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The Southern Regional Education Board, Educational Technology Cooperative (USA) has published a set of standards for quality online teaching. The publication, funded by the BellSouth Foundation, examines what qualifications are needed to be a quality online teacher and outlines specific standards for academic preparation, content knowledge, online skills and delivery, and more.

The standards are based on the assumption that quality online teaching reflects the same attributes of any effective teaching: knowing your subject, knowing how to teach it, knowing your students, staying up to date in their subject area, and manage and monitor students’ academic progress to ensure success.

But the standards also explore the specific qualifications needed to be an effective online teacher, the changing attributes of today’s students, new time-management requirements, and effective written communication skills. The standards related to three key categories are:

Academic Preparation

• The teacher meets the professional teaching standards established by a state licensing agency or the teacher has academic credentials in the field in which he or she is teaching.

Content Knowledge, Skills, and Temperament for Instructional Technology

• The teacher has the prerequisite technology skills to teach online.

Online Teaching and Learning Methodology, Management, Knowledge, Skills, and Delivery

• The teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.
• The teacher provides online leadership in a manner that promotes success through regular feedback, prompt response, and clear expectations.
• The teacher models and guides behavior related to technology use.
• The teacher has experienced online learning from the perspective of a student.
• The teacher understands and is responsive to students with special needs in the online classroom.
• The teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that assure validity and reliability of instruments and procedures.
• The teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of learning goals.
• The teacher demonstrates competencies in using data and findings from assessments and other data sources to modify instructional methods and content and to guide student learning.
• The teacher demonstrates frequent and effective strategies that enable both teacher and students to complete self- and pre-assessments.

Educational Technology Cooperative. (2006, August). Standards for Quality Online Teaching. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Education Board.

Download a copy of the SREB Standards.

Or visit the Southern Regional Education Board website.

Contributed by Chip Donohue

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