COURSE DESIGN TIPS
Conduct a PC Skills Pre-assessment
Provide a Class Tutorial: For learners new to the learning platform,
providing a class tutorial that highlights basic functionality and navigation
could be essential.
Send a
PERSONALIZED Video or PowerPoint Welcome Message
Create
a safe and respectful learning environment.
·
Encourage
exploration, action and reflection, as well as self-directed learning.
Utilize Biographies: In classes where the learner is part of a
group, it’s a good idea to utilize introductory biographies. I would also
consider optionally allowing the inclusion of pictures in the biography section
to make the class more personal and intimate.
·
Include an
instructor Biography
Provide Feedback & Be Responsiveness:
The instructor should provide the learner with feedback about all their projects
and there class interactions. Should a learner email the instructor, it is very
important to respond quickly. Here, the use of an e-marketing tool would come in
handy. By using an auto-responder, the learner would know that the message was
received and know when to expect a human response.
(Thanks to Sara Turansky for
the auto-response idea).
Encourage
student-instructor communication: Available methods include:
·
Student
Journals - weekly or at some other regular interval for the purposes of giving
feedback about the course, to provide suggestions or to air concerns.
·
"Minute Papers"
- A short written response to a particular lesson or topic. For example, "What
is the most significant thing you learned from this week's lesson?" (Thanks to
Sandra Clair for this idea.)
·
Email
·
Chat
·
Discussion
boards
·
The telephone
·
Face-to-face
meetings (if the learner is geographically close).
·
Free online
greeting cards
Provide a Panic Button:
By
providing a conspicuously positioned button, if a learner becomes lost or
confused he or she could click for help. The range of help would depend on the
platform established. It might generate an email to the instructor, or it might
send a message to a mentor on call or perhaps send out an S.O.S. to other
learners currently using the platform that may be able to help. (Thanks to Sara
Turansky for the basic “Panic Button” idea that I’m expanding on here.)
Provide Customized Content:
·
Conduct a
pre-assessment to identify the learners’ skills and knowledge in the topics to
be covered in the module.
o
Remediate if
necessary
o
Eliminate
unnecessary coursework
·
Conduct a
pre-assessment to profile the students’ learning styles and predisposition to
learning online.
o
Program the
system to utilize those learner preferences to customize the assignments to
align with those learner preferences.
·
Vary Project
Choices to accommodate learning modality preference
Increase Student-to-student Interaction:
·
Assign Team
Projects
·
Assign
Biographies
·
Encourage
peer-to-peer chat and email communication
Check
for Broken Links and That All Assigned Material is Assessable
·
Include a Clear
and Detailed Syllabus, including:
o
Instructor
contact information
o
Course
description
o
Course
Objectives
o
List of Units
with Objectives
o
Resources
o
List of
Recommended and Required Readings
o
Course calendar
o
Course
requirements
o
Evaluations
o
Grading
criteria
o
Learning tools
o
Links to class
site
o
FAQs
·
Require
students to write their own specific personal and professional goals for the
course, which become a contract for their own learning.
o
Share that goal
with his or her manager so that he or she can support the goal. (Disclose that
the goal will be shared in advance.)
Maintain the Learner’s interest and involvement
·
Develop
curriculum that involves all learning modalities.
o
Use Audio
Narration:
Listening can be more effective than reading and can make it easier to learn
(especially for the auditory learner).
o
Support with
Video and Visuals: Include and incorporate both still and moving images to break the text.
Showing how something works or modeling a behavior with a video clip can be
very effective.
·
Create dynamic,
INTERACTIVE training modules that utilize multimedia and technology in
meaningful ways.
·
Invite guest
speakers
·
Assign “real
world” or “intern” projects that animate theory.
·
Assign “expert”
interviews.
·
Facilitate
Debates: Have students take on provocative topics on class discussion boards.
(Thanks to Sandra Clair for this idea.)
·
Offer "Extra
credit" Assignments: Allow students to research or discover information
relavant to the class and share their findings with the class. I did this in
6701. After attending a SmartForce symposium, I reported my findings to the
class..
·
Use a wide
variety of activities that require higher-level thinking, problem solving,
creativity and the integration of learned skills or concepts.
·
Create
assessments that are dynamic and interactive. In addition to standard
true/false and multiple choice questions, use drag and drop, matching and
other methods of involvement.
·
When
repurposing existing curriculum originally designed for face-2-face,
instructor-led training, re-engineer the content so that it is engaging when
delivered online.
·
Ask yourself:
“What do I need to know before I can learn this?”
·
Connect new
information to prior knowledge.
Conduct a Course Evaluation
·
Exit interviews
·
Polling
·
Journals
·
Focus groups
Conduct Exit Interviews:
Try to determine why a student drops the course.
Provide Incentives: To encourage participation, incentives can be
highly effective. How to implement incentives can rely on the instructional
designers creativity, budget considerations, the target audience and a range of
other factors. Some examples might include:
·
For learners
who achieve a certain level of performance on unit assessments, they don’t
have to take the final.
·
Outstanding
achievers have their names added to the school’s/class “Hall of Fame”
·
For corporate
employees that need to learn product information, those that complete the
program successfully would be entered into a contest to win a prize provided
by the vendor whose product they are learning to sell.
·
An employee who
has the highest level on some online learning performance criteria gets to go
home early with pay a number a days in the following month.
Keep
materials and resources up-to-date
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
TIP
Position your course
·
Who is your
learner?
·
What do they
want?
·
What do they
expect to see?
·
By answering
these questions, you will position your course correctly. You will understand
better what to include, how to present the information, and how to convey the
messages.
Plan a Structure
·
Give your
course a structure – a beginning, middle and an end. Begin the course by
telling the user what he/she is going to learn, teach that in the middle, then
use the evaluation to prove that they learned it at the end.
·
If you are
developing a course series or a module of courses, then define how your course
fits into the larger learning experience.
Keep your Modules/Units Short
·
Users can get
bored or give up if the course is too long. It's better to have a greater
number of shorter modules/units, ideally between 15-45 minutes.
State your Objectives Up Front
·
Make it clear
to the learner what he/she is going to learn or be able to do by the end of
the course or module. If you can make the information relevant to the learner
up front, you’ll achieve greater buy-in.
Be Clear and Brief
·
Clarity comes
from knowing your subject, and knowing your course objectives. In an online
learning context, all your written words become important. You can't present
100 slides and have a 30 minutes unit/module. Your words are necessarily
limited with distance learning. Be sure that each one of your written words is
important in conveying your message. Say enough that you don’t loose the point
you are trying to convey, but as briefly as possible.
·
Maintain
Balance
o
After
developing the course content, ask yourself the following questions:
§
Is it clear?
§
Is it specific?
§
Does it convey
the message?
§
Is it
appropriate?
§
Will my target
audience understand it?
§
Does the course
reach its objectives?
Appropriate Language
·
Because your
choice of words is important, the language you choose is equally important.
Keep it consistent throughout the course or module. More importantly, will an
"ordinary person" understand it? Is it clear and does it get across the main
points you want to make? Some "Do's" and Don'ts" include:
o
Don't be too
technical unless your target audience requires you to be so
o
Don't use
language that may offend (avoid religious or racial statements)
o
Do include
language that's appropriate for your audience
o
Do include a
glossary to clarify terms
Include Assessments
·
Intersperse
your program with assessments at appropriate intervals.
·
Vary the type
of questions/assessments: Mix and match your question types and their style.
Include multiple-choice, true/false, exact answer, drag and drop questions,
and matching.
Provide Remediation and Reassessment
·
When learners
miss questions, direct their learning path so that they re-learn the
information and re-assess it.
Recap
·
At the end of
your module, always recap - tell the learner what has been learned, and what
he/she now knows as a result of completing the program.
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