what should a good online course look like

What Makes a Good Online Course?

• Natural Learning Content. ...
• Student-Friendly Pacing. ...
• Sense of Community. ...
• Smart Use of Multimedia. ...
• Self-Directed Assignments. ...
• Ease of Navigation. ...
• Additional Roads of Exploration. ...
• Appeals to All Learning Styles. ...
• Technology That Works. ...
• The Element of Surprise. ...

Full Answer

What makes a good online class?

Good online classes know how to pace the assignments so that students are neither bored nor overloaded on any given week. These courses are specifically designed so that plenty of time is allotted for working on major projects and that minor assignments keep students engaged in the meantime. 03 of 10 Sense of Community

How to create the perfect online course?

In an online course, you should log into the course every day to see what has changed or been updated, or who has replied to your posts. You have reached the end of section one, eLearning Overview. The next section of this orientation will go deeper into …

How many students take online courses each year?

Sep 20, 2019 · A good online course should have a substantial amount of content. A good online course should have multiple forms of media, such as video, text, and audio. A good online course should not be limited to one type of device. A good online …

How to teach an online course effectively?

Many online courses lack multimedia elements or provide the same format each week, which can make for a boring experience. You should look for courses that have invested in elearning innovation and are utilizing multiple formats for interaction, including multimedia elements to create an engaging experience.

What are the good qualities of online classes?

What Makes a Successful Online Learner?Persistence. Persistence is perhaps the biggest key to success in online learning. ... Effective Time-Management Skills. ... Effective and Appropriate Communication Skills. ... Basic Technical Skills. ... Reading and Writing Skills. ... Motivation and Independence. ... A Good Study Environment.

How can I make my online course better?

8 Ways to Improve Your Online CourseBuild a personal connection with your students. ... Motivate your students. ... Help students maintain focus. ... Create a sense of community. ... Make discussions meaningful. ... Increase student engagement. ... Address equity issues. ... Identify and support struggling students.Aug 11, 2020

How do you structure an online course?

3:498:04How to outline and structure an online course (Make an AMAZING course)YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipThink about where your student is now and the end result you'd like to create has opposite banks ofMoreThink about where your student is now and the end result you'd like to create has opposite banks of a river what major milestones. Will they need to achieve to arrive on the other side of the bridge.

Which online platform is best?

The 7 Best Online Learning Platforms of 2022Best Overall: Coursera.Best for Niche Topics: Udemy.Best for Creative Fields: Skillshare.Best for Celebrity Lessons: MasterClass.Best for STEM: EdX.Best for Career Building: Udacity.Best for Data Learning: Pluralsight.Feb 24, 2022

Why is online learning important?

As much as possible, good online classes provide the opportunity for students to make up their own minds and take responsibility for their own learning. Some of the best courses allow students to create their own projects or focus on an element of the topic that they particularly enjoy.

Who is Jamie Littlefield?

The Top 10 Characteristics. Jamie Littlefield is a writer, instructional designer, and teacher of high school and college distance education courses. Her work has appeared in Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and more. Let’s face it: there are a lot of low-quality, low-learning, boring online classes out there.

Is online class good?

It’s sometimes tempting to overload a course with flashy tech elements or to have students sign up for dozens of outside services. But, good online classes avoid this temptation. Instead, good courses include carefully selected technologies that are reliable and fully supported. This helps students avoid the panic that comes from encountering a required program that just won’t run or a video that just won’t load.

Is it okay to overload a course?

Sometimes, overloading a course with too many “extras” can be confusing to students. But, it’s still helpful to give students ways to learn more outside of the prescribed curriculum if they choose to do so. Good online courses provide supplemental ways for students to keep learning but differentiate that from the core content so that students aren’t overwhelmed.

How to choose a good online course?

However, you should keep in mind some general guidelines when selecting a course. Below is a list of characteristics I have identified as being important in a good online course: 1 A good online course should offer some kind of sample or proof of its quality. 2 A good online course is taught by a person or organization with relevant experience. 3 A good online course has solid underlying technology. 4 A good online course is well presented. 5 A good online course is well organized. 6 A good online course should have a substantial amount of content. 7 A good online course should have multiple forms of media, such as video, text, and audio. 8 A good online course should not be limited to one type of device. 9 A good online course offers some form of feedback or interaction. 10 A good online course should not require physical media or tools beyond the essentials.

What happens if a course is not presented well?

No matter how high-quality the information within, if a course is not presented well, the person taking it will not stay engaged and will have a hard time absorbing that information.

Is it hard to follow a course made up of pages?

Everyone learns differently and a course which is solely made up of pages upon pages of text documents will often be hard to follow and can risk losing a lot of peoples attention.

What is the best online course?

They do so by utilizing key technologies to create accessible, engaging environments. Engaging students in online learning is key, especially when face-to-face interactions, both between students and teachers and among students and their peers, do not occur.#N#Some initial best practices being implemented include interactive measures to encourage online student engagement, effective use of technology to make for easily accessible and well-produced materials, opportunities for mentoring, peer collaboration and more.#N#Here are some questions to explore when selecting a good online course or program:

How does online learning impact education?

Online learning is proving to be quite impactful by making education accessible to larger groups of people. University-based massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are not a new offering, but a greater number of students are now opting to do their learning through accredited online courses.

What is distance learning?

Distance, or online learning, is an educational process where students enroll in online courses to learn through lecture recordings, live video conferencing, and additional audio/visual materials, which are made available virtually. Online learning is proving to be quite impactful by making education accessible to larger groups of people.

How has technology changed the world?

Technology has completely transformed the world of work, providing more opportunities to work remotely. It’s therefore no surprise that students are also seeking remote learning opportunities to further their studies.#N#Distance, or online learning, is an educational process where students enroll in online courses to learn through lecture recordings, live video conferencing, and additional audio/visual materials, which are made available virtually.#N#Online learning is proving to be quite impactful by making education accessible to larger groups of people. University-based massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are not a new offering, but a greater number of students are now opting to do their learning through accredited online courses.#N#Individuals who benefit from the flexibility of online learning include working professionals, stay at home parents, those who are abroad and others without regular access to transportation. Many full-time students also choose to take online courses during their school breaks to lighten their standard course loads during semesters. Elearning can therefore also complement traditional education and offline learning.

Use Color Combinations

Artists and interior designers have better understood how colors can affect humor, feelings, sentiments and emotions. You too need to don the mantle of an artist (don’t worry, it is not difficult ), while creating your eLearning courses. Different colors have different impact on human psychology.

Use significant graphics and interactivities

A picture is worth a thousand words. Graphics are vital tools, and the use of meaningful graphics can easily make a difference between a good course and a great course. The use of meaningful graphics with some text makes your eLearning course rich.

Standardization

Standards help learners know what is important and what they are supposed to do. There should be consistency in the use of fonts, size, color, design etc. to avoid learner distraction. Generally, people concentrate more on the text written in bold than on “regular” text. Decide where to use bold letters and where not.

How to improve sound quality on laptop?

Although a built-in laptop microphone is fine, even an inexpensive USB mic goes a long way to improve audio quality. Speak slowly and clearly.

What is the University of South Carolina Upstate's challenge?

In their fourth year with an accessibility awareness committee, the University of South Carolina Upstate had a significant challenge – to make sure all of the user community is educated about the need for captions, and to encourage faculty to generate them when they create recordings.

Is low unemployment good for community colleges?

Low regional unemployment is a good thing overall; however, in this region, it can present a challenge for community colleges. As the price of oil goes up, enrollment tends to go down since there are plentiful, high-paying jobs in the oil fields.

How many students have taken online courses?

According to a 10 year study conducted by the Online Learning Consortium, 6.7 million students have taken at least one online course and roughly thirty-two percent of all higher-education students now take at least one online course during their educational career. And these numbers continue to rise.

How to make a course interactive?

Plan for interaction! Make sure your course is rich in opportunities for students to engage with the content, with you and with each other. This means creating diverse activities like discussions, group work, case studies and collaborative problem-solving. Also, be sure to select resources that are relevant and present a variety of viewpoints and meet different learning styles. Consider multimedia, periodicals, web resources, etc.

Why is it important to have clear objectives?

It is essential to build measurable and clear objectives that outline what is expected of the learner. These objectives will make it easy to align the rest of your course and will serve to communicate learning expectations to students.

What is the ABCD method?

ABCD Method – An easy framework for creating learning objectives is the A.B.C.D. method. This stands for Audience, Behavior, Condition and Degree. Learning objectives that contain each of these elements will clearly outline the learning that is to be achieved after completing each module.

What is summative assessment?

Summative Assessment evaluates student learning, skill and academic achievement at the end of a defined instructional period (i.e. project, unit, course, semester, etc.).

What is a rubric?

Rubrics. A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for students’ work that includes descriptions of levels of performance quality on the criteria. The main purpose of rubrics is to assess performances (Brookhart, 2013). Explore four types of rubrics that you might use to assess assignments in your course.

What is Canvas MCCCD?

Canvas is our Learning Management System (LMS) for MCCCD. View courses from a variety of colleges that use our LMS Canvas in the Canvas Catalog . For even more course samples using Canvas explore by feature.