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Preparing for your Distance Course

Developing a distance education course may be compared to a construction project; long before the actual pouring of concrete commences; thoughtful planning, organization, and design must take place. Similarly, when conceptualizing the architecture of your online course, it is helpful to identify some general planning thoughts:

What do you want students to know and be able to do as a result of the course?

In very practical terms, what do you want students to learn as a result of the course? At this stage of planning, rather than an exact definition or description, jot out a general statement. From this kernal, you will develop more specific course outcomes and learning objectives for your course.

Begin to think about the general goals or outcomes for the course and specific learning outcomes for specific learning activities. You might begin to sketch these out in some informal way and modify them later as you begin to place content into Blackboard.

What types and kinds of information do you want to deliver in the course?

Blackboard allows you to place different forms of content into the course in a variety of ways. When you first get your Blackboard course shell, there will be no content. Basically, the course shell is an empty folder with tools to allow you to add content. Don’t worry too much about how to get content into your course, TWU has Instructional Designers for each college to help you get started.

What supporting materials (documents, web sites, etc.) do you want students to use in the course?

You have the option of attaching additional documents,suggested readings, links to external web sites, etc. in the course. You should consider identifying and categorizing these materials as you locate them while preparing the course. Library Services can assist faculty with reading lists. Librarians can also help locate materials and format them so they appear in your course in more student-friendly formats.

You may also have the option to load a course cartridge into Blackboard. Course cartridges, produced by the publisher of the text, contain a variety of supplemental materials. You will need to check with the publisher of your textbook. 

What learning activities do you want to use in the course?

Begin to think about how you want the course to guide student learning. It is important to realize that no single method will work equally well for all learners. Designing learning activities is a series of compromises that should present enough variety to learners for a reasonable path to success in the course. Spend some time thinking about how much of the course should be based on individual activities, small group activities,and large group activities. Learning activities are deliberately developed activities to guide students toward predetermined outcomes. Work requiring critical thought and higher order thinking skills can be alternated with activities that require skill or concept development. You are only limited by your imagination.

What assignments do you want to use in the course?

Assignments can take many different forms. Assignment should come directly from the learning activities and should seem to be a natural part of the activities. Communication tools within Blackboard allow students to communicate with each other and to collaboratively work on assignments. Individual papers or written responses to prompts can easily be submitted for review and grading purposes.

What types of assessments do you intend to use?

Blackboard allows you to create a variety of assessments within the course. Many of these feature automatic grading options. However, you are not limited to short answer, matching, multiple choice, or other forced choice assessments. Blackboard also allows students to send you written assignments, projects that may include graphics, video, audio, and presentations. You should think about the types of assessments you will use to guide learning and to use as evidence of student learning.

In the distance course, you have the rare opportunity to place sample papers, sample discussion postings, rubrics, and other materials to guide student learning. These materials are available for all students throughout the course unless you chose otherwise. You also have the opportunity to provide a great amount of feedback to  students throughout the learning process. In the face-to-face classroom, you primarily have class time and written responses to assignments as feedback mechanisms to shape learning. In the distance course, email and other communication methods allow you to constantly shape learning while it is happening and provides an opportunity for more immediate feedback.

Course organization.

Your course may be based on a textbook (although it certainly does not have to be based on a text) and this may drive the organization of your content. Instructors have a great deal of flexibility in determining the types and kinds of information necessary for a course. Some use a textbook and map their teaching closely with the text while others, using the same textbook, use class time or the distance course to deliver supplemental material based on information and concepts found in the text. Other instructors develop critical and essential questions to guide all activities in the course and require students to use the text and other resources to answer the questions. These are just a few of the options available to you as you begin to select materials for your course. Selection or development of materials is really limited to the extent of your imagination.

How do you intend to use the discussion board?

One major difference that you will encounter in a distance course is the use of discussion boards to promote interaction. In a face-to-face course,the venue for verbal interactive activites, as well as, some social interactions is usually the classroom. The discussion board in a distance course is the virtual complement for this forum. Discussion boards can be used to seed and encourage discussion between the students and the instructor, and between students. In a face-to-face class you have formal and informal discussion going on throughout the session. Whereas within a discussion board you may, to a certain extent, need to craft the parmenters, topics, and enviroments for your students to think about questions, discuss topics, reflect or describe how they would apply the knowledge or material you have provided them. In a face-to-face class you may customarily have students provide an introduction to help others know more about their classmates. You might pose a question to the class. You may choose to break the class into small groups for discussion of a topic and present back to the class. You might have a debate on a controversial topic. All of these activities can be done in a distance course using a discussion board.

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