Foundations of Teaching Online (Summer 2026)

June 1 – August 2, 2026

(No class/Break: June 29 – July 5, 2026)

Long Course

The Foundations of Teaching Online long course will help faculty build well-designed online experiences for their students, and deans evaluate online experiences from a student perspective. Participants will learn about quality standards in online course design and the basic principles of backwards design and alignment. In addition, they will be introduced to strategies that create a welcoming, accessible, and collaborative environment where all learners can succeed.

The class is split into two groups: a faculty track and a dean track.

While some course experiences will be together, many assignments will be targeted to different campus roles.

Course Learning Objectives – Faculty Track

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct a course schedule with learning objective(s) for each module.
• Create a partial alignment map with your learning objective(s), assessment tool, and learning activities.
• Apply strategies to support equity in your online course.
• Use academic technology tools to build an effective online course.
• Create accessible course materials such as documents, webpages, and media.

Suggested Audience 

Minnesota State faculty, instructional designers, technologists, and other instructional support roles.

Estimated Time Commitment 

Most participants are able to complete this course by committing 4-6 hours per week. 

Reflect on your Professional Development 

As you progress through this course, please consider how you can use the assignments as a way to highlight your work on your Professional Development Plan. Consider sharing your work with your leadership team. 

Course Location 

This course is hosted and facilitated using shared D2L Brightspace instance of Minnesota State called, MnSite. 

Machine generated captions are available in real-time for all Zoom events, however human generated CART (live caption) service and ASL interpretation can be requested with advanced notice (2 weeks) to make the event more accessible.

Please, let us know of any disability-related accommodations that will facilitate your full participation.