Encourage experimentation and different approaches
Set clear, simple expectations and provide simple explanations
Facilitate peer review and peer feedback
When demonstrating how to solve problems in your course it can be helpful to model multiple approaches if possible. In an online context you may incorporate approaches from existing demonstrations or real life examples. You may also want to encourage students to explain how they solve an example problem and invite other students to explain how they approached it differently. Demonstrating the potential for multiple solution paths and giving students opportunities to discuss their understanding can help foster a better comprehension.
Provide Options for Comprehension
It is not always apparent to students how their learning in the classroom will be used outside of the classroom, and that can really impact motivation and engagement. When students can connect their learning and their personal and professional goals, they can take more ownership over their education and explore new areas of interest in a supportive environment. Giving students opportunities to pursue their own interests fosters curiosity and lifelong learning, encouraging students to practice self-directed learning, creative thinking, and problem solving.
Experiential Education
Some larger assessments may require a lot of feedback or check-ins throughout a course. In classes with a lot of students that can become an unmanageable commitment for a single instructor. One approach to help manage that is peer evaluation and feedback. Peer evaluation can be a strong tool to help students understand the course material differently, it can expose them differentiated approaches and applications, and can help with social presence in online course design.
Peer evaluation will require guidance. You may want to provide exemplars of feedback or a number of feedback prompts. You may want to use a rubric strategy and have students grade with that. Additionally you may want to set up a process for students to notify you about the quality of feedback.
Five Ways to Make Peer Feedback Effective
Designing a Rubric