, assessments all align and are measurable, then in the future, you can save time and just tweak the class for future sessions.
Created graphics, realia for the class
To decorate the classroom and to appeal to the many modalities of my learners, I have created graphics, videos and audio files for students on many different projects. For instance, if I write a text based lecture, I will then create an audio file of that lecture to appeal to audio learners, create a powerpoint video of that lecture to appeal to visual learners and intersperse my postings with fun graphics that I create with graphic programs like Adobe Spark or Canva.
Content enrichment
I would look for outside sources to add to my lectures, forums, announcements, and assignments. In this way, students can get many different perspectives on the same topic. The trick to making online content engaging is variety. You have to provide a variety of multimedia content and web links to make an online class attractive to students.
Class Management
An online classroom just like a face to face classroom does not run on its own. When I used to teach face to face, I would go one hour early before class to write down all I was going to say on all the blackboards so that when the class periods started, I would go from blackboard to blackboard teaching.
In an online classroom, 2 weeks before the class starts, I have to make sure all the dates are correct, the announcements, forums and lessons have all cloned properly. I have to put in my introduction in the introduction forum and I have to add my teacher contact info and picture in the syllabus section of the online classroom. I also have to make sure all the links and readings work, and if there are any defective links, I report them to the Program Director.
During class time, I have to post announcements every week, post interesting questions to the forums to get students to post every day, remind late students they forgot to do their homework, encourage timid students to participate, grouping/pairing students for group work, supervising student work, and finding new ways to explain to students the purpose of the class.
Providing Feedback
As mentioned earlier, I provide feedback on DQ assignments, papers, and peer review. Giving feedback is one of the most vital activities you do as an online teacher because that's where you tell students how they can improve and what they did wrong. When you give feedback, try to relate your feedback back to the criteria in the rubric so students understand which expectation they did wrong and what they need to do to fix the error in the future so that they don't lose points on that criteria in the future.
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