[David Read]

Copy and paste the text or attach your file to the post. Also, answer this question:

Based on your course analysis, identify two concrete things that the course could change to make it more effective?

[Sue Everest]

Some rough ideas from me. Trying not to procrastinate, even if I need to fill in gaps as I go along.

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[Juliet Parfitt]

This sounds like an interesting course @sue. From what I understand, this is currently a set of self-study material that you’d like to adapt into an online course with a teacher presence. It certainly might encourage students to engage if you were tracking and assessing work, or if you made it a requirement of the course, although teacher availability would need to be considered at some point down the line. If you are linking out to the content, would you have the copyright permissions to adapt the existing material, or would you need to write it afresh? I think it’s a good idea to start with a pilot, perhaps with some flipped  pre-class content that might help you to get feedback and see how it goes on a smaller scale.

[Brenda Allen]

ONLINE COURSE DESIGN STANDARDS

Name of course
Which course are you going to write about?
In-sessional – Masters in International Development – online delivery

Orientation
Did the course make the course design clear through a course orientation, introductions, a syllabus, summaries at the beginning/end of units, clear navigation?
Not entirely. It tended to be too lugubrious and not anywhere near visual enough for my liking.

Learning outcomes
Did the course provide clear learning outcomes for the whole course and individual modules/units/lessons?
Yes

Assessments
Are there periodic checks of students’ progress through a variety of activities? Are the assessment activities linked to the learning outcomes?
There are, but these could be better linked to the learning outcomes.

Course materials
Are they relevant, free of unnecessary content, and organised in a logical sequence of meaningful chunks?
Relevant, certainly. Yes, I think it fits the above criteria.

Instructional Strategies
Does the course use best practices in the design of the content (e.g. principles of online content design – coherence, multimedia etc)? Are there opportunities for interactions between the students themselves and between the students and the teacher?
It succeeds in the second aim. The Best Practice is still very much a work in progress.

Technology and multimedia
Does the use of technology (e.g. VLE or course platform) help meet the learning outcomes of the course? Do the course materials provide clear support and guidance for students on how to use the technology on the course or who to contact if they have problems?
Up to a point. Students need far greater training and ongoing, reactive, readily accessible, support in order to enjoy and gain maximum benefit from the course.

Navigation and accessibility
Is the navigation/layout easy and accessible for students? Is it easy to find all the course materials and are assignment submissions clearly signposted and easy to locate?
Yes, if a little unsophisticated. Assignment submissions are another WIP.

 

IDENTIFY TWO CONCRETE THINGS THAT THE COURSE COULD CHANGE TO MAKE IT MORE EFFECTIVE

1. It needs far greater clarity of structure and instruction.  (Attention to Coherence Principle.)
2. It is very static and almost entirely devoid of a ‘teacher presence’.  It also has a very ‘distant’ feel with no sense of immediacy and, as such, is severely lacking in any real opportunities for interaction between students and the course tutor.  (Attention to Personalisation.)

[Juliet Parfitt]

It sounds like this course did have some strong elements @azurial but you make an interesting observation about a lack of training and support for students using the technology, an essential component of an online course .

[Zsofia Tarjani]

See my brief feedback on this course attached

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[Juliet Parfitt]

Thanks for the feedback @zsofit. I like your comments about the sense of belonging that can come from a live session, and it would be really interesting to test the course with a screen reader.  The alternative to the green tick appearing at the start of a topic is to click a button at the bottom of every page to mark it as complete, but David had feedback on another course to say it was annoying!

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