Module 2 Course Organization and Structure

Time to Read: about 6 minutes

Your choices about how you structure and sequence your course will have a dramatic impact on the student experience. Without the reliable fall back of face-to-face clarification, the more important it becomes to have your materials clearly organized. The easier it is for students to navigate your course, the more time and energy they can put into learning.

We've all experienced the frustration of navigating a poorly designed website. Likely, the website designer didn't intend to make things difficult–instead, the confusion is the result of not thinking about navigation from the user perspective. As an online teacher, you'll want to ensure the course is as intuitive and user-friendly as possible to avoid your students having the same experience you did in the poorly designed website.

As you're working through TOLC, we encourage you to pay attention to your experience. We've tried to follow all of the principles we teach. Take notes of what works well for you and what elements you would change. We have also embraced the iterative nature of teaching and course development. Changes and updates will be made to TOLC over the course of its life.

Organization in Canvas

A logical course structure supports effective and efficient student learning.

To avoid students becoming overwhelmed, you'll need to think carefully about how materials will be grouped together (units, weekly, by topic, by assignments or by activities, etc.). Some courses group materials by week. Others organize by topic. If you choose to organize your course by topic, we recommend maintaining weekly assignments, communications, and assessments. However, each course is unique, and each instructor is unique, so there is no single setup that will work for everyone.

Our best advice is to develop a consistent and manageable format for your students. Ensure that each module follows a similar organization with items labeled consistently. The types of materials you might consider using in your own modules include:

- Overview - a page that includes weekly objectives and a general description or list of assignments for the week.
- Read - a page that could list book chapters, websites, articles, or other forms of written material.
- Watch - a page that contains recorded lectures or other videos to supplement student learning.
- Apply - assignments that ask students to demonstrate their learning in novel situations.
- Discuss - an opportunity for students to interact with one another about course material.
- Build - assignments asking students to create something new to demonstrate complex understanding of material.

Check this guide from Instructure for more information on using and creating modules in Canvas.

Use only the essential course tools in the course navigation menu.

Removing unused tools from the menu reduces the cognitive load of students trying to find what they're looking for in the course. For example, we removed the Collaborations and Outcomes tools in this course, because we are not going to use them. As much as possible, try to keep coursework and activities in Canvas, rather than spreading work across multiple platforms.

We strongly recommend removing Files and Pages from student view.

Keep the same rhythm for assignment due dates and communication with your students.

Try to ensure that everything is due on the same day rather than having multiple due dates throughout the week.

It's common practice and recommend having two due dates for discussion activities: one due date for the initial posting and the second due date for replies.

Students often take online courses because they need flexibility, so this setup allows them to work whenever they have time each week.

A common schedule that many instructors use looks something like the one below. When setting up yours, think carefully about when you intend to grade student work. If you do it during the week, the schedule below will work well. If you do it on the weekend, you may want to move the deadline to Friday at midnight, which would also be when the next week's module opens.

- Monday:
  - 12:00 am: Instructor opens the weekly module.
  - 12:00 pm: Instructor sends weekly announcements.
  - 11:59 pm: Instructor post grades and feedback from previous week's assignments.
- Wednesday:
  - 6:00 pm: Instructor sends reminders to complete weekly assignments (Reminders are useful because it is easy to forget about assessments in an online course).
- Thursday:
  - 11:59 pm: First discussion post due (Thursday deadlines will give group members some time for fruitful discussions with their peers before the end of the week).
- Sunday:
  - 11:59 pm: Weekends - complete all weekly assignments, including discussion post responses.

Structure Matters

Course structure influences the student-user experience in your course. We want our students engaged with our content and activities rather than searching our Canvas site confused on what to do next or struggling to remember where they had found key information.

Learning online is an independent endeavor. While instructors may strive to be present in their online course through video (live or recorded) and provide opportunities for students to connect with their peers via group work or discussions, students learning online must assume greater responsibility for their learning.

Consistent structure helps your students know course expectations, find relevant information, and manage their study time. When students know their study goals, they are more likely to achieve them. Both undergraduate and graduate students are continually developing their learning skills. We can help them in a variety of ways including supporting student planning and strategizing to achieve their learning goals.

This page CAST page for Providing options for Executive Functions lists the associated UDL checkpoints.
- You can help students set and achieve their goals through scaffolding, sequencing, and spacing. We cover these in detail in Module 3.

There are many benefits for incorporating structure in your course. This page in the CTT's Inclusive Teaching resources provides more information and tips.

Reflective Pause

Pause for a moment and consider the organization and structure recommendations above. Write down your ideas.

Which of the recommendations above might suit your teaching style and course?
How are you using (or might use) Canvas Modules to structure your course?
What questions do you have on how course structure can support students and improve learning?
How has the structure of TOLC helped or impeded you as you work to achieve your learning goals?