AEA PD Online Instructor Handbook

Welcome to AEA PD Online. Thank you for all you do for AEA PD Online. The purpose of this
handbook is to provide you with guidelines, policies, and procedures for teaching online.
It is divided into several sections based on where you are at in the process of teaching for AEA
PD Online.

To Become an AEA PD Online Instructor

Expectations of ALL AEA PD Online Instructors
Guidelines:
Before Your Online Class Begins
During Your Online Class
After Your Online Class Ends
Creating a New Course
Course Start and End Dates
Resources

AEA PD Online 2015


To

Become an AEA PD

Online

Instructor

1. To instruct for AEA PD Online, instructors must have a Masters degree.

2. Complete an online instructor vita at
https://prodev.aeapdonline.org/4dcgi/vita. It must be updated once every
5 years.
3. Complete the required coursework (3 OLLIE courses), or an equivalent, prior to or
within the first year of online teaching. AEA PD Online has aligned national standards in
the areas of online learning to the 8 Iowa Teaching Standards. Instructors must
demonstrate competency in these standards, either via completion of the OLLIE
coursework, through a mentored experience, or other demonstration of online teaching
competencies.
4. Complete a course proposal for approval. Once submitted, course proposals can take
2-4 weeks to process for license renewal or graduate credit.
5. Courses offered for graduate credit must be offered for all graduate partners--Drake,
Morningside, and Viterbo credit.
6. Once the course is approved, develop it in the LMS (Moodle) used by AEA PD Online.

Expectations of ALL AEA PD Online Instructors

Policies
1. Required Coursework for Instructors
All AEA PD Online Instructors are required to complete 3 of the OLLIE courses for
online instruction. The courses are: Technology for Online Instruction: Moodle; Online
Learning Instructional Design; Online Facilitation.
Current instructors are grandfathered in until Sept 1, 2016. If you have not completed
the OLLIE courses or another equivalent from a different University, you will no longer
be able to teach for us at that time.
2. 12 Hours Per Trimester
Instructors are limited to offering 12 credit hours per trimester. Our trimesters run
from Jan-Apr, May-Aug, and Sept-Dec. If you co-teach, the hours of your course
would count as half (so you and your co-teacher could offer 24 credits per trimester if
you desired).

AEA PD Online 2015

3. Course Enrollment

Enrollment for AEA PD Online courses is capped at 20 students. The minimum

enrollment for a class to be considered viable is 10 students. If a course has an
enrollment of 6-9 students, the instructor has the option to either move the start date of
the course to allow more time for students to enroll, teach the course with a lower
number of students for pay based on a per student basis, or cancel the course.
AEA PD Online will contact the instructor in case of the following:
Enrollment is between 0-9 students to discuss options
If there is a wait list, we will discuss options with you and make a decision about
the wait-listed students.
NOTE: Please DO NOT tell a student who personally contacts you that you will let them
in the course. Please direct them to AEA PD Online. Students must contact AEA PD
Online to see where they are on the waitlist.
4. 48 Hour Turnaround Policy
We want to recognize everyone for the great job you are doing providing customer
service to your students. The most important of our policies regarding customer service
is a 48-hour turnaround policy, where you get back to student requests with a 48hour time slot. Even if it is to say, I got your note, and I dont have an answer at the
moment, but Im working on it.
5. In-Class/Out-of-Class Hours
15 hours of in-class work per credit and 45 hours of total (in-class + out-of-class) per
credit is required on the course proposal. Instructors will need to be specific and show
an itemized list of activities and estimated hours for each. We have created a table that
will help itemize and count those hours automatically for you.
6. Letter Grade Policy
A graduate course is to be broken out into A/B/C/D/F. This can be as simple as saying
90 - 100% = A
80 - 90% = B (or pass)
70 - 80% = C
60 - 70% = D
Less than 60% = F
7. Submitting Final Grades
Final Grades must be submitted within 1-2 weeks after the course end date. Instructors
will NOT be paid for their services until final grades have been submitted.
8. Course Evaluation
All AEA PD Online Instructors are required to complete a yearly self-evaluation about
AEA PD Online 2015
3

their teaching practices. Courses will
be monitored by the License Renewal Coordinator
to help maintain quality of course content and student satisfaction. Instructors who are
deemed in-need-of-assistance will be placed on a course improvement plan and
assigned a mentor.

Guidelines:
Before Your Online Class Begins
1. Load content into the course shell. Update and check to ensure that all links are working
if you have taught the course previously.
2. Send a welcome email to your students before the start
the course. Include access information as well as the
Enrollment Key, your expectations and any other details
with to provide about the course. Include the link for
students who may need some support/assistance:
support@aeapdonline.org
3. Make the course available to students.

date of
you

4. Make frequent backups of the grades.

During Your Online Class

1. Instructors must deliver content, instead of simply linking out to content that exists
elsewhere on the web. This can be in the form of text-based lessons or
spoken/recorded lessons, but there has to be something that you are teaching in the
course.
2. Instructors must interact with students on a frequent basis within the course. This can
be done in different methods (announcements, forums, direct messaging, etc.), but this
is different than the lessons provided in bullet one. This is the instructor reacting to and
interacting with students as they converse in the course.
3. Instructors must be present in their course. This means logging in regularly and
spending a significant amount of time in the course.
4. Instructors also need to be providing feedback on assessments in the course. This
needs to be more than a simple check to say an assignment was completed (though,
that is certainly okay on some assignments). It should be more than a score it should
include written or spoken feedback.
5. Course content/activities must be consistent with the items that are listed the course
proposal/syllabus.

AEA PD Online 2015

6. Make frequent backup copies of the
grade book (as a security measure). Instructors
are responsible for keeping backup copies of their grade book. If the system
should crash, you would have a copy of the current grades to in order to restore the
grades.
7. Establish procedures for contacting the instructor, how to get assistance with technical
issues, how to submit assignments, as well as netiquette policies.

After Your Online Class Ends

1. Submit grades in the Instructor Center within 1-2 weeks after the end date of the
course. You will not receive payment for your services until after the grades have been
submitted.
2. Create an archive (backup) copy of your course and store on your own computer.
3. Review the course evaluations and make notes about changes you need to make for
teaching the course again. Complete the AEA PD Online Course Checklist. Use this
checklist to help guide you in making updates/revisions to your course.
4. Submit a course proposal for teaching the course again.
5. Reset the course for use again. Directions for how to reset the course in Moodle can be
found here: http://www.aeak12online.org/mod/page/view.php?id=102658

Creating a New Course

1.
2.
3.
4.

Determine the need for the course.

Discuss course development with one of the AEA PD Online consultants.
Create and submit a course proposal.
Once the course has been approved, continue with course development in the
LMS (Moodle).

Course Start and End Dates

Instructors determine the start and end dates of their courses. Use the following as the
recommended guideline for the length of a course.
For every in-class hour your course features, you must have one day for your course. In
other words, the minimum number of days a 1-credit course could be is 15 days (since
there are 15 in-class hours per credit), a 2-credit is 30 days, and 3-credit is 45 days.

AEA PD Online 2015


Resources

The following are a list of resources that may be beneficial as you build your course.

Teacher Help
Enroll yourself in the course located here:
http://www.aeak12online.org/course/view.php?id=1243
It has a wealth of information, tips suggestions, and tutorials about online
course building and facilitating. The enrollment key is: aeapdonline2015

Using Softchalk
Step-by-step lesson tutorials: http://softchalk.com/learn-more/lessontutorials/

Moodle Moments
This is a series of short video tutorials on specific features of using Moodle.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc2lPFVbgamwK6FANC832sgfo2Zofxr4I

AEA PD Online 2015