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Presentation Best Practices Guide
Many online courses focus on written communication skills, featuring discussion posts, papers, and case study reports among other assignments. However, oral communication and presentation skills are just as integral to students’ success, and, indeed, many employers list presenting as one of the most desirable skills for job candidates (Suhadi et al., 2021).
Updating Your Syllabus
Over time, you may want to make changes to the syllabus of a course. The syllabus documents are saved in the “Files” area (1) of the course. To preserve the integrity of the document, the Word document is located in the “Instructor Only” folder (3) and the PDF is found in the “Documents” folder (2) so it is visible to students.
Managing Files in Canvas
Students and instructors alike benefit from consistent file management in online courses. Ensuring that students can readily locate and access the files they need serves to promote engagement and completion of course requirements. Similarly, consistent file management helps instructors to navigate through and update materials efficiently and to avoid introducing file-related errors. This post outlines recommendations and key considerations for optimizing file management within your online course. While recommendations and considerations related to Canvas-specific functionality are threaded throughout, you will also find broadly applicable tips pertinent to multiple learning management systems.
Written Assignment Best Practices Guide
Formal writing requires sustained focus on content and close attention to detail. For these reasons, written assignments can be an effective assessment tool in graduate courses when they are thoughtfully and purposefully designed. This guide provides recommendations for faculty who are looking to harness the pedagogical benefits of written assignments.
Group Work Best Practices Guide
Group work in online courses can facilitate student learning in unique ways. In particular, group assignments can provide students with opportunities to engage in authentic tasks and develop collaborative skills applicable to their future careers. Williams, Duray, and Reddy (2006) argue that team learning stimulates student thinking at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, including application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Group projects can serve a variety of different purposes across a wide range of academic programs and subjects. Additionally, group projects can foster interaction and community building amongst students, which can be especially valuable in an asynchronous online classroom (Martin & Bolliger, 2018).
Game-Based Learning Experiences
Game-based learning (GBL) is a learning experience, or set of learning experiences, delivered through gameplay or game-like activities with defined learning outcomes. GBL is often confused with gamification, which is the application of game elements to a non-gaming experience. GBL engages students cognitively, emotionally, behaviorally, and socioculturally (Plass et al., 2015). Many factors should be considered when designing GBL, including narrative, player positioning, and interactive design (Dickey, 2005).
Leveraging White Space
Good page design requires balance between white space, or negative space, and positive space. Positive space encompasses all aspects and types of content; on a course page, these objects might include an introductory paragraph, video thumbnail, infographic, callout box, opinion poll, or provocative quotation. Relative to these course components, white space might seem like a nice-to-have. Because it promotes clarity and reduces distortion, however, white space is just as important to instructional page design as content.
Discussion Best Practices Guide
Discussions are an impactful way to build engagement and discourse in asynchronous online courses. When properly designed, discussions can encompass the three pillars of engagement: student-content, student-student, and student-instructor. Asynchronous discussions allow students time to reflect prior to participating, which can lead to deeper insights and richer discourse. Moreover, when participating in discussions, students have the opportunity to collaborate with others, participate in an online learning community, and gain insights from others’ unique experiences and perspectives (Ransdell, Borror & Su, 2018). Facilitating multiple types of engagement in an online course can improve student motivation, satisfaction, and achievement (Dailey-Hebert, 2018).
Encouraging Effective Discussions
Online forums are valuable learning tools: they merit the time and thought it takes to create them, but they must be well-designed to be effective for instructors and students. Baker and Ahlegren (2022) note that instructors may start out with the best of intentions and a desire to achieve multiple goals, such as promoting critical thinking and fostering a community of authentic learners. However, discussion boards often become just another writing assignment, a missed opportunity to “elicit debate, inspire meaningful ideas, and fully engage . . . learner[s]” (Blakely et al., 2022, p. 3). When this happens, students can view discussions as transactional, not transformative (p. 3).