The online learning experience is different than learning in the classroom, though it doesn鈥檛 have to be less than. Teaching online allows you opportunities to deliver content or information in ways that are more widely participatory and interactive than lectures.  Since we know that simply moving your face-to-face course materials online can be frustratingly ineffective for you and your students, let鈥檚 look at some ways that we can create online classes that give our online student population a great learning experience!

It is important to remember that online course creation takes a bit more planning on the front end, but a bit less during the semester (so all of your semester time can be spent on the amazing stuff鈥搇ike communicating with students). 

10 Tips for Online Course Success

  1. Show up and teach: an online class (no matter how well-designed) cannot teach itself鈥搒tudents depend on their instructor to actively engage in their learning process and be regularly present 
  2. Practice eClassroom management: be proactive in managing submissions/missed deadlines, communicating timely feedback and reminders for upcoming due dates
  3. Create dependable patterns of course flow: create material-open days and common due days that students can calendar on.
  4. Have a back-up plan: have a strategy in place for communicating unexpected changes with students (ie鈥搘ill you group email them, or use the LMS announcement feature?)
  5. Respond to inquiries: prioritize responding to student inquiries, and be sure to clearly communicate communication timelines (ie鈥�24 or 48 business hours)
  6. Communicate mindfully: it is really easy to fall into the miscommunication trap when emailing with students鈥搊nline students don鈥檛 know our personalities (and can鈥檛 see non-verbal cues) and may misunderstand if they are already struggling anyway.  Be sure to communicate clearly and concisely with students.
  7. Prioritize timely feedback: grade assignments and provide feedback in a timely manner, to encourage & maintain forward progress (not providing grades or feedback until the end of the semester is unacceptable for students and for 91桃色 academic leadership).
  8. Create secure learning environments: use the University鈥檚 supported LMS and choose learning tools that have been vetted by Information Security
  9. Quality is key: instructors are ultimately responsible for the quality of the learning experience (including course materials, ease of access, course design strategies, etc), call your CTL ID to determine what quality assurance options may fit your need for self-assessment
  10. Check your connection: just as we expect students to regularly check email and commit to having that same expectation is required for any online instructor.

From

Balancing cognitive load

One of the great freedoms AND challenges of creating online courses is that we have the tremendous freedom to offer our online students a plethora of resources, extensions, choices, and explanations.  But how much is too much?  Nick Monohan, in  compares the (well-intended) share frenzy with the multi-headed Hydra of Greek myth, in that our courses can tend to grow over time, as we discover great new resources, extensions, and connections鈥揵ut entering into a cycle of adding without adjusting can be the equivalent (for students), of trying to take a drink of water from a firehose.  At best, it could encourage student disengagement and/or confusion over what content is relevant to the course, and at worse, it could leave students overwhelmed and negatively affect retention.  So how do we start to tackle the too much content beast?

Let鈥檚 look at some easy-to-implement strategies:

  • Look back at the learning outcomes & assessments鈥揹oes the content clearly link back to the learning/outcome expectations?  Allow yourself to let go of materials/content that does not directly inform those outcomes
  • Use the 鈥淐ourse Resources鈥� section of your course, and create folders/modules as needed, to organize all additional resources, help aides, and/or extensions (so that they can be clearly identified as supplemental)
  • Wherever possible, break up long paragraph text into bullet points, checklists, or chunk longer bits of information into individual module pages
  • Differentiate your learning materials! For more guidance on this, check out our creating course materials page
  • Images and graphics are content too!  Choose these additions wisely, make them relevant, and consider the consumption of them in the time students are expected to spend on the weekly materials.

The Art of Discussion

The benefits of collaborative learning are many (as you may have already read on our  page), and our online student population can also reap some of these benefits, with planning and designing for collaboration success.  How we build collaborative eLearning spaces has theoretical roots in the learning theories of  and 鈥搇et鈥檚 look at some of the most common (and easy to implement) strategies:

1. Peer discussions: since peer learning is a great retention strategy, creating opportunities for students to discuss connections, draw conclusions, ask questions and actively engage with each other is a great start (whether this is done in the LMS discussion board area, or in another forum).  For the greatest success rate, be sure to communicate explicitly what the expectations of acceptable participation are, and be sure to focus discussions on a specific learning outcome. To hear , click play below:

https://teachinginhighered.com/?powerpress_embed=13660-tihe_podcast&powerpress_player=mediaelement-audio

2. Peer assessment & feedback: allowing students (in small or large groups) to assess or provide feedback for each other provides several benefits for the peer assessor and the student being assessed.  For the latter, submitting a project or product for the group simulates real-world assessment situations (like publishing online鈥揵ut in the closed space of the course), the assessor is able to practice applying the parameters of a successful product (which can/should inform their process) and the entire group benefits from observing the multiplicity of ways in which each individual in the group os solving the problem or applying the concept.

3. Collaborative group activities: creating activities to be completed in a small working group can benefit students, by allowing for a smaller, more community-centric peer group that more reserved students may thrive in.  Remember when creating virtual small groups, that the best practices for F2F groups, like norm building and project structure, still apply鈥搕here should also be time reserved to communicating (or determining) how, when and how often the small group should be in active contact.

Design Better Online Discussions

Connecting with students online: minimizing transactional distance

Student communication and 鈥榯ouch-points鈥� are just as important (if not more so) with online delivery than in F2F courses. Without the physical and verbal cues that come with an in-person class meeting, it is exceedingly difficult to take the pulse of each student and his or her response to course content.

So what does/can student engagement look like in the online class? To start, let鈥檚 look at potential barriers.  Built-in barriers that could challenge student engagement in the online course could be:

Social or Emotional

Online students come from across the spectrum of very experienced to not-at-all-experienced with online learning.  Students in the latter category may have a level of nervousness about class content, as well as nervousness about how they can connect with each other online鈥搕he lack of supportive social cues they receive in the classroom that encourages participation is not there, so it is the responsibility of the instructor to build participation norms, assess potential issues and draw out students who may be struggling.  .

Let鈥檚 look at some strategies:

  1. Make contact before the course begins and include an ice-breaking/introductory task for students to complete in week 1.  Encourage picture sharing.
  2. Use video to introduce yourself.
  3. Have students share their difficulties or challenges with the class and/or content鈥攕ometimes they may feel they are the only ones struggling with a specific concept or assignment.
  4. Make yourself available for students who are struggling to connect with. Reach out individually where appropriate to make sure struggling students feel heard.
  5. Show presence on an ongoing basis by adding semester-relevant resources, new announcement communications that address current challenges and popping into student-led discussion forums to support and/or provide student success resources.
  6. Provide clear, timely and frequent feedback!

Organizational or Technical

Since the online learner has the challenge of learning new content AND the added layer of utilizing the technology required to be successful in the course, it is important to reduce barriers where ever possible鈥搘e can start to reduce some organizational and technical barriers by:

  1. Be sure to share information on connecting with the IT:Helpdesk for connection issues.
  2. Use the 鈥淩equired Texts and Materials鈥� section of the syllabus to clearly communicate any mandatory programs, equipment, and technical requirements students will need to be successful in class鈥揳nd share students guides and help links early.
  3. When creating potentially new-tech assignments, be sure to create a smaller assignment that is lower stakes, to allow students to practice with the program/application/hardware before a larger or higher-stakes assignment is due
  4. Create virtual office-hour windows of time that students can drop into.
  5. With group projects, help students problem solve issues with connecting across time zones.
  6. Prioritize ease-of-use with course navigation, and chunk content into smaller bits, to allow students to easily stop and come back to content without searching.

Creating interactive spaces online with Google tools

Using Brightspace to reach online learners

Digital icebreakers & more!

Use engagement tools like  to create virtual icebreakers, mind-maps in , in an interesting and engaging way! If you are interested in getting a Padlet account, contact Heather!

Building digital empathy

Creating safe spaces to take academic risks is necessary to grow intellectually, but where to start?  Check out this 

Video-based Discussions

Incorporate opportunities for students to communicate with each other and you, as they would in real life.  Video discussions and tools like Video Note or   are embeddable in Brightspace and a great resource to !  Also, !

Digital learning theory PD

Hungry for more intro to online learning?  Dr Tony Bate鈥檚 eBook,  Teaching in the Digital Age (2019) is available free online: