Designing a 'Best Practice' Online Course.

This paper is a summary of a "how to" workshop, focusing on design guidelines when moving from an onsite course to an online course. Three most basic considerations are content knowledge, pedagogical skill, and higher-order thinking dispositions. Transferring content to an online environment requires technological expertise, and facilitating growth in a student's knowledge base through interaction of literacies requires mindfulness. The workshop is intended for teachers of adult learners who are truly concerned with building thinking persons. The following principles of best practice learning are summarized: student-centered; experiential; holistic; authentic; expressive; reflective; social; collaborative; democratic; cognitive; developmental; constructivist; and challenging. A model to guide teachers in designing online courses to increase learning through improved teaching is presented. (MES)