Teaching online classes presents unique challenges and opportunities, but with over a decade of experience at the University of Central Florida and the University of Georgia, I\u2019ve developed strategies that make online education both effective and enriching for students. Here are my top suggestions for designing and delivering online courses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Embrace Repetition and Predictability<\/strong> 2. Make Modules the Unit of Organization<\/strong> 3. Don\u2019t Repeat Yourself<\/strong> 4. Build Your Course Like an Assembly Line<\/strong> 5. Lean Into the Advantages of Online Classes<\/strong> 6. Don\u2019t Treat an Online Class as a Digitized Lecture Hall<\/strong> By designing courses with these principles in mind, you can create online classes that not only meet the needs of your students but also leverage the strengths of the online medium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Teaching online classes presents unique challenges and opportunities, but with over a decade of experience at the University of Central Florida and the University of Georgia, I\u2019ve developed strategies that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teaching-and-learning","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poliscidata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Online students are often non-traditional learners with significant work or family commitments. A predictable course structure helps them stay on track. For example, consider having assignments due every Sunday night and starting new modules on Mondays. Consistency minimizes confusion and allows students to plan their schedules effectively. You want students to ponder the complexities and nuance of the course material, not the complexities and nuance of the course calendar. Your goal should be never having students ask when assignments are due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Strunk and White famously said, “Make the paragraph the unit of composition.” I say, make the module the unit of your course organization. Think of your course as a series of modules, each like a box containing that week’s content. Ideally, there should be one module per week, progressing in a logical sequence with approximately the same amount of content in each module. For regular semester teaching, I build 15 module courses (with two or three modules for content that is not subject-related content). For shorter terms, you may need to group some modules together or have students complete more than one module per week, but the principle remains the same: modules should structure and guide the learning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Save yourself time and headaches by centralizing assignment instructions and resources. For example, instead of writing quiz instructions for every quiz, create a single page with detailed instructions and link each quiz to it. Similarly, you can create one FAQ page and link many pages to it. This way, if updates are needed, you only have to make changes in one place, rather than editing multiple instances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Efficiency is key when building a course. Divide your class into modules and then tackle similar tasks for all modules at once. For example, create all discussions in one session, then move on to adding videos or assessments. Think of it as preparing 15 plates of food: you wouldn\u2019t finish one plate before starting the next\u2014you\u2019d line them up and work on each step across all plates. When I started working at UCF, they made new faculty take a design course with the goal of completing one course module. I already knew building one module at a time would be very inefficient so when I added type of content to one module, I added it to all 15 content modules. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You probably know that it’s better to sit down for home cooked meals prepared from fresh ingredients than it is to pick up fast food from a drive through window, so why do you do you pick up breakfast from a drive through on the way to your office? I’m not here to judge, I do it too. But let’s keep the sit-down meal vs. drive through experience in mind when it comes to teaching. While online classes might not replicate the intimacy of a small seminar, they offer advantages like flexibility, accessibility, scale, and affordability. Online education allows students to learn from anywhere and fit classes into their busy schedules. Embrace the relative advantages of online classes when teaching online rather than lamenting what\u2019s lost compared to traditional settings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A common pitfall is thinking of online classes as recordings of live lectures. An hour-long talking-head video will lose your students\u2019 attention quickly\u2014just try sitting through one yourself! Instead, leverage high-quality, concise online resources with professional production value. These materials are often more engaging and effective for learning than traditional lectures. A good online class is no more a recording of a live lecture than a movie is simply a videotaped play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n