This article will help you with how to structure your weeks or content in your Aula space to ensure an excellent student experience.
How you need to structure your space will depend on how your teaching sessions will be set up, and how students are grouped within your module. For modules that are shared by a number of courses the level of common content and that which is course specific will also shape the structure of the Aula space.
Splitting your module information, tasks and instructions up into a clear structure is a way of chunking information. Doing this enables your students to better focus and pay attention to information as they progress through their learning journey and will reduce distractions and confusion. Students will find it easier to process information and will be more likely to be able to recall it later. You can find out more about balancing cognitive load in this article about Principles of Multimedia.
Below you will find best practice advice, examples and ideas for three like scenarios for how your module needs to be structured.
Scenario 1: All students in the module are studying the same content
If all of the students in your module will be studying exactly the same content we recommend the following structure:
Your week ahead
Use the ‘Your week ahead’ page each week to:
- Give students an overview of what they will be doing that week
- Set expectations regarding their engagement in tasks (active and applied learning) and what they need to complete by when
- Include key milestones that relate to the assessment and their learning objectives
Your guided study
Use the ‘Your guided study’ page each week to:
- Insert instructions and resources for activities that your students will be completing outside of the structured teaching and learning sessions
Include:
- Where and how they should respond to tasks
- By when tasks should be completed
- How the task or activity links to the weekly learning objectives/assessment or graduate attributes
- Whether or how they will receive feedback
Session A /B – Title
Use these pages to share information with your students about their structured learning sessions.
Include:
- The link to the session or how they join it
- Any preparation they need to do before the session
- An agenda
Make sure that you upload a link to any recordings and provide transcripts underneath the recording they relate to.
Your next steps
Use this page to:
- Summarise what students have covered this week.
- Remind students of key tasks that they should have completed that relate to their assessment
- Signpost students to where they can get support related to the assessment or other key tasks if they are struggling
- Make it clear what students need to do before the next week
Scenario 2: Shared module with discipline specific content
If your module contains students that are going to be covering some of the same content but also discipline specific content (arts and design students studying illustration and photography in a shared module for example) we recommend the following structure:
Your week ahead
Use this page to inform all students on the module of the shared content and activities that they will be engaging with that week:
- Give students an overview of what they will be doing that week
- Set expectations regarding their engagement in tasks (active and applied learning) and what they need to complete by when
- Include key milestones that relate to the assessment and their learning objectives
- Inform them when structured learning sessions will be taking place and provide information about how to join and the agenda
- Include instructions about guided study that they will need to complete outside of the structured learning sessions
Course X / Y
Use these pages for sharing information with students about discipline specific content and tasks that they will be engaging with that week:
- Give students an overview of what discipline specific activities they will be doing that week
- Set expectations regarding their engagement in discipline specific tasks (active and applied learning) and what they need to complete by when
- Include discipline specific key milestones that relate to the assessment and their learning objectives
- Inform them when discipline specific structured learning will be taking place and provide information about how to join and the agenda
- Include instructions about discipline specific guided study that they will need to complete outside of the structured learning sessions
You can create as many sections as you need depending on how many discipline specific groups there will be in your AULA module space.
Note that for accessibility reasons it is important to use shape as well as colour to distinguish your groups.
Your next steps
Use this page to:
- Summarise what all students have covered this week.
- Remind students of key tasks that they should have completed that relate to their assessment
- Signpost students to where they can get support related to the assessment or other key tasks if they are struggling
- Make it clear what all students need to do before the next week
Scenario 3: Project / topic based module structure
Use this scenario for modules where there is not a strict weekly structure. For example, where students are going to be working on a big group project throughout the module.
Use this space to:
- provide students with an overview of their task and set expectations regarding their engagement.
- include key milestones that relate to the project completion and set expectations regarding their engagement in specific project tasks.
- provide students with their do-to list for the week
Our expectations
Use this page for instructions for activities and providing your students with resources for tasks that they need to complete outside of any structured teaching and learning sessions.
Include:
- Instructions for group work
- Where and how tasks should be completed
- How the activities in this page link to the bigger project, learning outcomes and development of Graduate Attributes
- How your students will receive feedback on their performance and when
Your Structured Activities
Use this page to share information with your students about their structured teaching and learning activities.
Include:
- Joining or room information and timings
- Any preparation they need to do before sessions
- An agenda
- The recording and transcripts once ready
Your Next Steps
Use this page to:
- Summarise what students have covered this week
- Remind students of key tasks that they should have completed that relate to their assessment
- Signpost students to where they can get support related to the assessment or other key tasks if they are struggling
- Make it clear what students need to do to prepare for the next phase of the project
Formatting
Make sure you follow the formatting guidelines for University AULA module spaces to ensure you achieve consistency across all courses and module as well as a good user experience for your students.
