What is Online Learning?

In a traditional classroom, you often learn by listening, reading, writing, and doing other activities
designed by your instructor. Online courses are different because you are not in the same location as
your instructor or the other students. In fact, you probably will never meet your instructor or fellow
students in person.

Attending an Online Class

In online courses, students "attend" class by visiting the class web pages. They complete
assignments according to the class schedule. Students communicate with the instructor and
classmates using e-mail and online discussion forums.

This class format is very flexible for busy schedules. Students

can often log on to the course at any time of the day (or night).
Computer skills and determination are necessary to be
successful. Students need keyboarding skills and must be able to
write so that others can understand.

Interaction and Feedback

Online students may have more contact with their fellow students
online than they would in the regular classroom. There are many
ways for students to interact online: discussion boards, e-mail,
group activities, etc. It can be fun to meet students. It can also be
a great way to broaden your learning experience.

Students may also receive more personal feedback than they

would in a traditional classroom. Your fellow students might read
and respond to your work. Your instructor might give you more
comments (both formal and informal).

2） What are the key factors for making an online course effective?
Answer: When we talk about online courses, it is essential to distinguish
what type of online courses we are considering. The big dividing line is
between credit-bearing online courses offered as part of a degree program
and noncredit online courses that result in a certificate or other
nontraditional credential.
In general, although this is changing, credit-bearing online courses tend to
mirror the size and costs of residential (face-to-face) courses. Noncredit
online courses can enroll many more learners (sometimes in the hundreds
of thousands, but usually much less) and are often (although not always)
considerably less expensive.
For either online course scenario, credit-bearing or noncredit, what is most
important is that the design of the online course achieves its goals. To
judge success, we need to know what job the learner is hiring that course
to accomplish. These goals will be different between and within various
credit-bearing and noncredit online courses.
If I had to pick one factor that drives online courses' success, I would say
engagement. If a learner is not engaged in the course, their fellow learners,
and the educator leading the course, then the learning will not occur.

3）How do you ensure the quality of online courses?

A: To the question of "how do you ensure the quality of online courses," my
answer is always the same: How do you ensure the quality of face-to-face
courses? If I had to point to any single trend that has raised the quality of
teaching and learning in higher education over the past two decades, my
nomination would be online education.
Online learning has served the largely unrecognized purpose of providing
the broadest and most impact educator development program ever
conceived. In traditional online programs, faculty work closely with a team
of nonfaculty educators to develop and teach courses. These nonfaculty
educators include instructional designers, librarians, media educators,
assessment experts and others.
While it is undoubtedly true that every college or university has not been
able to invest in a team of nonfaculty educators to collaborate with
professors to develop online courses, I do think that this team approach is
a hallmark of quality online programs. The development within colleges and
universities of core competencies around learning science and instructional
design is one of the reasons why I'm so concerned when schools
outsource these competencies to online program management (OPM)
providers.
In answering this question, I've intentionally used the language of
traditional online courses. We need to keep in mind that what higher
education has been doing during COVID-19 is not online education but
remote education. Remote courses have not had near the level of time,
resources or attention that traditional online programs at most schools
receive.