Course design is planning that instructors do before they enter the classroom. During this process, instructors reflect on their goals for student learning, activities and readings to engage students, and how to know if students have achieved their goals. This planning is reflected in the syllabus.
Teaching online requires instructors not only to have a knowledge of appropriate tools to accomplish their goals but also insight into how to adapt their pedagogy to work effectively in an online context. These resources are intended to help faculty plan for online instruction.
Active Learning Online
Engaging students actively during class time, whether face-to-face or online, synchronous or asynchronous, helps motivate and support them and provides them with practice and timely feedback in a community of learners. Numerous research studies attest to the effectiveness of active learning approaches in fostering student learning, persistence, and success.
Research-Based Principles of Active Learning
- Allows processing time
- Provides feedback
- Encourages learning from peers
- Practices skills
- Moves information to long-term memory
Resources
- Linda Hodges’ IDEA paper on Ten Research-Based Steps for Effective Group Work
- Edutopia article about encouraging engagement without cameras
Motivating Students Online
Motivation is key to students’ engagement in our courses, their persistence in the face of difficulties, and their overall success. Instructors can play an important and powerful role in helping motivate students in their classes by drawing on ideas in the rich research base in the field.
Research-Based Ideas for Motivating Students Online
- Cultivate social relatedness and students’ sense of belonging by communicating with students frequently and using active learning approaches
- Support students’ ability to achieve mastery, e.g., be transparent in your goals and expectations for students, sequence assignments to allow early opportunities for success, and explicitly foster students’ self-efficacy and growth mindset
- Provide opportunities for student autonomy and choice and encourage students to set goals for their learning
Resources
- “Motivating Students” from Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology by Michelle Miller (Available as an ebook through the AOK library).
- Chapter 5, “Motivating Elements: Course Policies, Communications, Assessments, and More,” in Online Teaching at Its Best by Linda Nilson and Ludwika Goodson, 2017 (Available as an ebook through the AOK library).
Building Community Online
Informal check-ins with students about remote instruction reveal that they often struggle to connect with other students in the online environment. Faculty, too, can seem less approachable online. Thus, taking time to intentionally build community in virtual courses can be essential in helping students persist and succeed.
Research-Based Ideas for Building Community Online
- Create a welcome that allows students to see you and your class
- Explain why it’s important to create a classroom community
- Cultivate a real, human presence in class and demonstrate care and support
- Share personal and professional stories
- Show up to class and communicate frequently with introductions, reminder, and recaps
- Create activities that promote peer-to-peer interaction
- Develop multi-modal skills: integrate chat and use breakouts
- Design and teach for cultural inclusion
- Facilitate interactions by limiting lecture time
Resources
- Engaging with Students through Short, Informal Videos (Educause)
- Fostering Social Presence in the Online Classroom: Helping Students Meet Affective Learning Objectives, ILA Intersections, 2018.
- Teaching to Connect: Community-Building Strategies for the Virtual Classroom, Online Learning, 2019.
- Emotions in Online Teaching: A Powerful Tool for Helping Online Students Engage, Persist, and Succeed, Faculty Focus, 2020.
Providing Effective Feedback Online
How can you manage students’ need for timely, meaningful, and effective feedback in your online classes? How can you use feedback to motivate students? Chapter 5: “Giving Feedback” from Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby with James Lang (Available as an ebook through the AOK library) discusses research-tested ways to integrate feedback into your schedule, be creative with virtual office hours, streamline grading with technology, and use media to offer meaningful comments.
Resources
Additional Resources
As you consider how to design your online courses, please consider the following additional resources:
- Request a consultation through the FDC by emailing fdc@umbc.edu or any FDC staff member. All consultations are confidential and formative.
- Register for upcoming FDC programs on the FDC myUMBC page.