3.1 Gathering, Making, and Structuring Content

Backwards design model begins with learning outcomes, creates assessments, develops learning activities, and ends with creating content.

As you transition your course to remote or blended delivery, it is important to think through what parts of your content are critical to support student achievement of those outcomes and what parts are less critical. This approach will allow you to help your learners also focus on what is most important.

Also worth considering is that, when a course loses some of the structure of in-person meeting times, it's easy to add student workload that exceeds the number of credits assigned to the course. Our Hybrid Coordinator at OSU, Cub Kahn, warns against creating a "course and a half." This issue may arise with any transition to remote or blended delivery, and you'll need to reassess both as you design and as you teach your course.

One way you might plan your remote course strategically is to organize items into required content and activities and supplemental content and activities. There are concrete places where you can make this information visible to students:

At the beginning of your synchronous session (if applicable)
In the learning materials page of your weekly module
In your weekly announcement, introducing what is to come that week (as a reminder)

Evaluating and Curating Available Instructional Resources

As you transition your course to remote or blended delivery, don't re-invent the wheel. Look and see if there are already high-quality videos on topics included in your course on YouTube, Khan Academy, or other sites, and if so, use them. Students will benefit most if you contextualize videos that you did not create, meaning that you provide a few sentences explaining what the video is about and what place it has in the course that week.

On the next page, take a look through our curated list of websites and resources where a lot of content relevant to postsecondary courses already exists. Once you scan what is available to you, then you can identify what resources you may need to create yourself, whether it be video lectures, PowerPoints, written guides or resources, etc. Consider providing a mix of types of content so that students have an opportunity to encounter concepts and ideas in different modes. We know, for example, that our students are often overwhelmed with text-based resources at this time, so they may appreciate a few short videos to watch rather than another reading.

As you proceed, keep in mind that content resources are a means to the end of learning and not an end unto themselves, and that you'll need to assess student learning frequently to see if your strategies are working, or if you may need to make adjustments to your plans during the term.

Finished here?

Select "Next" to go to the next page and review existing and potential sources of content for your course.