Instructional Leadership, emphasis: K-12 School Leadership (MEd)
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Faculty course offerings


Our instructional designers work collaboratively to develop online instruction courses, deliver workshops, and host webinars to support the tools and teaching practices that help faculty continue to develop high-quality teaching and learning opportunities.

NAU Online and Innovative Educational Initiatives is pleased to announce two micro-credential series.

Foundations in Effective Online Teaching: micro-certificate series

Teaching Online @NAU

This asynchronous self-paced course (two to three hour expected completion time) is designed to help get you started teaching online for Northern Arizona University, and to serve as a refresher (and perhaps provide some new ideas) for those who have been teaching online for some time. It is divided into five modules and is devoted to evidence-based best practices for online teaching. Those who complete the entire course will receive a Certificate of Completion which has been a requirement to teach online at NAU since fall 2019. All new faculty will be auto-enrolled and the course should appear in their non-credit course list area of Canvas.

Teaching Online @NAU: Best Practices

This asynchronous facilitated online workshop (five to seven days, 15-hour expected commitment) provides an overview of key frameworks for effective online instruction and introduces Community of Inquiry (CoI) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The course also includes online teaching advice and strategies from experienced online instructors on effective ways to build this CoI in your own classes. This class is part of a sequence of three foundational courses for online instructors at NAU that lead to a micro-credential in effective online teaching.

Current Trends in Engagement Strategies: intermediate micro-certificate series

Fundamentals in Leveraging Google Workspace for Education & Microsoft 365: MS Teams for Student Engagement

This asynchronous self-paced online-facilitated workshop (five to seven days, approximately 15-hour expected commitment) will explore engagement strategies in Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, with an emphasis on Microsoft Teams. Each of these collaborative technologies are powerful tool sets that can be leveraged for educational purposes. The workshop includes an implementation plan as part of the assessment, and is offered throughout the academic year.

Collaboration for Learning in Online Environments: an Experiential Workshop

This facilitated asynchronous online workshop (five to seven days, approximately 15-hour expected commitment) will focus on organizing effective and engaging collaboration activities in an online environment. Topics include benefits, best practices, and pedagogical considerations for active collaboration; establishing communication channels and group expectations; collaborative technology; peer review; and collaborative grading. This workshop is offered throughout the academic year.

Alternative Assessments to Promote Engagement

This facilitated asynchronous self-paced online workshop (five to seven days, approximately 15-hour expected commitment) will assist you in designing and evaluating alternative assessments. Participants will have the opportunity to learn using authentic example assessments from NAU courses. Topics include universal and inclusive assessment design; alignment of course objectives, activities, and assessments; scoring guides for feedback and grading; and implementation of technologies. The workshop includes an implementation plan as part of the assessment, and is offered throughout the academic year.

A professor reading a book at her desk.

NAU Online Facilitated Course Build workshop

An online-facilitated workshop to assist faculty in the process of building or updating an online course. Faculty are provided with mentoring, technical support, and research-supported design recommendations.