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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.
Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which has roots in Ronald Mace’s concept of Universal Design, is a pedagogical framework that supports diverse learning needs. According to CAST, the creator of the framework, UDL seeks “to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn” (2018). UDL is not a step-by-step curriculum plan, but rather an approach to pedagogy and curriculum development that aims to make the learning environment as accessible as possible for as many learners as possible (Derer, 2021; CAST, 2018).
Enhancing Quantitative Courses With Varied Learning Approaches
Employing a variety of modes of instruction and assessment, as recommended by Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, can enhance the learning experience for students in quantitative courses. Diverse elements such as visual aids, interactive features, and real-world applications can complement, extend, or replace traditional lectures and exams. Since classes consist of students with varying learning preferences and strategies, using multiple modes of representation in a course promotes deeper understanding, engagement, and skill development. This piece details design elements that can be particularly impactful in quantitative courses.
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.
Rubrics as a Tool to Support Equity and Inclusion
While student populations have become increasingly diverse, many groups, including first-generation, non-native English speakers, and individuals with disabilities, still face barriers and bias that can derail their success in college (Super et al., 2020). Traditional grading practices—including penalties for late work, writing in dialects other than standard English, and even plagiarism— are prone to bias and only perpetuate disparities, the research says (Feldman, 2019; Savini, 2021).
Editing Links and Rubrics from Other Courses
Situations may present themselves in which links or rubrics from another course can be useful in a current course. Should this occur, rubrics from other courses can be uploaded into another course. To successfully insert a previously built rubric, please follow the following steps.
Five Need-To-Know Rubric Grading Tips
Rubrics provide a framework for students, helping them submit stronger assignments while decreasing confusion as they write and create. While leveraging Canvas to provide clear, efficient, and consistent access to rubric, take a minute to learn a few settings, saving yourself valuable time and a possible headache.
Rubric Best Practices Guide
When used effectively, rubrics facilitate clear and consistent assessment, enhancing the learning experience for both students and instructors. In the online classroom environment, where students do not have the frequent, physical access that a traditional classroom provides, rubrics can provide the added benefit of increasing student engagement with course material and clarifying an instructor's expectations (Keengwe, Adjei-Boateng, & Diteeyont, as cited in Haught, Ahern, & Ruberg, 2017). In fact, according to Martin & Bolliger (2018), online learners have reported that grading rubrics are highly important for learner-to-instructor engagement. For instructors, too, rubrics simplify the grading process, promoting consistency across students and terms. Eliminating the guesswork from grade determination, well-designed rubrics can save professors precious time and energy.
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.
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.