Getting Started with Your Online Course

What do you want your students to know and be able to do at the end of this course?

Once you know that, you can begin to plan how they can show you to what extent they know and can do these things. You can then decide what content, practice, etc. they need to be able to show you that they know and can do these things. Letting your desired learning outcomes lead the course can be challenging if you've spent years taking and teaching courses put together based on covering content. Structuring a course based on the answer to the question of what the students should know and be able to do will more effectively help student know and be able to do these things because you're explicitly addressing and building around them.

While there are many different ways to organize your course. Once you choose your strategy, the best thing you can do for your students is to implement it as consistently as possible. Like in-person students who get in the habit of going to class at the same time and the same place every week, online students need to form those same habits to maintain consistent performance across the semester. Making sure that, as much as possible, assignments are due on the same day of the week and modules begin on the same day of the week goes a long way to providing structure.

If students can't find and use what they need in the course, they can't do what you are asking them to do or learn what you are asking them to learn. Usability refers to the ease with which an individual can navigate, understand, learn, and use something. In this case, the something is your course, and the individuals are your students. Ensuring that all parts of your class are in a logical order, consistently structured, easily findable, and visually uncluttered reduces student frustration and can improve motivation and learning.

We recommend organizing your course in weekly or bi-weekly Modules to provide a clear and consistent structure and improved findability. Using Modules also allows you to deactivate other tools such as Discussions, Assignments, Quizzes, Files, etc., giving students one place to find everything related to that module. A module overview page allows you to introduce the module, connect it with what has come before, and explain what they are to do that week. Linking to documents and other web pages in the overview as opposed to adding them as individual module elements reduces the length of your module and allows you to annotate each reference.

While being present throughout the course is very important, being visible and setting a welcoming tone at the beginning of the course is critical. For a student, whether in an in-person or online class, the beginning of a new semester can be both exciting to start fresh and frightening to not know what you're getting yourself into. Both novice and experienced online students can be confused, frustrated, and panicked entering a course site with no directions or explanations. It is critically important to begin the course by providing a personal welcome. When students login to your course for the first time they need to see something that orients them to where they are, makes them feel welcome, and provides the information they need to proceed with the course.

One of the first things you normally do in an in-person class is to introduce yourself. In an online class, your personal and course introductions are even more important as they are one of your students' first points of contact with you. Your video introduction lets them know there is a real, live faculty member actively teaching the course who is approachable and interested in their learning. Even in large classes, having students introduce themselves is recommended. When your enrollments top 50-60 you may want to break the class down into smaller groups. It's better for students to get to know some other people in the class rather than skipping introductions due to class size. Getting to know their fellow students is easy in casual hallway conversation before class or on break. Providing places for that social presence to begin and grow online is key to encouraging community.

Being present in your course is more than just responding to student emails and posting assignment feedback in a timely manner. It's you being you. It's you teaching, supporting, clarifying, occasionally redirecting, and just interacting with your students encouraging students to participate and deeply engage in the course content. Success in the online environment is directly related to how present and engaged both the instructor and the students are in the virtual classroom. Research has shown that

• instructor social presence helps students see their instructors as caring, helpful people,
• instructor immediacy behaviors such as timely responses, feedback, and working to develop a sense of community, are an important aspect of instructor presence, and
• clarity in directions and course requirements are one of the most important aspects of instructor presence from the student perspective

How your class is structured, how it looks, and how you actively participate creates the tone of the class. Incorporating content-related videos and presentations, content-related and instructional images, and an aesthetically pleasing visual design results in a more welcoming tone that enhances student engagement. Active instructor presence such as the timeliness of instructor responses in whole-class and small-group discussion forums also correlated with higher student engagement.

Active learning involves students doing things and thinking about the things they are doing. It shifts the focus of the class from an instructor providing information to students actively constructing their understanding and use of the information. It's an umbrella term for a wide variety of teaching and learning strategies where students actively engage with the course content, each other, and the instructor. Active learning activities provide students the opportunity to learn and practice with concepts and skills through "hands-on" activities, either individually or in small groups. For more on active learning online and several examples of strategies, visit the Toolkit of Active Learning Options for online teaching and learning from Gardner-Webb University's professional development resources.

Active learning isn't just about hands-on, application, or inquiry activities. It is also important to have students reflect on the meaning of their learning experience, individually or with others. There are many different ways they can do this, from journaling or blogging to a series of minute papers to a synchronous or asynchronous video or audio debrief individually or with a peer. Students who have not been encouraged or required to reflect on their learning before can find this activity challenging and works best with explicit prompts and instructor modeling.

It is important to get objective feedback on your course before opening it up to your students. This can be as simple as having a handful of people who are not familiar with your course (and preferably with only a student-level understanding of the content) read through the module overview pages and assignment instructions and perform a few common task. Seeing your course and materials from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with it provides a useful second set of eyes to help you see things you hadn't noticed before. You can observe your beta testers and debrief as you go or they can give you written notes and you can debrief after. Their insight will help you improve various aspects of usability, clarity, and completeness. It can also verify that

• your course home page provides sufficient instructions to get started with the course that are easy to understand and follow
• students can find what they need to find and do what they need to do
• the syllabus and other information is clear to people with a student-level understanding of the concepts
• there are clear and easy-to-find instructions for contacting both you and UITS Tech Support
• assignment and activity instructions include all the necessary steps or if there are gaps that require students to guess
• content pages, assignment instructions, etc. are written consistently in an active, 2nd-person voice and free of typos and grammar issues
• all the links in the content and instructions work, are in regular text - not URLs or file names, and include a description of what the link is to and why the student should follow it

Once you get feedback, review all of it together to see what concerns come up repeatedly. Address those first, along with any typos that were identified, and then work through the remaining feedback. Catching as many concerns as possible before opening the class to enrolled students will reduce issues throughout the semester.

For additional tips, see our Maintaining Your Online Course. For more depth, see the Online Course Development Basics ebook or fill out our consultation request form.

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