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By incorporating regular retrieval practice into your online course, you can ensure that key takeaways are actually being taken away by students to use in the future rather than being left behind due to lack of use. The following are some specific activities that can help move learners from a hazy recollection of something toward more clarity and permanence.

Incorporating prerecorded videos and animations into online learning experiences allows students the opportunity to access content at any time after the material is delivered. The inclusion of video and animation in online learning is now ubiquitous. To promote engagement, it is imperative that such content be delivered to learners clearly and effectively.

For many people, “online learning” conjures images of successive videos, shot in a studio or perhaps on location, featuring high production value and expert, polished speakers, interspersed with short quizzes or activities. Indeed, strongholds such as MasterClass, LinkedIn Learning, and Coursera have mastered this formula and led many to believe that it is the recipe for success. While the economic success of these companies is undeniable, the effectiveness of an online course is measured by student success. When done well, video can have a positive impact on student learning (Clark & Mayer, 2011). Rather than designing your course according to the economic model, follow the evidence and research-based principles of visual communication, cognitive science, and online learning to decide when and how to create instructional videos. Through careful consideration of your learners, your objectives, your constraints, and the following best practices, you can spend your time and resources creating only the most essential videos. For a visual aid that accompanies this article, see the Video Planning Decision Tree.

Student-generated content—materials and tasks created by learners for other learners—can strengthen engagement by providing students an opportunity to express creativity, practice critical thinking, and increase ownership of learning. Developing student-generated content requires learners to produce an instructional artifact, demonstrating new knowledge alongside existing understanding. Student-generated content can include a variety of formats:

Mental health concerns are prevalent among undergraduate and graduate students and can have deleterious consequences (Chi et al., 2023; Venable & Pietrucha, 2022). In particular, students struggling with their mental health are less likely to pass their courses and more likely to drop out of their programs of study (Lister & McFarlane, 2021). While universities often provide support systems in the form of accessibility services and counseling centers, several significant issues can lead to the underutilization of available resources among students in general and online students in particular. First, students may need to be physically present on campus in order to access support systems (Lister et al., 2023). As a result, students enrolled in online programs may be unable to use them. Additionally, students may not capitalize on available resources due to logistical challenges (e.g., scheduling), feelings of discomfort in asking for help, or concerns about stigmatization (Venable & Pietrucha, 2022).

A unique way to share information, images with hotspots offer online learners the opportunity to interact with course content. Learners can click or hover on particular parts of an image and receive pop-ups that give them more information. Hotspots represent information in a particular context; thus, they fulfill the multimedia principle—use words and graphics rather than words alone—and the contiguity principle—align words to corresponding graphics (Clark & Mayer, 2016).

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.

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.

In our Personal Experience Insights series, members of the Everspring Learning Design department share first-hand accounts of creating online learning content and meaningful takeaways from their professional experiences.

You have decided to record a video for your course (See this Envision post first: Video Planning: To Record or Not to Record?). Your next concern might be choosing the technology that can match the production quality of the videos in MOOCs (massive open online courses) such as MasterClass or Coursera. But have no fear—research shows no association between production value and learning outcomes (Hansch et al., 2015; Sturman et al., 2018). Furthermore, selecting your technology without initial consideration of your video style would be premature. “When thinking about video for learning, the choice of video production style will have a great impact on a video’s ability to effect pedagogical objectives and desired learning outcomes” (Hansch, et al., 2015, p. 20). Production style refers to the holistic organization of a video, which we will discuss in terms of type (what the video aims to accomplish) and output (what the video looks like). Choosing the right style for the content centers the learner and ultimately facilitates an easier selection of technology.