Online learning (OL) courses help faculty improve skills for online teaching and service. The courses are open to all current Penn State faculty, staff, and graduate students and are offered in a self-directed or instructor-led format. Self-directed courses can be completed at your own pace. Instructor-led courses are facilitated by Penn State faculty and simulate the online student experience.
All self-guided courses must be completed within 60 days of registering and no later than December 31.
OL 2600.01 Accessible Online Course Authoring
This course equips course authors and instructors with knowledge about accessible web practices and course design that can be applied when creating and adding content in Canvas. Beyond teaching standard accessibility best practices for authoring in Canvas, this course also aims to provide a broader perspective on World Campus students and why implementing these practices matters for them.
OL 3000.01 Supporting Accommodations for Online Learners
At some point in your teaching, you’ll be notified that a student needs an accommodation. Often, this may confront you with a question or dilemma requiring action from you, perhaps well before you fully understand all of the issues, protocols, or possible solutions. To simulate such situations and prepare you to handle them, this course forgoes the standard online course framework and instead presents a scenario that situates you in an accommodation-related problem at the beginning of each module.
OL 3100.01 Teaching the Adult Learner
According to the American Council on Education, more than 50 percent of students are adult learners. These numbers continue to grow as these individuals seek to advance in their career, obtain a degree to stay competitive, retrain for a new position, or pursue a new career. This course will teach you how to differentiate the characteristics and needs of traditional students (18- to 22-year-olds) from those of adult learners in order to help you best teach them.
OL 3200.01 Serving Military-Connected Students
Most World Campus instructors will encounter students with a connection to the U.S. Armed Forces: currently serving members, former members, retirees, or dependents of a service member. This course will introduce you to military-connected students at Penn State and teach you how to best support them. It is designed as a mission-oriented experience to provide you with a glimpse into the life of an active-duty service member.
OL 3600.01 Universal Design for Learning
In this introductory course on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), you will be presented with rationales and research that support designing learning experiences with UDL in mind, read scenarios about applications of UDL, and reflect on ways you can change your current practice. This course isn’t a checklist for achieving UDL — UDL isn’t a course status; it’s an ideal that guides instructor practice and course design. Note Although accessibility is an integral part of UDL, this course will not teach you how to design an accessible course. However, it will help you make your course more accessible, engaging, and flexible.
OL 3800.01 Excellence in Academic Advising
This course examines the foundations of academic advising as essential components of student success and retention in higher education. Topics include the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of academic advising; the Penn State curriculum and student record systems; advising skills, including advising diverse student populations; the legal and ethical issues in academic advising; and advising technology at Penn State.
OL 3875.01 Excellence in Academic Advising: Career Advising
Although career advising isn’t the primary role of an academic adviser, holistic academic advising involves more than just course selection. Students routinely ask academic advisers career-related questions. The purpose of this course is to inform the career conversations you have with students and support you in identifying suitable referrals to career professionals and resources at Penn State.
Course registration closes two weeks before the start date for instructor-led courses. All course work should be completed within the designated course timeline. Courses begin on the first Monday of the designated month. If that date falls on a national or university holiday, participants will be notified of the start date.
May 2024
OL 3400.01 Online Course Design
When: 05/06/2024 - 06/03/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
This course was designed for instructors with minimal learning design experience. It will help you to develop an approach to online course design that employs Penn State Quality Assurance e-Learning Design Standards and Quality Matters Standards to promote effective and engaging learning experiences. Ideally, this course will prepare you for the development of a new, fully online course. Or perhaps you want to redesign or edit an online course you have already taught. In either case, this course will be useful to those working on their own or in partnership with an instructional designer.
June 2024
OL 2000.01 Essentials of Online Teaching
When: 06/03/2024 - 07/08/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
OL 2000 covers techniques and theories designed to help you feel more comfortable and confident in the online classroom. Even if you don’t have online teaching experience, you probably have teaching experiences you can transfer to the online learning environment. Participants who have experience teaching online will share tips and tricks with new online instructors, enriching the learning experience for everyone. Topics include the online learner, the learning environment, instructional strategies, giving feedback, and teaching as a professional practice.
OL 2200.01: Assessment of Online Learners
When: 06/03/2024 - 07/01/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
This course goes deeper into the topic of assessing student learning than OL 2000 did. The higher education community is increasingly committed to creating learning-centered environments in which faculty are actively involved in helping students succeed. So assessment of student learning is essential in understanding and contributing to their academic achievement. In this course, we extend beyond traditional ways of assessing student work, such as tests and quizzes, and explore several other assessment types.
OL 2300.01 Teamwork in Online Teaching and Learning
When: 06/03/2024 - 07/01/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
This course is designed to help you create a team assignment for your class. You and other participants will learn from each other through discussions, and you’ll create your own team assessments and receive feedback on them.
OL 2450.01: Integrating Open Educational Resources into Your Course
When: 06/03/2024 - 07/01/2024
Time Commitment: 2-5 hours/week
OL2450 provides participants with the tools, resources, and background knowledge needed to integrate open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy practices into their courses. In this instructor-led course you will articulate the values and strengths of open education, navigate OER repositories in order to identify materials you can integrate into your course, reflect on open pedagogical practices, and connect with Penn State open education support and resources.
August 2024
OL 2000.01 Essentials of Online Teaching
When: 08/05/2024 - 09/09/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
OL 2000 covers techniques and theories designed to help you feel more comfortable and confident in the online classroom. Even if you don’t have online teaching experience, you probably have teaching experiences you can transfer to the online learning environment. Participants who have experience teaching online will share tips and tricks with new online instructors, enriching the learning experience for everyone. Topics include the online learner, the learning environment, instructional strategies, giving feedback, and teaching as a professional practice.
OL 2150.01 Canvas Hands On
When: 08/05/2024 - 09/02/2024
Time Commitment: 2-3 hours/week
In this course you will complete important operations needed to prepare a Canvas course, add content to it, manage interactions within it, and use some advanced features. By the end of the course, you will have the technical skills necessary to prepare, develop, and teach a course in Canvas. This course focuses on the competencies necessary to operate fluently in Canvas. Best practices in online teaching are presented, but you will be assessed only on technical competencies in Canvas.
September 2024
OL 3400.01 Online Course Design
When: 09/02/2024 - 09/30/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
This course was designed for instructors with minimal learning design experience. It will help you to develop an approach to online course design that employs Penn State Quality Assurance e-Learning Design Standards and Quality Matters Standards to promote effective and engaging learning experiences. Ideally, this course will prepare you for the development of a new, fully online course. Or perhaps you want to redesign or edit an online course you have already taught. In either case, this course will be useful to those working on their own or in partnership with an instructional designer.
October 2024
OL 2000.01 Essentials of Online Teaching
When: 10/07/2024 - 11/11/2024
Time Commitment: 3-5 hours/week
OL 2000 covers techniques and theories designed to help you feel more comfortable and confident in the online classroom. Even if you don’t have online teaching experience, you probably have teaching experiences you can transfer to the online learning environment. Participants who have experience teaching online will share tips and tricks with new online instructors, enriching the learning experience for everyone. Topics include the online learner, the learning environment, instructional strategies, giving feedback, and teaching as a professional practice.
OL 2150.01 Canvas Hands On
When: 10/07/2024 - 11/04/2024
Time Commitment: 2-3 hours/week
In this course you will complete important operations needed to prepare a Canvas course, add content to it, manage interactions within it, and use some advanced features. By the end of the course, you will have the technical skills necessary to prepare, develop, and teach a course in Canvas. This course focuses on the competencies necessary to operate fluently in Canvas. Best practices in online teaching are presented, but you will be assessed only on technical competencies in Canvas.
OL 2450.01: Integrating Open Educational Resources into Your Course
When: 10/07/2024 - 11/04/2024
Time Commitment: 2-5 hours/week
OL2450 provides participants with the tools, resources, and background knowledge needed to integrate open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy practices into their courses. In this instructor-led course you will articulate the values and strengths of open education, navigate OER repositories in order to identify materials you can integrate into your course, reflect on open pedagogical practices, and connect with Penn State open education support and resources.
For planning purposes, all instructor-led courses are listed with the months they are typically available.
OL 2000: Essentials of Online TeachingOffered: March, April, June, August, October
OL 2050: Essentials of Online Teaching for Graduate StudentsOffered: May, September
OL 2150: Canvas Hands OnOffered: March, August, October
OL 2200: Assessment of Online LearnersOffered: February, June
OL 2300: Teamwork in Online Teaching and LearningOffered: March, June
OL 2450: Integrating Open Educational Resources into Your CourseOffered: February, June, October
OL 3300: Teaching the International StudentOffered: February
OL 3400: Online Course DesignOffered: May, September
OL 3500: Gamification in Online Teaching and LearningOffered: March
OL 3825: Excellence in Academic Advising: Under-Resourced Students, Part IOffered: February, August
OL 3850: Excellence in Academic Advising: Under-Resourced Students, Part IIOffered: April, October