Administered by Loyola’s Office of Online Learning, the Online Teaching Courses (OTC) are designed to prepare faculty for teaching and delivering high-quality online, hybrid, and blended courses. Faculty who take the OTC can expect to gain more knowledge, experience, and confidence in:  

• Using online learning technologies to deliver course materials and engage students
• Best practices for designing or revising a course for delivery in online environments 
• Creating online-ready activities and assignments and providing students with feedback 
• Applying teaching strategies such as active learning and Ignatian Pedagogy in online environments  
• Making online courses accessible to all student populations  

The OTCs are comprised of three courses – OTC: Design, OTC: Facilitate, and OTC: Innovate. All courses are fully online and led by an instructor from the Office of Online Learning. Faculty may choose the courses that best fit their learning needs and may take any course synchronously or asynchronously. Below you will find descriptions of each course, the dates they run, and links to register. Please email the Office of Online Learning at online@luc.edu with any questions. 

OTC: Design 

How do you take an existing course and adapt it for online delivery? How do you design a new course for the online environment? What does a high-quality online course look like? In Online Teaching Course: Design, you will learn how to design a new online course, redesign a face-to-face course for online delivery, or revise an online course to improve overall quality. OTC: Design helps you plan "on paper" a fantastic online course for your students.

This course will prepare you to:  

• plan the engagement of online students; 
• use backward course design as a strategy to design your online course; 
• infuse Ignatian Pedagogy into the design of your online course; 
• plan group work and active learning activities suitable for an online classroom; 
• design effective feedback in the online environment; 
• create and select accessible materials for online courses;  
• assemble an online course syllabus  
• and much more!   

OTC: Design can be completed asynchronously during these four weeks.

The Online Teaching Courses will be paused for Summer 2023.

OTC: Facilitate  

How is teaching online different from teaching in the classroom? How do you manage and interact with students you never see in person? How do you effectively use technology to create a successful online learning environment? In Online Teaching Course: Facilitate  we will cover how to successfully build and deliver an online course at Loyola University Chicago.     

In this course, you will learn:   

• the roles and responsibilities of an online instructor before, during, and after the course;   
• effective use of instructional technologies such as Sakai, Zoom, Panopto, and VoiceThread;   
• methods for communicating with students and creating an online learning community;   
• techniques for leading engaging online learning activities;   
• multiple approaches for assessing your students’ learning in the online environment;   
• strategies for providing your students with frequent and substantive feedback;   
• and much more!    

OTC: Facilitate can be completed asynchronously during these four weeks.

Select this link to register for the Spring '23 session of OTC: Facilitate, which runs from 3/27/23 to 4/24/23. 

NEW! OTC: Innovate  

How can we make our online courses more engaging and effective for our students? How can we give students more control over – and responsibility for – their learning, while still maintaining standards and achieving outcomes? How can we leverage online technology to engage students in new ways of learning? In OTC: Innovate, faculty will explore innovative course design strategies proven to increase learning and engagement, then will redesign a course (or portion of a course) with the close assistance of OOL Instructional Designers and peers. Faculty will leave OTC: Innovate with a custom design plan and materials needed to run the course in the future. 

In OTC: Innovate, you will learn to:  

• identify the names and structures of various innovative course design strategies 
• meet existing course goals and outcomes while using new, innovative course plans 
• manage student and instructor roles and expectations in novel course designs 
• implement and manage innovative course approaches in an online environment 
• create new materials for a redesigned online course 
• use Loyola’s suite of technology tools to facilitate innovative online course designs 
• plan engaging and interactive learning materials for online delivery 

Online Teaching Course: Innovate is an 8-week course intended for faculty with previous online teaching experience and who have completed OTC: Design and OTC: Facilitate. 

The Online Teaching Courses will be paused for Summer 2023.

OTC: Alumni Sites

Instructors who complete any of the OTC Courses will be enrolled in OTC: Alumni sites once the courses are over. These sites will give OTC completers continued access to the resources from the OTC courses as well as any updates made to the courses in the future.

Sakai Training

To learn more about the specific functions of the Sakai LMS and how to use them, you can set up a consultation with the Instructional Technologies and Research Support (ITRS) team. Use the link below to schedule a consultation.

Visit the ITRS consultation scheduling page.

ITRS also offers verious workshops about Sakai and other instructional technologies. Visit their Workshops page to learn more and register.