The role of assessment in an online course can actually make your students feel more connected to the material and give you more insight into their learning. Online tools can open up new possibilities for different (perhaps even more efficient and effective) ways to engage and assess your students as they journey through the course.

Content

In a face-to-face class, you have the advantages of live communication to help present content to students with eye contact, responsiveness, and enthusiasm. Although you cannot be present with students in the same way when teaching online, there are ways of conveying information and guiding the exploration of ideas that close some of that distance and help students build knowledge.

Connections

n your face-to-face class, you actively build connections -- connections between you and your students, connections among your students, and connections between your students and the content. At first glance, an online environment can seem like learners are disconnected, separated by space and time. But in reality, teaching online offers us many, and even unique ways to build the kind of connections and community that encourage collaborative learning.

Assessment

Content

Connections