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There are several widely-accepted rubrics (Quality Matters, the ION one in Illinois, etc.), but in my opinion, they focus on course design, not on teaching the course. When I was at Black Hawk College, we created a Best Practices for Exemplary Online Teaching set of standards based on the Chickering and Gamson's "7 Principles of Good Practice for Undergraduate Education" meta-analysis. Individual best practices for online teaching were pulled from the literature and listed as possibilities under each of the 7 principles, and an 8th was added with some of the course design elements not already mentioned in the first 7. In other words, we created a local document that could assist faculty in doing self-assessment, peer evaluations of each other's courses, and potentially institutional review of online courses. However, our instrument was not used for institutional assessment because it was not approved as part of the faculty [union] contract. It is important for a document like this to be shared with the faculty ahead of time so that they know how their courses are going to be evaluated. I also think it is helpful to have several people evaluate various aspects of online courses, such as someone who is an expert in online education who can evaluate the learning experiences and course design elements of the course, someone from the faculty member's department who can evaluate the quality and accuracy of the course content, as well as the administrator whose job it is to evaluate teaching. If the institution uses a type of rubric or assessment document when evaluating face-to-face teaching, it needs to be vetted by online experts to determine if it emphasizes appropriate, comparable variables in the online environment. For example, if activities to promote student engagement is on that form...what does that look like online? Not all administrators or faculty who have not taught online would know what to look for as indicators of student engagement.

The Online Faculty Competency Certification program is intended for future and existing online teachers. The program is designed to help faculty members become proficient in the use of Blackboard and to become effective facilitators in the online environment.

2 students write notes on board before quiz.

Introverts. Who are they and how do we ensure they thrive in active learning classrooms? If you have ever come to the midterm point of the semester and graded a stellar paper of a student whose name you don't recognize and who has never raised her hand in class, you may have just identified an introvert in your classroom. In every classroom there are a significant proportion of students who would identify themselves as introverts, if they understood what that term meant. Originally conceived by Carl Jung, the concepts of introversion and extroversion have been helpful ways of understanding basic differences in human temperament (Jung, 1970). Often confused with shyness, introversion is an aspect of personality which affects how we engage in social activity and our preferences for learning. Unlike extroverts, who typically are energized by social interaction, introverts can find connecting with large groups of unfamiliar people exhausting. They may have excellent social skills and enjoy meaningful friendships, but are quite happy in their own company.

FERPA is one of the most misunderstood regulations in education. It is commonly assumed that FERPA requires all student coursework to be kept private at all times, and thus prevents the use of social media in the classroom, but this is wrong.

Designing a Blended course: Here is a three-step process: Establish clear learning goals for the topic. Design activities to help students meet the learning goals. Sort the activities into two categories: online and face-to-face. Very short article that might be useful in CELT's blended classes.

When designing a blended learning course, the instructor should remember to use the online portion as an opportunity to create more exciting face-to-face interactions.

Improved Ability to Understand Nuance: Students indicated that they were better able to understand the instructor's intent. Students also indicated that instructor encouragement and emphasis were clearer.Increased Involvement: Students felt less isolated in the online environment and were more motivated to participate when hearing their instructor's voice.Increased Content Retention: Students reported that they retained audio feedback better than text feedback. Interestingly, they also reported that they retained the course content to which the feedback was related better than with text feedback. These self-reported findings were supported by the fact that students incorporated into their final projects three times as much audio feedback as text feedback.Increased Instructor Caring: 

a collection of instructional strategies that illustrate how the principles of positive psychology might be applied in the classroom. ( - See more at: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/two-activities-that-influence-the-climate-for-learning/#sthash.ABCJKqB0.dpuf