The Masterclass for Teaching Online is a two-week online course which is part of a series of professional development courses required for Faculty and Staff involved in online course development at USIU-Africa. USIU-Online adopted this course from Arizona State University in early 2023. To date, USIU Online has successfully conducted six cohorts of the Masterclass, led by certified trainers who are members of the USIU Online learning community. Funding for the course is provided by the Mastercard Scholar’s Program eLearning Initiative Workstream B. Over 100 faculty members and 20 non-teaching staff have completed the course so far, where the first cohort finished in February 2023.

Cohort 7 began on Thursday, April 4th, 2024, with 40 participants expected to successfully finish the course over the next two weeks. This fully-online course aims to impart online pedagogy and instructional design skills. The course runs from Blackboard LMS and is facilitated by the USIU-Africa eLearning team. Participants engage in activities using selected technologies, designed to enhance learner engagement and incorporate general online learning principles and strategies. Cohort 7 Instructors are Professor Henry Wambuii and Dr. Wanjira Kinuthia, both distinguished academics with extensive experience in learning design and online education pedagogy, who have previously served as Faculty Advisors in Workstream A of the Mastercard Scholars eLearning Initiative.