Adapting your subject content

It is a good time to think about how your current course resources may need to be adapted should teaching and learning occur online. When making decisions about adapting and designing your content, prioritise clarity, accessibility and student engagement. Remember, we must prioriise the student experience as we become facilitators of their learning.

Checklist:

  • Think deeply about what knowledge you want the students to gain and how to design experiences accordingly. Aim to be targeted, thoughtful and purposeful.

  • Evaluate your selection of resources; how can you make all subject material available online in an engaging form? Choose a variety of accessible modes.

  • Aim to re- design and create experiences, activities or tasks that enable active engagement with the content using digital tools.

  • Try to provide formative opportunities for students to connect, communicate, express their voice and share aspects of their work and thinking with you and their peers.

  • Use the following planning framework to successfully adapt your subject and learning materials for online delivery. It outlines the features of an effective online lesson and the stages which students should pass through as they engage with you in your online classroom.

These stages are:

  • Preparation

  • Engagement

  • Interaction

  • Knowledge application and assessment

Preparation: Intentional Design- best practice in lesson planning

How is structuring a lesson online different to a face to face lesson?

A key consideration when preparing for online delivery is to be intentional in your purpose, methodical and intuitive in design, prioritise pedagogy before technology and evaluate the best tools for meaningful and engaging delivery.

Beginning:

  • To create meaningful and purposeful learning experiences ensure that the learning intention and success criteria for each lesson is visible to and known by all students. Aim to constructively align all class activities and tasks with learning outcomes. This will inform the structure of the lesson.

Body:

  • The beginning of the lesson (10 mins approx.) should involve direct instruction using Teams. Avoid long recordings and extended periods of time delivering content

  • Structure your content logically and make it clear and easy to navigate

  • Reduce the cognitive load for students by mastering the art of Chunking. Break the lesson down into manageable ‘chunks’

  • All lessons should provide the students with an opportunity to consolidate and apply newly acquired knowledge. Decide on the appropriate pedagogy and aim to create some time for students to collaborate or work individually during the lesson time

  • Establish what activities would benefit from or are better suited to technology. Create a variety of short and purposeful activities using a fusion of digital tools where students can actively consolidate and test their understanding of the subject content. See Engaging & motivating your students

  • What is the evidence of learning? Consider carefully what students will need to submit at the end of the lesson or complete for homework- be clear about how they will submit and receive feedback. You could use Peer Review or Assignments in Canvas to do this

Conclusion:

  • Ensure that each lesson concludes with a quick recap and outline of next steps. A quick check in via the Teams Chat may suffice. Other tools to use to recap and check for understanding can be found in Engaging & motivating your students

See Tools and Technology for further information.


Prioritising Student Engagement when designing learning

When designing your online lesson, consider ways to maximise student engagement, interaction and knowledge application.


  • Resources should be media rich. Consider creating short video segments to elaborate on content delivered via direct instruction, to encourage students to explore more complex ideas and/ or problems. You could use PowerPoint slideshows with audio narration to present information, Hypothesis, Voice thread, Flipgrid, Stile, Whiteboard on Teams or Googledoc to encourage students to collaborate, and create purposeful group discussion using Canvas discussions or Teams chat. While there are technical challenges, look for ways students can interact and take part in activities. This could involve using Microsoft Teams for discussions and collaborate. Find out more Communicating effectively , Engaging & motivating students to learn online


  • Zeetings is a wonderful tool to facilitate students' collaborations when they grouped according to ability using the Jigsaw method . Students in their expert groups can create interactive presentations for the online class that not only help to present information, but also allow them (and you) to assess and evaluate the depth of their understanding.


  • Finding ways in the online classroom to motivate students by validating their participation and contributions. A quick and visual way to do this is to use the emojicon feature in the Teams Chat to do this.


  • Choose useful tools to recap and check for understanding. You can quickly check in and recap content using the Teams Chat . You may like to use Zeetings as an online exit card strategy, Kahoot and/ or Quizzes in Canvas will allow students to further consolidate and apply knowledge.



Interaction in an online environment

Think about the learning opportunities that you are creating and how you are establishing protocols around collaborations and interactions that encourage a safe working space for all students.

  • How can you re- design or re- imagine learning opportunities in a way that students can interact, share and/ or co- construct knowledge together in the virtual classroom? Be mindful that you are managing these interactions using simple and clear protocols.

  • All learning opportunities should be purposeful and meaningful- learning intentions and success criteria will help to establish this.

  • Design and create opportunities to apply knowledge. This can range in activities that include; individuals thinking, planning, concept mapping, writing to individual and group completion of subject specific exercises.

  • Consider how students can maximise learning when working together. Can you provide opportunities for students to work individually and/ or together to grapple with test papers, practice assessment papers etc.

  • Leverage group work collaborations to enhance the student learning experience. For more see How to manage group work online, Engaging and motivating students

Knowledge Application & Assessment

The opportunity to apply knowledge is both a challenge and a joy for some of our students and creating time in your lesson for them to practice, try, gather their thoughts, and have a go is especially important in moving student learning forward.

Look ahead at the learning activities, assignments and the assessment opportunities that are currently in your program? Do you need to make any adaptations to suit the online classroom and learning in an online environment.

Make a quick assessment of the current activities and assessment opportunities that are planned for. Consider the following questions

  • When working remotely, will the design or parameters of the activities/ assessment have to change?

  • Think deeply about the formative learning experiences/ activities that have been designed. What are the students required to know and to do? How are the students being asked to think and to work? Will these learning opportunities lead naturally to the summative assessment opportunity?

  • How will my preparation and presentation of learning opportunities and assessment change?

  • How can I redesign learning activities/ assessment for the purpose of e- learning and working remotely while maintaining focus on the skills, cognitive processes and knowledge developed throughout the unit of work?

  • Is this an example of inclusive design- can all students of varying abilities find a point of access?

For ideas and FAQ's on assessment - click Assessment FAQ's

Learning Design to engage and empower learners

Learning Design to engage and empower learners.pdf

Lesson plan template to assist you in planning and structuring your online lesson

Click the lesson plan graphic to download

Online Lesson Plan .pdf