Online and blended courses will generally have more guided study available on Aula than campus courses because of the need for more independent guided study.
Students often find it easier to locate, digest and return to information and resources in clearly labelled chunks so it may be helpful to separate weekly guided study elements into multiple pages that repeat over each week in a clearly identifiable manner.
At CUOnline, we therefore advise our academic partners to split the guided study page into multiple action specific pages that make it easier for students to navigate their materials, perform specific tasks and return to topics and activities easily and in their own time.
An example method to offer easily identifiable pages to ease student navigation might be:
- 💼Weekly topics – A page or pages where staff curated media and resources are kept examining the theory behind major topics of the week.
- 📰Wider reading – A page where details are given to support students to explore relevant texts and resources available through the library, external resources and other resources available for them to access.
- 🦺Applied study – A page that aims to offer more contextualised study of particular importance to practice and employment
- 🔧Weekly activities – A page that gives guidance on the main activities that students should be attempting each week to deepen their understanding.
How these study pages are split up is dependent on the teaching style and student requirements.
It is also worth considering how your structured content might adapt and change in the future with a separation between pages expected to need regular updates and others containing more core fundamental concepts. By doing this you can more easily swap out and modernise materials without a requirement to update content more widely making maintenance of the course a simpler process.
Activities
When detailing activities that students should carry out in their own time it is important to give clear guidance and timelines. Try to include:
- Details on where, when and how they should carry out the activity
- Clear expectations on when the activity should be completed
- Details as to how the activity links to their weekly learning objectives/assessment or graduate attributes
- Information on the feedback they should expect to receive