Search
There are 18 results.
Tag
Tag
All (125)
Active Learning (4)
Activities (4)
Alt Text (2)
Analytics (4)
Animations (1)
Assessments (7)
Asynchrony (6)
Authentic Activities (2)
Backwards Design (2)
Belonging (3)
Canvas (10)
Case Studies (2)
Collaboration (5)
Color Contrast (2)
Communication (9)
Community (7)
Content Creation (12)
Copyright (2)
Course Maintenance (5)
Course Materials (7)
Course Preparation (6)
Discussions (5)
Diversity (5)
Equity (2)
Faculty Presence (3)
Faculty Support (3)
Feedback (8)
Formative Assessments (6)
Game-Based Learning (2)
Gamification (1)
Generative AI (2)
Grading (6)
Group Work (2)
Hyperlinks (1)
Images (3)
Inclusion (6)
Infographics (2)
Learning Objectives (3)
Multimodality (7)
Page Design (2)
Peer Review (1)
Podcasts (1)
PowerPoint (2)
Presentations (2)
Qualitative courses (1)
Quantitative courses (1)
Representation (1)
Revising (2)
Rubrics (4)
Scaffolding (1)
Screen Readers (1)
Social Media (2)
Summative Assessments (1)
Synchrony (8)
Third-Party Tools (2)
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (2)
Video (12)
Visual Accessibility (2)
Visual Design (2)
Workload (1)
Written Assignments (1)
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.
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.
Improving PowerPoints
Sharing information via PowerPoint presentations is a long-established strategy in higher education. Designing PowerPoint presentations for online courses can pose unique challenges; however, best practices can help overcome these hurdles. With time and attention, faculty and instructional designers can create engaging and purposeful presentations with lasting value.
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).
Enhancing Student Learning Through Course Consistency and Accessibility
Course developers (those who build individual courses) play a crucial role in the success of an online degree program by providing expertise and bringing unique perspectives. Accordingly, it is valuable for faculty to customize their course spaces by infusing them with their own knowledge and personality. At the same time, it is also crucial to prioritize structural consistency within and across courses in an online program, as course consistency is a key aspect of accessibility and a key contributing factor to student success. In particular, students must be able to perceive, operate, and understand the course and course materials using program-standard devices and certain assistive technologies, and this should be true across all of the courses in a program. This is where program chairs and administrators can help support faculty in standardizing key elements of courses to facilitate a seamless student experience. In this piece, we discuss how maintaining structural consistency within and across courses can positively impact accessibility.
Student Support in a Multimodal Course
Multimodal courses allow for exciting opportunities in course content and activities but can be, by design, less flexible than asynchronous courses and less predictable than synchronous courses. These opportunities thus come with needs for additional logistical support and flexibility, as students need both to be able to take advantage of the opportunities of synchrony and asynchrony equitably. How can you best support students in a multimodal course, providing guidance through multiple forms of interaction? This piece gives insight into what kinds of support benefit students in multimodal courses and how to provide them. We’ll end with five quick tips for supporting students that apply to almost any multimodal course.
Ten Ways to Open the Gate to Accessibility
According to the United States Census Bureau, over 57 million Americans, nearly one in five people in the U.S. population, report living with a disability. To make certain all your students can have a successful learning experience, it is important to take steps to make the online learning environment accessible. Find below ten strategies for making your online course space accessible to all users.
Don't Leave Your Learners Behind: Start Tackling Web Accessibility Now!
If you’re an educator, you're probably familiar with the concept of accessibility, which often manifests in the classroom in the form of accommodations requests to meet specific students' needs. If you're an online educator, you've hopefully heard about web accessibility, which requires adhering to specific guidelines when designing and providing materials via the web, reducing the need for student accommodations by anticipating and removing potential barriers to learning.
Multimodal Models
Designing a successful multimodal course means, at each step of the process, considering what each format does well—structuring the course such that each piece of content, each activity, each interaction uses the most effective delivery method available. But what does that look like in practice? This piece describes three approaches to structuring a multimodal course. In each model, asynchronous and synchronous time complement one another and further module and course objectives. Where the models differ is in the relative importance of asynchronous activities in enabling students to complete synchronous activities and vice versa.
Six Strategies for Multimodal Content Delivery
If you’re developing a course with synchronous and asynchronous elements, you have a host of options for engaging students and delivering content. Research suggests that incorporating multiple modalities increases accessibility, engagement, and learning (Mick and Middlebrook, 2015; Margolis et al., 2017). With that said, it is important to be intentional about multimodal course design. Both synchronous and asynchronous methods of delivery are effective, but activities can be better suited to one or the other modality and synchronous time is often limited. Delivering selected content asynchronously can support students’ understanding of how information is organized and leave more time for interactivity in synchronous sessions.