Developing Effective Web-Based Courses

Table of Contents

1. The Nature of Online Instruction
2. Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning
   1. A Quality Online Course
   2. Prepare Your Materials
   3. Create an Online Course
   4. Prepare Materials for Electronic Delivery
   5. Create an Online Learning Community in Your Course
   6. Self-Assessment Two
3. The Simulated Classroom

A Quality Online Course

What elements determine the quality of an online course? When building your online course you must consider course design, interaction and collaboration, technology, assessment, and learner support. Prior to implementing these elements in your course, you must first prepare your materials, make an outline, and determine how to deliver materials (Blackboard, 2004). A summary of the steps follows:

1. Prepare Your Materials
   1. Gather your course materials and content in a central location
   2. Determine what formats your materials exist in
   3. Accommodate different types of learners
   4. Identify measurable course objectives
2. Make an Outline
   1. Make an outline that matches each course component with associated date, lecture materials, assignments and corresponding items.
3. Prepare Materials for Electronic Delivery with Instructional Design Specialist Assistance
   1. Select items that are relevant to course objectives and student learning experiences.
   2. Preparation may include scanning graphics, creating files in a word processor, developing course pages in an authoring tool, or creating slides in presentation software.
   3. Avoid delivering materials that will distract the student from the course objectives.
   4. Do not add irrelevant information to "fill-up" your coursesite.
4. Build a Course Skeleton
   1. Create the organizational (or skeleton) structure of your course. This involves creating a series of clearly labeled folders that will hold course materials.
   2. Make a folder for every item in your outline or mimic the structure of your syllabus.
   3. Enter the Course Information area and create folders for the Syllabus, Grading Policies, and other basic items relating to course management.
   4. Create folders that correspond with the main topics or sections of your course. Create sub-folders for sub-topics as necessary. For example:
      1. Week 1: Introduction to English Grammar, (folder)
      2. Week 2: Working with Nouns (folder)
      3. Week 3: Mastering Verb Tenses (folder)
      4. Regular Verbs, (sub -folder of Week 3)
      5. Irregular Verbs (sub-folder of Week 3)
   5. Create folders that correspond with your assignments.