Dr Emilio Morales recently delivered a webinar about online learning delivery for the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA). The AAEA are an American professional association for those interested in the fields of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economics. Emilio is a member of the Australian equivalent of the professional association; the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES), where members from the Australian association and American collaborate and support each other.

“I had the chance to visit the University of Wyoming a couple of years ago to work on a research study after my colleague Associate Professor Mariah Ehmke visited UNE the year before. Mariah is part of AAEA and she knew the work I was doing on online teaching, so she recommended me as one of the speakers of the Webinar ‘AAEA Online Teaching Resources and Best Practices.’

The main points I discussed were about the challenges to teaching online in an engaging manner and how I have been improving my strategies as I got more experience with different student cohorts. My presentation was part of the webinar that was offered to AAEA members, mostly across the United States.

I recommended to my colleagues to know their students, as across units we have different students, some are working and studying part time, while others have family responsibilities that constrain their time availability. Therefore, a key point is online teaching sessions and resources should be in line with the characteristics of the student cohort. Second, I encouraged them to develop an online teaching platform that is engaging for students, so they feel motivated and appreciate their progress learning in the unit. Finally, I recommended them to explore new alternatives for interaction and assessment, as they are in big need under the current scenario faced by all universities due to the restrictions related to the health risk of COVID-19.

During my presentation, I highlighted the high level of expertise on online teaching that all academics have at UNE, given the location of our university and the fact that we have a big proportion of our students in different parts of Australia, especially in big cities, and even some students overseas. I also stressed the excellent culture to improve our online teaching that we have at UNE, that is a big difference respect to other universities that do not put substantive attention and resources to excel on this area. At UNE, we have great support from Educational Developers, IT and Learning Media Producers to innovate on our Moodle websites, a clear example of that support is demonstrated in the Moodle sites of my units ECON106/406 “Economics for Management” and ECON334/434 “Risk Management in Agribusiness”. Finally, I highlighted the School, Faculty and University encourage the efforts on online learning innovation by recognising our achievements through Teaching Awards, which demonstrates the encouraging Organizational Culture of excellence in Online Teaching at UNE.”

Well done Emilio on your efforts within the AARES and providing some of your expertise at an international level.

Webinar of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) “AAEA Online Teaching Resources and Best Practices”, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqVtcrfKMzk&feature=youtu.be