Thinking about creating an online course? If you are a Hunter College professor embarking on the process of designing an online course, consider the steps below.

Start by

• requesting a consultation with the educational technologists by emailing edtech@hunter.cuny.edu. We can tell you about the resources and services available at Hunter and show you sample online courses;
• attending a Module-Making Camp (scheduled during Winter and Summer break) to build one complete online module including learning outcomes, instructions for students, learning materials, activities and assessments;
• reviewing video tours of exemplary Blackboard courses;
• asking our Blackboard admin team to create a developmental course shell based on the “online course template” (email bb@hunter.cuny.edu).

Continue by

• going through the self-paced Course Design & Development Tutorial created by the School of Professional Studies – CUNY;
• reviewing the Teaching Online Pedagogical Practices Repository created by the University of Central Florida;
• seeing examples of instructor-created materials;
• attending online workshops to learn about tools and best practices for communicating with students and for creating multimedia materials;
• learning how to create accessible course materials (e.g. documents readable by screen-readers and videos with captions);
• getting ideas for selecting tools and designing multimedia assignments from the Tool Talk and Teaching Tips posts on the ACERT blog;
• participating in ACERT lunchtime seminars to hear about insights and experiences from Hunter colleagues;
• meeting with the educational technologists on a weekly or monthly basis as you build your course.

Finalize the course design by

• conducting a self-review of your course using a course evaluation rubric (e.g. CUNY SPS Peer Observation Form);
• scheduling an appointment with an educational technologist (email edtech@hunter.cuny.edu) to discuss your self-review and address issues;
• reading through the Start-of-the-semester Reminders for Professors Teaching Online Courses.