The Taylor Institute supports instructors who are new to teaching online or who wish to try new approaches to teaching online.
Support
Teaching Online Program
The Teaching Online Program (TOP) is a 6-week, immersive program for instructors who want to get started or enhance their online teaching. TOP is taught entirely online using a variety of technologies and strategies to facilitate participant learning through interactions, content delivery, and assignments. TOP is designed to give participants practical skills and knowledge in both developing and teaching an online course in higher education.
Learning technologies workshops
The Taylor Institute offers workshops on using learning technologies in online classes, including Desire2Learn and Adobe Connect. Search for upcoming workshop on the Taylor Institute’s workshops calendar.
Course design
The Taylor Institute’s course design program supports instructors who are designing or modifying a course, and applies to courses taught online as well as face-to-face. The course design program is a hands-on workshop that introduces participants to a variety of concepts that are critical to course design.
Resources
Elearn site
The elearn site has a large number of resources for using online teaching tools. PDF guides and videos guide instructors through setting up, using and troubleshooting Desire2Learn and Adobe Connect. Support resources are categorized by topic and sorted from introductory guides to experimenting with more advanced tools.
Teaching online videos
This two-part video series was prepared by two members of the Teaching Academy, who received the University of Calgary Teaching Award for teaching in online environments. The first video introduces a number of communications tools for teaching online and different ways to use them. The second looks at student participation and how to encourage discussion and interaction in an online class.
Teaching online award
The University of Calgary Teaching Awards program includes an award for teaching in online environments. This award recognizes the teaching excellence of full-time academic staff who have developed and taught two or more different courses in blended or fully online environments, or integrated online learning environments as a significant element of two or more courses.
