Determine your time budget. If you are going to teach college classes online, it is essential to budget your time wisely. Although this is necessary for teaching lecture or seminar courses in the classroom as well, it can be even more important for online classes. You will be spending a considerable amount of time each day or each week answering student emails and communicating with your students online, so set a time budget and stick with it. If you stay proactive about administering your classes daily, fewer problems are likely to ensue later on.
Divide your course material up into manageable sections. Since your students are all using the same textbook, you should let your textbook serve as your guide in dividing the course material into smaller units. Use the natural divisions of the text to determine when you will give quizzes and exams. For instance, if you are teaching a 15-week course and you have a 15-chapter book, you can assign one chapter per week. If the book has three sections of five chapters within it, use these natural divisions to create three separate exams covering five chapters each.
Make your students take responsibility for their own education. Many professors and instructors feel as if they need to provide the students with all of the material they need for the course. Online college courses are, however, by nature, self-study courses. Students should be encouraged to take initiative and create study materials that prepare them for their exams. Rather than posting a study guide for the class, let them know that all of the material covered in your notes and in the textbook is fair game for examination purposes. Assign chapter summaries in order to force you students to learn to recognize, on their own, which material is most important for the course. You can also have them index the key terms and ideas by page number so that they can easily refer back to it during preparation for tests and exams.
Use audio and video media to enhance the course. Audio and video lectures can be helpful for students who are auditory or visual learners. These also help keep the course material from becoming exclusively delivered in print format, which can get monotonous. Students will generally appreciate the extra effort on your part and are likely to do better in the course with these various ways to reinforce their learning.
Incorporate various communication tools as part of your course. Many online platforms have discussion boards which, when utilized correctly, can enhance your students' online learning experience. Post essay assignments or discussion questions which the students must respond to as a way to further reinforce course material. Or have your students critically evaluate the posts of their classmates in order to teach them the art of writing reviews and critiques. Grade these assignments so your students take them as seriously as the rest of the course work. You should also provide some guidelines for writing reviews so that your students do not denigrate the coursework of their classmates; they should be able to respond in a constructive, tactful manner.