Since there's been some interest lately from people looking to break-in to the world of online teaching, I thought it would be useful and fun to start a thread about some non-credit (and therefore relatively inexpensive) online teaching training programs. Here are a few to get started, feel free to add to it, or provide feedback if you've completed any of them. Duke University - The most expensive of the bunch, but $400 isn't bad to get Duke into your resume. University of California-Irvine Extension - This a specialization through Coursera, the whole program is 5 items (4 courses and a capstone), you can take one, all, or a mix. If you take them all, it comes out to around $250-300. Again, not bad for a brand name like UCI. Washington State University - The cheapest of them all, it's designed for WSU faculty, but anyone can take it for a $25 fee (it's free for WSU faculty).
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professional Certificate in Online Education - Offered Fall, Summer, Spring: $1295
Central Michigan University $249 non-credit, $350 for one graduate credit. University of Wisconsin-Parkside $495 University of Illinois System
Rutgers University 4 course sequence, $100 per course. Montana State University - Fundamentals of Online Instruction and Advanced Online Instruction $375 per course. Quality Matters Online Learning $200 for subscribers, $300 non-subscribers.
I actually took the Central Michigan University, and the experience was terrible. It was very disorganized and not a good experience. Hopefully they improved it, as I provided feedback before I ended the program.
Hi Bruce, I attended the program this past April. The class is four weeks long--which I felt was not enough to gain substantial experience. There was group work, and not enough people to consist of a meaningful group. For example, I signed up the first week for my group topic assignment. I ended up being the only member in my group. Last I recall, a group consist of more than one person.
Great post! Thanks for this. I read through most of the programs. Just FYI, a few of these prices have gone up. Central Michigan University - w/ 1 graduate credit, $375 (plus $50 admission fee if not already a student) - Non-Credit option, $295 Rutgers University - $100 per class, total of $400 for all four (this price only applies to Rutgers faculty/staff/current grad students) - $300 per class, total of $1200 for all four (this price is for everybody else) I went ahead and signed up for the $25 class with Washington State University. I'll probably do another program later, but I figure this is a low-threat, small investment to get me started. I'll let you know how it goes.
I actually enrolled in the Central Michigan University certificate program and did not like the course whatsoever. It was not user friendly and there were so little students enrolled that it was not meaningful. I dropped it because of the overall experience and lack of communication from the required assignments. For example, I had to do group work assignments, with me being the only person in the group. It didn't make any sense to me. I took this in early 2016, when I was about to finish my first master's degree.
