Transforming an existing course into an online course: Where do you start?

Where do you start redesigning your existing course into an online version of that course? For the development of an online course, the same strategy as for a campus based course applies. In this page a proven and effective strategy is presented. Of course, during COVID-19, moving to online teaching introduces limitations, but also extra options.

Step 1a: Evaluate your current course

To convert an existing course to an online version, you start with what is already there; the existing learning objectives, teaching methods, assessment form and course manual. Re-examine them and develop an idea what is really needed, what could be changed and what might be omitted.

Step 1b: Set alignment principles with the parallel course

Scheduling

Get in touch with the teachers of the courses that run parallel with your course and the mentoring or tutoring structure in your educational programme. It is of importance to align activities, to understand the prior experiences and support students receive, schedules and types of learning and assessment.

Groups

During the corona period, students are not allowed to come to the campus in large groups. This hinders the bonding between students and between staff and students. Think up what you can do for all activities that you design, both during synchronous meetings (online lectures or online work groups), as well as in other ways.

Think about ways to foster the forming and norming of groups (storming, forming, norming) in an online world. In many courses, there will be some kind of group work already planned (lectures and work groups for example). If you did not use groups before, then consider doing so anyway.

Further, try to give the groups a specific recognizable name to strengthen identification with the group. For example give them names of famous Amsterdam neighborhoods, VU Amsterdam buildings, Amsterdam football players, Amsterdam painters, Amsterdam scientists. Try to keep the groups the same for all courses (1st semester Academic Year 2020-2021) so their schedules are aligned and it is easier to meet.

Stimulate student to use digital tools of their own liking to communicate (e.g. WhatsApp, Trello). Small groups could arrange for themselves to meet in-person in the city.

Some faculties try to set-up Buddy groups in which first-year students are linked to 2nd or 3rd years students. At some faculties this is linked to the faculty introduction groups.

For large courses you can also appoint 'leaders' for these groups to help you as a teacher to connect better to the groups. These leaders can be given a special assignment to collect questions among their group for you. They can keep students motivated during online lectures by starting to ask questions to get discussion going. They also could monitor the chatbox for you during an online lecture.

As you most likely cannot invite all groups at once to come to the VU, you mayb can rotate groups to come to the VU to meet you and each other in person.

Assignments and homework

As in regular campus-based education, do not overload students by setting deadlines for assignments and intermediate tests and exams at exactly the same time. Align your assignments during the period.

Constructive alignment

Most important in any course design is a strong relationship between the three key components of a course: learning objectives, assessment and learning activities. This model is known as 'constructive alignment' (Biggs, 1996). Balancing and sequencing the three components in one integrated course design is paramount. So when transitioning to online teaching, revisit the key components of your regular campus-based course.

Step 2: Evaluate the Learning outcomes/goals

- What does a student need to know and be able to do after the course? Start by taking a closer look at the learning outcomes of your current campus-based course: can these outcomes remain unchanged or not?
- Take a critical look at whether your learning outcomes can still be achieved.

The current COVID-19 circumstances may require an adjustment of the learning outcomes by eliminating parts that require travel or contact with others (fieldwork, lab work, observation, surveys, etc.). For example: recognizing rock strata in the landscape can be done on the basis of more sources of information than when a student only has a photograph at his disposal. And instead of surveying, you can let students set up a questionnaire online using the snowball method (see types of small group tasks) or use an existing dataset. But then the learning goal has to be adjusted because students do not collect data themselves.

Also take a critical look at the number and importance of your learning outcomes in relation to the workload students are currently experiencing. Is the learning component really necessary when you consider that instructors and students experience extra work pressure due to the (home) circumstances? Maybe the COVID-19 period can be used to wield out learning outcomes that unintentionally were introduced in your course, but are not of essence.

Step 3: Evaluate Assessment

After revisiting and adjusting the Learning Outcomes, it is important to ask yourself what form of assessment you can use to find out whether a student has achieved these outcomes. Think about the form of assessment before you start adjusting the rest of your course.

Remember, the course activities should guide and prepare the student for achieving or demonstrating their command of the Learning Outcomes. This may include that students may need to produce artifacts (essays, reports, designs, evaluations etc), show collaboration skills or be active for combinations of assignments and maybe a final exam (if any). If your course only leads up to one final exam, you should provide logical learning and practice activities for the course period, also in the form of formative tests (i.e. aimed at giving feedback on the learning process and not for a grade). These tests do not have to be necessarily in the format of quizzes, but also a number of small group tasks, peer review tasks can serve as formative test opportunities.

There is a chance that the exam you normally take is no longer suitable because all teaching takes place online and privacy regulations require you to take a serious look into alternative test forms. See our pages on Learner-centered Assessment for more information about designing assignments, assessments and exams.

Note: if you change the assessment form and thus deviate from the OER, you will need to contact the Exam board.

Step 4: Evaluate the online learning and teaching activities

Once you have established the learning objectives and forms and sequence of assessment, you think about what the students will do in the course and what you have to do as a teacher; the learning and teaching activities.

Step 4a: Break up your course into parts

Take the campus based study guide for students as a starting point. Often the course consists of themes, parts or steps. Decide whether you want to build your online course around these substantive themes/parts or whether you want to use the weeks as a starting point. Choose the most logical way for you, based on the structure of the course; they are different approach routes, but in the end you end up at the same point.

Providing a clear (weekly) structure and providing preparation and processing assignments is important. Further, as a rule of thumb, a frequency of a meeting once every two weeks is too low intensity to keep students motivated and up to speed. Try at least once per week to meet student plenary or in work groups.

Step 4b: Determine what students can do themselves, what they can best do together and what they need you for

First think about what students themselves can do outside of the online meetings per part/week. Then think about what the students need each other for (also read: The functions of an online work group).

Then think about what they need you for. This could be contact outside of the meetings: Availability (consultation hours) or feedback on their work. Or reactions to their work or questions during an online meeting. It may also involve input in the form of a lecture (also read: Is an online lecture useful?).

Step 4c: Organize or create the activities that students can do independently outside contact time: think up assignments

Usually you'd have students doing work around the meetings. It won't be any different now. However, you can think of alternatives to what you normally do in meetings, allowing students to acquire and practice knowledge even more independently and in their own time.

Acquiring knowledge

For example, for the independent acquisition of knowledge, think of an alternation of:

Offering knowledge clips, screen casts (e.g. PowerPoint with verbal explanation), podcasts (self-made or available on the internet or in Spotify).
Incorporating parts of existing MOOCs or existing video lectures
Studying literature, possibly with reading questions.
Processing and applying knowledge

For example, for independent processing and application of the knowledge (from literature, knowledge clips, etc.):

Processing questions, diagrams to fill in, to structure the input of different authors on the subject, a mind map to complete.
Practice exercises with reference to sources (books, websites) where they can find explanations. For example, Utrecht University has developed modules for initial statistics education in the 'open and personalised statistics education' project. The UvA offers a number of short instruction videos or statistical data analysis in SPSS.
An effective way for students to process and apply the material is to use online peer feedback. A number of tools are available within VU Amsterdam to support this process: Canvas Peer Feedback, FeedbackFruits Peer review, Pitch2Peer (SBE).

Take a look at other examples below to let students process and apply knowledge:

Before watching a video, ask questions that students should have answered afterwards.
Let students hand in an abstract of the reading materials in their own words.
Let students hand in their solved mathematical (chemistry, physics, statistics etc.) problems by uploading their scanned in documents via Canvas assignments and assign a part of the grade to submitting these assignments. You can handle these using marginal judgement.
Ask students to send in a text that summarizes a video they have watched before (in pairs or not).
Using Edpuzzle you can add questions to a YouTube video. You can also do this with video's uploaded to VU Amsterdam's https://video.vu.nl or https://av-media.vu.nl/.
Upload documents to which discussion topics, practice questions and comments can be added. For example using FeedbackFruits Interactive Documents or Perusall with which you can guide students in studying and discussing the texts.
Let students work together on a wiki or weblog. A Wiki is a collection of linked web pages that can be easily changed by the visitor. Pages form a network. A Wiki can be changed by anyone. You can see exactly who has changed what in the history of the page and easily restore an older version. You can for example suggest Google Sites or Google Docs as a kind of wiki-environment.
There are many other Variations on written assignements available on the Teaching & Learning Tips site.

Step 4d: Think about the content and activities in the online meetings

Then think about how you can let students in the online meeting collaborate on assignments that contribute to the learning goals. For group collaboration it is useful to create groups on Canvas or a channel in MS Teams or have them communicate via Trello. In addition, you give shape to the input they still need from you in the online meeting. For example, you can give an online presentation using a PowerPoint via Zoom. Make sure you don't make your presentation too long and make sure you plan interaction with the students (for example using Mentimeter)

Examples of interactions and activities in online meetings

Jigsaw method: students prepare part of the subject matter, exchange with students who have studied the same subject matter and then talk about it in a group of students who have all studied a different part of the subject matter. An example is to divide different theories among the students to study or solve the same case. After (partly) completing this exercise, the students come together in an online meeting to explain their findings. This is followed by a joint processing assignment based on all the subject matter.
Give lectures video in Zoom in combination with sharing PowerPoint presentations, a whiteboard (making drawings, working out sums) or other files.
Involving a (foreign) expert to whom the lecturer or students ask questions.
Adding an animation, simulation or other video that students have watched beforehand in conversation with the students, framing it in the previous subject matter. Plus asking questions and discussion.
Ask a few students to ask you questions during a Zoom session so that your lecture block takes on a more interactive form. This works well after a preparatory assignment in which students have activated their prior knowledge and have thought about what questions they still have about the subject matter. Use Zoom break-out rooms functionality to start this interaction.
Web Safari (taking participants to different web pages), so they can view the information there. Combine this with questions to the instructor or to each other and with processing assignments.

Activating prior knowledge

Prior to your presentation, you can check what the students already know about the subject you want to cover. You can do this in different ways, both synchronous (during the meeting) and asynchronous (prior to the meeting). Think for example of asking a number of multiple choice questions in Mentimeter. Or ask students to write down (e.g. in 2 columns in Padlet or for themselves in a mind map) what they already know about the subject (column: known), what they want to learn about it/what questions they have (column: curious), let students exchange about these two steps in pairs. They may then already answer some of each other's questions or activate prior knowledge of each other.

In short

Your course meeting will now have a different function and layout than a regular lecture. The following illustration shows one way in which a more or less 'regular' meeting can look like if you convert it to an online session. This can be helpful in thinking about and shaping this transformation process.

Step 5: Scheduling

Try to keep as much as possible to the scheduled times, at least for the synchronous activities. Students are in need of structure and you can assume that they already have the schedule in their digital calendars and are available at the scheduled times. See how you can best use the time scheduled for this course to achieve your learning goals. You do not have to fill all the time that is scheduled with a lecture or workgroup.

You do not need to stick to 2 hours of lecture followed by 2 hours of work or practical class. Schedule (within the scheduled time) several short blocks with other activities in between to process the learning material. And/or replace working synchronously (all at the same time) by working asynchronously (each at his own time) where possible. And if you do use the full rostered time, schedule multiple breaks for a longer meeting (two hours or more) and make sure there is variation in the forms of work. If there are few or no synchronous activities, try to ensure that you can be reached in an easily accessible way. For example, indicating to first-year students that they can email you for questions is often not easy. Sometimes students don't know that they have questions, and then for example an online consultation hour per week works well. Students hear questions from others and the answers to them. See the tip of appointing some students to take up the task to collect questions and get the conversation going.

Keep It Simple

And finally, we advise you when you convert your existing course to an online variant: 'KIS (Keep It Simple)'. Don't expect yourself to learn and use six new applications; students won't be happy about that either.

Need more background information?

Read our general tips on designing courses based on Course Design Heuristics or Practical Course Design.

The information on an article on the University of Utrecht website by Hanne ten Berge and Ineke Lam.The original source can be found here.

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