onlinelearningcoursedesign

Image from:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Students_working_on_computers_at_the_University_of_Monterrey.jpg Online learning has come a long way from the old days of inserting curriculum and text into an LMS and calling it a course. Now, online instructors need to keep current with LMS technology and continually work to improve their courses. This translates to learning about authoring tools, audio and video production, and, in some cases, coding. What often gets lost (in my opinion) is the incorporation of simple principles of usability. What I have found in my 16 years of teaching online is that students experience a good deal of stress, and that stress is magnified when they have to deal with a course that encompasses poor usability. So, what is usabilty and how can we incorporate it into our courses? Here is a definition from:  http://www.usability.gov/basics/index.html "Usability refers to how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their ...

Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2018WDSprint_paper.jpg Here is a small project in which I was asked to apply an LMS style guide I developed to an existing online course. The goal was to decrease cognitive load by applying some simple principles of usability to this course. Let's begin with the opening page of the course. This is what students see when they first access the course. The LMS is laid out according to usability guidelines. The home page contains the course title (not shown) and navigation menu in an F-shaped pattern. The opening text welcomes the students to class. The instructions are as follows "Please read the course Syllabus first. It contains information about course expectations, supplies and evaluation standards. NOTE: Some assignments have due dates and require group (team) work, and some courses vary in length. Dedication and time management skills are required to complete this course. You must motivate yoursel...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Several_empty_red_pens.jpg Giving Student Feedback Many years ago, back when I started teaching online, I had a problem that puzzled me – students didn't take kindly to my feedback. They knew that my message was good for their improvement, but they just hated it – the feedback was from hell. A few of the students even mentioned having stomach pains when they received my weekly emails. Basically, my message was too negative and difficult to accept. Were these students way too sensitive or … God forbid…was I at fault here? Was I that harsh? Maybe…I just didn't like the idea that so many students hated my feedback, and I felt compelled to fix this situation. After some research and a lot of trial and error changing the feedback messages into a more palatable version, my problem was resolved! Now, students email me, thanking me for the constructive feedback they received. What a change! Here are my suggestions to improve y...

My daughter is about half-way through one of her online college courses and I finally had a chance to take a look. Unfortunately, this course was not the best example of a course that incorporates usability. The course was in Blackboard (which is a good LMS) but suffered from poor design. For example, when I asked which assignments were due next week, she began a complex explanation of how some of the information was hidden in course pages, while other information was buried in the 15 page syllabus, and still other information had to be obtained by emailing the instructor.  All of this clicking and searching could have been avoided by incorporating some simple principles of usability. Unfortunately, I have seen many many courses that could use a bit of help in this area. This article is a primer on usability for online course design.  What is Usability? Usability, as its name implies, has to do with how easy it is to use an interface. It is a scienc...

Like a lot of you, I will be spending a good chunk of time updating and cleaning up my online courses this summer. This is an ongoing process, and it seems like this job is never done. For me, the more time I spend on prep now, the less time I will need to spend during the semester, when I hope to spend my time grading and engaging students. Media and content development is a continuous process as well, and there always seems to be something to improve upon. My goals for this summer are to update some lab content, double check my videos for captioning issues, and exploring the use of speech recognition for producing student feedback in assessments. I'll let you know how it works out. I teach several Anatomy and Physiology courses with online lab components. These are some of the more complex courses in my college, and I developed them from scratch. We were among the first few colleges to develop online A&P courses, and I must say at times it has been a real challeng...