Essential design elements for successful online courses

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by Powell, Wayne

In the second and third terms students were eased into online learning. Initially they met in-class for a hands-on mineral lab. The following session was fully online, but dealt with the same concepts that they had learned in class. Rather than scratching a mineral with a real nail to test hardness as they did in week one, students virtually scratched a virtual mineral with a virtual nail to collect additional hardness data. Thus students could readily relate to what outcomes were expected for their first online lesson. When the subsequent fully online maps module was presented, students had already gained some familiarity and comfort with the web as a learning medium. Students gained confidence on an easier, more familiar lesson, before attempting the more abstract concept of maps. Evidence that students had developed trust and comfort in the site was apparent in numerous statements from students, four examples of which follow. 1) "The website was helpful. We were able to really understand something we dealt with in class. We can always go back to the information as many times as we wanted to on the website, you know to clarify. And if we needed a physical person like the professor, then we could always meet up with him then we co. ulg his office hours."; 2) "The first two in class sessions I think were important because he said that's what we're going to have to do on the final exam, and got us ready for what we're going to do on the website." ;3) "If I don't understand it I just go further. Because if I go to other places, other sites, it will give you general feedback right away."; and 4) "I usually keep searching. I don't understand about something I try to find out where it comes from and click through that and review over it."

Familiarity is essential for comfort. Students should have the opportunity to gradually develop proficiencies in an online learning environment. Initial face-to-face contact and explanation appears to be of great benefit in this regard. Content design is also important. Placing the most familiar, least abstract, and perhaps most fun modules at the front end of the course allows students to settle comfortably into the online course. If the course is only partially virtual, build towards increased online delivery. Provide web-enhancements to the course before modules that replace classroom sessions or make the initial online activities direct continuations of concepts learned in the classroom. And of course, make the site easy to use and keep lines of communication open.

Navigation and Link Structure - The first class had great difficulty navigating the site. The site was initially constructed with the idea that the site should allow students to jump back and forth readily from almost any point in the site. In designing the site in this potentially non-linear fashion the designer/instructor had intended to give each student more control over his/her own learning. Ideally each student could choose a path that best suited them, and be able to link to related concepts to discover connections, or review necessary material. For example, while learning latitude and longitude, a student might choose to divert their attention to a review of direction or the compass, if they felt such a review necessary. A schematic flowchart of the Spring 2000 maps module is illustrated in figure 1. Note that a distinctive feature of this layout is the ability to arrive at the same page from a number of different paths.