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In preparation of building your course, consider the following steps:
Begin by identifying tailored Learning Outcomes for each week of the course in accordance with the course description published in the course catalog.
For each outcome, there should be a measurable assessment of student understanding and comprehension of that outcome. For example, if ensuring student understanding of course terminology consider building a Check your Understanding short quiz in that unit.
Delve further into course material and student engagement within your lesson by designing course Learning Activities. For example, in lieu of face-to-face class interaction, build a discussion forum for active student exchange of ideas on the course materials. Carefully balance instruction and activities for the learner.
Pull the course content together by supplying assigned reading, resources, videos, recorded lectures, etc. to thoroughly provide varied and dynamic materials for greater student understanding. (e.g., Importing content from other courses or Starting from Scratch)
Descriptions of learning styles vary. One of the better known collections of learning styles looks at sensory processing, remembered through the acronym “VARK,” which stands for visual, aural, verbal [reading/writing], and kinesthetic. Other models have more to do with students’ learning processes and knowledge organization skills, which can run through the following continuum (identified by Felder and Silverman in their Index of Learning Styles): active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, verbal-visual, and sequential-global.
Class activities that allow multiple reinforcements of concepts (from homework to lecture to discussion to activity to project to presentation, for instance) have the best chance of concepts being retained by learners in a meaningful way. The more learners perceive “control” over content, the more they – eventually – truly own that knowledge.