Providing structure to your online course
How you structure your course can help you make decisions about content. The following PDF guides can help you think about how you want your course to flow. This might be the time to start organizing your course in Canvas if you have not started.
Think about the goal of your course and how that might affect the structure of your course.
Personality of instructor
This approach reflects the desire of the instructor to be action-oriented while using purpose-related questions to help learners prepare to engage with each module component. The first word of each module component indicates the actions that the learners will need to do for that piece of the instructional content.
Click on the image to the left to download this guide as a PDF.
Casual flow
This course takes a more casual approach to guiding the learners through the modules. It is not required that they proceed in a specific sequence, but there is an implied flow to the module. It offers a detailed explanation of a novel assessment, and then encourages learners to share their creative approaches to this assessment.
Click on the image to the left to download this guide as a PDF.
Competence Check
This course is designed to ensure a certain level of mastery and competence with the instructional content. It is critical that the learners master each step in order, as they will be building on those steps with each module. It encourages mastery by using a strict sequence with checks for understanding that must be passed.
Click on the image to the left to download this guide as a PDF.
Heavily structured for guided learning
This course utilizes the “requirements” feature of Canvas modules to force the learners into a specific sequencing of the module activities. The learners can see all the module components, but access is only granted as they complete the requirements of each individual component in succession.
Click on the image to the left to download this guide as a PDF.
Two-week guide
Modules are not required to be week-long experiences. This course has used the instructional topics as the organizing factor instead of a weekly calendar. The order that learners engage with the components is not as important as the fact that they will need to engage with all of them before the module’s concluding quiz.
Click on the image to the left to download this guide as a PDF.
Additional resources