Part 2 in our series on planning your course structure in design. No matter your subject matter, audience, or level of expertise, a course must be carefully plotted out to achieve its purpose successfully.
In Part 1, we introduced the eight categories of Course Structure and Design that are integral to planning your online course and broke down the first three categories:
â 1. Course Format
â 2. Technology
â 3. Communication & Support
Congratulations! You've made it to Part 2. In today's blog, we're tackling the next two categories:
â 4. Content Delivery
â 5. Assessment Strategy
6. Development Plan
7. Implementation Plan
8. Evaluation Plan
The final three will be covered in next week's blog, Part 3 (so stay tuned!)
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Remember, if you want a detailed, interactive look at these categories and other helpful course planning tips and tricks, pre-register for the first set of courses in the new C&T Academy. It's free if you sign up today!
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4. Content Delivery
What?
The various ways in which to deliver your course content to students.
While this sounds like an obvious step, it can end up being deceptively complicatedâhow you deliver your course content depends heavily on the decisions you made for the first three categories: your course format, technology, and communication & support. The decisions you made then will inform what is available and viable for and supportive of your content delivery methods.
Another important factor in determining your content delivery method is its level of accessibility.
Below, let's break down our examples into the two main course format options, as out of the three prior categories covered in Part 1, your course format will have the most significant impact on your content delivery. We'll further organize them into seven main categories. Each of the seven categories details some of the ways that particular content can be delivered in either an asynchronous or synchronous course format.
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Synchronous
â Lecture
Live video conferences and interactive presentations.
â Reading
Virtual textbooks, handouts, and other reading materials, ebooks, LMS pages.
â Audio/visual
Live video conferences, videos, audio, images.
â Demonstration
Live video conferences, shared whiteboards.
â Discussion
Live chats, peer group discussions, discussion boards, polling apps.
â Practice
Live question and answer feedback forums, quizzes, activity sheets, group collaboration and projects.
â Teaching Others
Live video conferences, discussions, and group work.
Asynchronous
â Lecture
Pre-recorded and produced videos and presentations.
â Reading
Virtual textbooks, eBooks, LMS pages.
â Audio/visual
Pre-recorded video conferences, videos, audio, images.
â Demonstration
Pre-recorded and produced videos, LMS pages, and presentations.
â Discussion
Discussion boards.
â Practice
Quiz items with automated and immediate feedback, scenarios and simulations.
â Teaching Others
Scenarios and simulations.
Why?
Your Content Delivery method will have the most direct impact on student learning than any other course element, as it determines, well, how your content is conveyed to your students (and thus influences how they interact with and understand it).
Additionally, the level of accessibility your content delivery method allows for will directly impact your student enrollment, as it affects who can take your courses. A good rule of thumb is: the more accessible your course is, the more people can take itâand the more successful it will be.
Imagine the following scenarios:
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â Misaligned with Steps 1-3
You want to engage with your students in live discussions, but you chose an asynchronous course format that doesn't allow for all of your students to access crucial content.
You've chosen content delivery methods that are very interactive but are more complex as a result. However, your LMS isn't advanced enough to support content delivery at that level, so you must rework a large portion of your course content to deliver it within your technology's framework.
Your want to offer live question and answer feedback forums in your synchronous course, but your communication and support framework doesn't allow for content to be delivered that way.
â Misaligned with Audience Needs
Data shows that the typical student that enrolls in a particular online course does better in lessons that focus on teaching othersâhowever, that content delivery method only makes up a small portion of the overall course.
â Inaccessible
A portion of your audience needs the option to download text versions of videos, but you don't offer that delivery method.
5. Assessment Strategy
What?
Assessment strategies are the methods with which you assess your course.
There are three main assessment strategies to cover: formative assessments, summative assessments, and confirmative assessments.
Formative assessments occur as the course is being taught and measure students' satisfaction and whether course goals and learning objectives are on track to being met.
Summative assessments occur at the conclusion of a course (or module, chapter, or phase of a course) and measure what students got out of the course, what they learned, and if the course goals and learning objectives were met.
Confirmative assessments occur after the course has been in use for some time and assess the relevancy, accuracy, and importance of your course through feedback and data points collected from previous students and iterations of the course.
Below, let's break down our examples into the two main course format options, as, similar to content delivery, out of the three prior categories covered in Part 1, your course format will have the most significant impact on your assessment strategies.
We'll further organize assessment examples into two* of the three main categories discussed above. Both categories detail assessment strategies that can be used in synchronous or asynchronous courses. Both categories detail assessment strategies that can be used in synchronous or asynchronous courses.
*Since confirmative assessments occur regardless of the content format, and utilize data points from formative and summative assessments of past courses, they do not need to be counted below.
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Synchronous
â Formative Assessments
Live teacher-student check-ins, discussions, and feedback sessions.
Live self-assessment and self-reflective evaluations.
Live activity sheets.
Live quizzes (including pop quizzes) and tests.
Live peer topic discussions and grading.
Live discussion boards.
Live polling.
â Summative Assessments
Live midterms and exams (including oral exams).
Live written papers.
Live final projects.
Asynchronous
â Formative Assessments
Teacher-student check-ins and feedback via email/other non-instantaneous methods.
Offline student self-assessments and self-reflective evaluations.
Offline activity sheets (non-collaborative).
Offline quizzes and tests.
Offline discussion boards.
Surveys.
â Summative Assessments
Midterms and exams.
Written papers.
Final projects.
Why?
There's no improvement without assessment. A comprehensive Assessment Strategy is crucial to developing an effective course and for measuring the achievement, progression, and satisfaction of your studentsâall of which will determine the overall success of your course.
Imagine the following scenarios:
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â Formative Assessment
Students are frustrated that they aren't reaching their achievement milestones, but you're unable to tell what parts of the course aren't working because you don't have an ongoing student evaluation assessment strategy.
â Summative Assessment
You want to get a sense of how your students liked your teaching methods, particularly your content delivery methods, but you don't have an assessment strategy in place for after they complete the course.
â Confirmative Assessment
The time has come to determine if your course should continue on or be retired. You're hoping to provide proof that the course is still relevant and has a high level of effectiveness, but because you didn't employ any assessment strategies during the structure and design planning of your course, you can't gather enough data to prove your point.
Part 2 Conclusion
That concludes the What-Why breakdown of the first three categories. Stayed tuned for the same breakdown of our next three categories in Part 3: (6) Development Plan, (7) Implementation Plan, and (8) Evaluation Plan.