Many instructors have the mindset that there are set things that they must know, or be able to do, in order to teach a class online or in a classroom setting. This type of mindset can often times be a barrier, and therefore needs to be forgotten, in order to successfully teach a course.
Work outside of your comfort zone.
Do not always stick to what you are most comfortable with when creating your course on an eLearning platform. Creating content online allows you, as the author, to easily edit anything you need to change within a course, so why not try something new and out of the box?
Don’t let a textbook run the course for you.
With an online course you also need to forget about using the textbook as the main guide for the course. It is best to use PowerPoints, videos, etc. to create your online course with select information from the book. This gives you complete control over the course creativity. Don’t diminish the book in its entirety, just highlight the information that is most relevant to the course and let them to refer back to it if necessary.
Forget controlling everything in the course.
Sometimes it is best to let go of the reins, so to speak. You need to trust that your course content will support itself and students will be able to use a higher level of thinking throughout the course.
It can seem like something is missing when choosing to ‘forget’ certain things that we are so used to seeing in a course and have it be successful. But forgetting these few things allows you to think outside of the box and allows the student to be even more successful.