Liberal Arts Department Faculty Resources: Beginner's Guide

1. Assess your own and your students' needs.

Start with access to technology. Ask yourself and your students the following questions.

• Do you have access to a computer and Internet at home that you don't have to share, or will you be splitting laptop time with your kids, who are home from school but have to do work online?
• What about accessories like a webcam, microphone, and speakers?
• How tech-savvy are you, in Blackboard and elsewhere?

Also, consider access to workspace.

• Similar to the tech access question, do you have time and a quiet place to do your work, or will you be working around your family, who is also home due to the virus?

Finally, think about special accessibility needs.

• Do you have accessibility needs that require material to be presented in a different way, such as videos with subtitles, readings that can be read aloud by software, access to larger font sizes, etc.?

The answers to these questions can help guide you when generating material and assessments for your classes.

2. Don't try to do everything at once.

Focus on what you can accomplish quickly and easily first.

• Do you already use PowerPoint presentations when you lecture in class? Great. Put those PowerPoints in Blackboard now.
• Do you regularly show videos as part of your class? LInk to, embed, or upload those videos to Blackboard and make them part of the week's coursework.
• Is class discussion a regular part of your class? Post some "starter" questions for their discussion on the Discussion board. Come up with a set of rules for discussion, including deadlines for responding, how many times a student should respond (initial response + peer responses), and what kinds of posts you're looking for.

Also, now is not the time to try something brand new for your classes, whether that's a new assignment or new content. Most instructors have a bank of materials that they have tried and that they know work. Changing course delivery mode mid-stream is a good time to rely on what you know works (to whatever extent possible, of course). Stick to tried-and-true assignments, lectures, even software, if you've integrated it into your classes before.

3. Use a graphic organizer to lay out your online course.

It may be the English teacher in me, but I always need to organize my ideas before creating something new. It helps me take stock of what I know or have and what I need to find. It also helps me make sure that I don't leave anything important out - AND that I get rid of nonessentials that may cause unnecessary confusion. Depending on your discipline and the type of course you teach (100-level survey course, skills course, advanced disciplinary course), as well as your own organizational preferences, you may find one kind of graphic organizer more helpful than another. I recommend any of the following.

• Learning map
• Idea web (a.k.a. cluster diagram)
• Hierarchy organizer
• KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned) chart
• Sequence Chart

By the way, all of the organizers linked above come from a great webpage by Creately. There are lots of others there. Check it out!

4. Organize your course by week or unit (not by topic or content type).

When I first started teaching online, I organized the course by type of content. I had course videos in one place, course readings in another, and links to other sites in a third. While it made sense to me to do it that way, my students were clicking all over the place to get to the course content every week, which made things very difficult for them.

A better way is to organize your class is to follow the organization of your syllabus - by week (or by unit if it spans more than one week). Create class modules by week, not by topic. Put everything your students need into the weekly modules, so that they can access everything from the same place. That doesn't mean that they won't go to a the discussion board and to assessments for quizzes. What it means is that you link everything they need to do that week, in the order in which they should do it, through the weekly module.

Below is a screen shot of one my class modules. This class was created in Canvas, so it looks a little different, but the overall concept is the same. (Click on the upper righ corner of the picture for a full-size view.

However you set up your modules, the key is to be consistent. Follow the same format every week.

5. Keep your audience in mind.

As you create your course content, remember that your audience is your students. They will most likely know very little about the topic, and they're probably not used to learning independently. Here are some suggestions to help you keep your content student-friendly.

• Keep your language simple and straightforward. Don't use jargon unless students need to know it for the course. Remember that they can't raise their hands to ask for clarification.
• If you create videos, keep them short - no more than 10-minutes if possible. Most people nowadays won't watch a video that's more than 10 minutes long, especially millennials. If you need more than 10 minutes to cover all of the material, create several short videos that break up the content into chunks. your students are more likely to watch several short videos than one long video, and chunking the material will help them digest more information as well as allow them to focus on challenging areas when they go back to review the material.
• Use images and videos whenever possible. Learning new content strictly through reading is challenging, especially if someone is not naturally a read/write learner or a strong reader. We need to offer course content in a variety of ways so that our students can learn the material in the way that best suits their learning preferences. Also, remember that reading takes more time than watching a video, and students may  not be prepared or able to spend the extra time.