Online courses have been around for many years and many higher education institutions reported online education was critical to their long term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2013).  With this change, research about higher education and K-12 online learning issues has grow. Mishra & Juwah (2006) write about the need for teachers to improve their ability to manage time and improve skills to facilitate online discussions as their roles, in these environments, shift “from ‘sage on the stage’ to ‘guide on the side’.” (p. 167) Regarding online interaction, the instructor needs to encourage participation and create a positive learning environment through assignments and activities that help model the interaction (Thormann, 2012). Online interaction also implies the existence of an online learning community consisting of a group of people with similar goals that communicate and develop a sense of connectedness and trust through collaboration (Thormann & Zimmerman, 2012). Examination of student’s perceptions of what instructors should offer in online courses seems to be consistent in various contexts. Lu (2011) found that in a class with multi-cultural enrollment that student’s perception was that instructors needed to have an affective and differentiating role along with pedagogical, managerial and technical role. The research in this article is based on student perception of what elements they think are key in providing a successful online course and in particular facilitating it and building community. The students that participated in the study represented a nationwide sample of convenience of K-12 educators in the United States, earning a Master’s degree in Educational Technology. The major difference between the students in this study and others was that the topic of the course they were enrolled in was how to teach online (Online Teaching: Introduction to Design and Practice). Students spent an entire course studying, thinking about and discussing many aspects of online teaching. They were in the business of developing what they thought are best practices based on taking this course and on their experiences in both face-to-face and online courses. The elements mentioned in this article can be important to the business of online learning because students who are immersed in thinking about online teaching and learning can provide useful guidelines for current and future online instructors. It may be useful for instructors to conduct a self-assessment to see if they meet the standards shared by these teachers in training. Our research question was: What did graduate students who were enrolled in an online course about teaching online find most valuable about online moderation and community building? As educators the goal is to help students think deeply about content and potentially use this information to guide their future thoughts and actions. However, the online course environment is different from a face-to-face classroom since instructors need to consciously encourage students to be receptive to the course content.

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