This was a very rigorous course that will go a long way to improve my online teaching experience. I will hereby share some most important lessons you gathered from the course. It was a big learning curve for my remote teaching and will help me configure students’ expectations and anxieties. All of the learning strategies seem to be equally beneficial for me, as they are equally applicable to the content and organization of any course one can think of. The collective knowledge of all these strategies will work around:

• Student engagement (e.g. activities, discussion boards)
• Assessments and assignments
• Communication (e.g. feedback for students, announcements)
• Inclusivity (e.g. course design, learning outcomes)

I would like to implement a lot of explained strategies into my own practice. I will use Adobe Premier Pro to connect all the PowerPoints, images and screen capture of my lectures together. This will contribute towards design, teaching presence and facilitation. Moreover, I will try to organize and design my courses on Moodle in a comprehendible manner. The courses that have too many places to look for information regarding the course content and assignments contribute towards frustration at the student’s end.

Virtual office hours will add to direct instruction. e.g. offering non-mandatory synchronous online sessions offer a way for classmates to meet with each other and the teacher; yet students who cannot attend these sessions should not be penalized as there are time limitations for some students. I will also use external services (e.g. polling activities through Mentimeter, quizzes through Kahoots, use of Padlet and WeVu for discussions and CanVa for presentations), as these offer chances for students to engage deeper with the content and keeps online sessions both learning and entertaining. Discussion Boards should be carefully crafted, effectively moderated, and have a clear learning objective or purpose as well.

Additionally, I will encourage use of services to help with assignments (e.g. Turnitin, Grammarly etc.). I will ask my students at some point how they are doing, how their other classes are going, are they anxious or nervous about online learning (if so, why), and what they expect from teachers during this time of online learning to bring about connectivity and freedom of thought to improve their comfort level in the course. Students are usually appreciative of a chance to communicate their feelings to the instructor.

To sum up, this “Teach” course and WordPress platform gave me a better understanding of linking my assignments with the course learning objectives. Each of the sub-categories including integration, exploration, resolution and triggering event works together to form the critical thinking process. Accessing each of these individually would bring clarity to my assignments and assessments at the same time.