Principles of Online Writing Instruction

10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching: Best Practices in Distance Education

Penn State University’s Faculty Focus describes 10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching: Best Practices in Distance Education

  1. Show up and Teach
  2. Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies
  3. Establish Patterns of Course Activities
  4. Plan for the Unplanned
  5. Response Requested and Expected
  6. Think Before You Write
  7. Help Maintain Forward Progress
  8. Safe and Secures
  9. Quality Counts
  10. (Double) Click a Mile on My Connection
The NCTE Committee on Online Writing Instruction offers these Principles and Effective Practices for Teaching Writing in Online and Hybrid Spaces:
  1. Online writing instruction should be universally inclusive and accessible.
  2. An online writing course should focus on writing and not on technology orientation or teaching students how to use learning and other technologies.
  3. Appropriate composition teaching/learning strategies should be developed for the unique features of the online instructional environment.
  4. Appropriate onsite composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies should be migrated and adapted to the online instructional environment.
  5. Online writing teachers should retain reasonable control over their own content and/or techniques for conveying, teaching, and assessing their students’ writing in their OWCs.
  6. Alternative, self-paced, or experimental OWI models should be subject to the same principles of pedagogical soundness, teacher/designer preparation, and oversight detailed in this document.
  7. Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) for OWI programs and their online writing teachers should receive appropriate OWI-focused training, professional development, and assessment for evaluation and promotion purposes.
  8. Online writing teachers should receive fair and equitable compensation for their work.
  9. OWCs should be capped responsibly at 20 students per course with 15 being a preferable number.
  10. Students should be prepared by the institution and their teachers for the unique technological and pedagogical components of OWI.
  11. Online writing teachers and their institutions should develop personalized and interpersonal online communication to foster student success.
  12. Institutions should foster teacher satisfaction in online writing courses as rigorously as they do for student and programmatic success.
  13. OWI students should be provided support through online/digital media as a primary resource; they should have access to onsite support components as a secondary set of resources.
  14. Online writing lab administrators and tutors should undergo selection, training, and ongoing professional development activities that match the environment in which they will work.
  15. OWI/OWL administrators and teachers/tutors should be committed to ongoing research into their programs and courses as well as the very principles in this document.
Todd Taylor’s Ten Commandments for Computer and Composition

These principles come from Todd Taylor’s “Ten Commandments for Computers and Composition” in The Allyn and Bacon Sourcebook for Writing Program Administration. Eds. Ward and Carpenter. New York: Longman, 2002.

Meant to be “ideological guides” rather than nitty-gritty technical advice about the kinds of programs or technology to use (since information changes too rapidly and depends on institutional context), these principles can be used when designing a program’s use of computers and instructional technologies.

  1. Keep people first
  2. Build from program principles
  3. Start simple
  4. Invest heavily in hands-on instructor training
  5. Revise strategies for instructing students
  6. Consultant with others
  7. Expect the crash
  8. Consider access
  9. Be critical of technology
  10. Use technology as a lever for positive change

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