Course Design for Distance Learning
Instructional Design:
Instructional Design (ID) is the practice of creating experiences that support learning. Good instructional design supports authentic, engaged learning by developing course materials, activities, and assessments, and building them into courses that are cohesive, navigable, and usable. ID does not focus on the course content (that is the SME's job), nor does it worry about the teaching style of the instructor. The concern of a good ID how the content is being presented to the learners, reinforced by solid pedagogical theory.
There are many very good instructional design models, a few of which are listed below. For more information about other approaches, Kennesaw State University provides a nice reference that can be accessed on their ID Models page.

The ADDIE Model works in a cycle of Analyze - Design - Development - Implementation - Evaluation. This allows the designer to work closely with the Subject Matter Expert (SME) in a way that allows for cooperative development as well as revision following use. It is an ongoing process that leads to constant improvment.

Description of Backwards Design

Description of SAMR
- Example of Self Evaluation Guidelines for Online Courses [External site]
- RubiStar - Free tool to create rubrics [External site]
- Montana Tech uses Proctorio to proctor online exams. To get to the instructions go to https://mtech.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/1921/Portal/Home/ [External site] Sign in, and type Proctorio into the search bar.
- Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education [External site]
- Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education [External site]
- Writing Multiple Choice Items which Require Comprehension [External site]
- Refer to the Academic Dishonesty policy in the Montana Tech Student Handbook [PDF]
- Montana University System Online [External site]
- Are my students ready to learn online?
- Montana Tech Syllabus Guidelines [PDF]
- Rapid Online Course Design [PDF]
- Steps to Design Online Course (SUNY) [PDF]
Course Quality
- Accessibility
- Assessment - Learner Assessment in Online Courses: Best Practices & More [External site]
- Tips for overcoming Online Discussion Board Challenges [External site]
Learning Repositories
- Merlot - Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching [External site]
- Hippocampus - Homework and Study Help [External site]
Academic Integrity
How can I try to prevent cheating in my online class?
- Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education [external link]
- Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education [external link]
- Writing Multiple Choice Items which Require Comprehension [external link]
What is considered Academic Dishonesty at Montana Tech?
What do I do if I discover instances of academic dishonesty?
All cases need to be reported to the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs: Provost Nosa Egiebor, MG 301, or call 406-496-4127.
Copyright
- U.S. Copyright Office [External site]
- The Copyright and Fair Use Web Site of the Stanford University Libraries [External site]
- Creative Commons [External site]
- Copyright Crash Course - University of Texas Libraries [External site]
- Electronic Frontier Foundation [External site]
- Intellectual Property Law Issues in Legal and Academic Writing (Professor Eve Rosenbam) [External site]
Plagiarism
- Plagiarism.org [External site]
- Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab [External site]
Steps to Design Online Course (SUNY)
Condensed from the article:
Student Satisfaction and Perceived Learning with On-Line Courses: Principles and Examples from the SUNY Learning Network
SUNY Network
Overview of Method
- Get Started
- Create an Orientation
- Chunk Course into Modules
- Create Learning Activities in Course Modules
- Navigation
- Evaluation
- Walk through Course
- Get Ready to Teach
- After You Teach - Evaluate and Revise Course
-
- Course Development Process
- Step One: Get Started
- Visualize course
- Assess current instructional practices and relate them to on-line learning
- Identify some learning activities and methods of evaluation
- Draft profile of course
- Successful courses begin with faculty who can articulate description of course
- Use a narrative, conversational tone as if addressing a single student to prepare profile of course responding to:
- What will I get out of taking this course?
- What is this study about?
- How is this course organized?
- What exactly will I be doing when I take this course?
- How will you assess my work?
- What constitutes ‘good’ work in the course?
- The answer to these questions will become foundation for actual course information and orientation documents.
- Document details for course including prerequisites for participation such as additional software or special hardware or other media or tools, if guest speakers will participate
- Step Two: Create an Orientation
The orientation documents familiarize students with the instructor, the course, and general course-related information. Nine orientation documents provide students with the walls to their on-line classroom.- Welcome – introduces the instructor and the course
- Contact Information – how to contact the instructor and his/her schedule
- Course Overview and Objectives – details course and objectives
- Readings and Materials – details the texts and/or materials to be used in course
- Learning Activities – describes specifically each type of activity
- How You Will be Evaluated – details how each activity will be evaluated
- My Expectations – what instructor expects from students in terms of participation
- Course Schedule – clearly outlines every activity including reading assignments, assignment due dates, scheduled tests and quizzes, special projects, discussions, and group activities. Titles and references to documents and modules in the course must be consistent for the schedule to be effective.
- Next Steps – might include reading any posted announcements, posting a personal profile, participating in a ice-breaking assignment
- Step Three: Chunk Course into Modules
- Determined by instructor’s pedagogical approach, the nature of the content or discipline, and the constraints and features of the on-line environment
- Some course design structures include being arranged by topic, by task, by chapters in a textbook, by time frames, by steps in a process, by metaphor, or by combinations of the above.
- This is the most important and most difficult step for faculty – faculty should create own course materials and determine structure of their course.
- Step Four: Create Learning Activities in Course Modules
- List learning activities envisioned for each module – draft a title for each
Keep short and descriptive - consistent naming conventions - List learning activities in a specific or logical order for each module
Consider type, quantity, and pacing of activities for each module - Group activities in logical and consistent scheme across modules
- List learning activities envisioned for each module – draft a title for each
- Navigation – create consistent navigational & instructional documents that explicitly tell their students where to go next and what to do
Use same font
Put in same location on pages
Use consistent wording for the instructions - Evaluation
Review list of learning activities – how do you plan to evaluate student work, performance or learning for each activity
Look at evaluation document in syllabus & orientation area – make sure it is consistent with evaluation of activities
How will you evaluate discussion, if it is a component of course?
Review workload for students and instructors- How many students are they likely to have?
- What if they have small enrollments?
- What if they have very large enrollments?
- Will the activities planned still work?
- What alternatives are there?
Give some thought to workload and course management - Step Five: Walk Through Course
- If time permits have outside reviewer such as a colleague or expert in the field review course looking for:
- content accuracy
technical quality
functionality
user acceptability and usability
issues associated with actual implementation and use of instruction
- content accuracy
- Evaluate and revise or refine the structure, materials, and activities during development phase
- If time permits have outside reviewer such as a colleague or expert in the field review course looking for:
- Step Six: Get Ready to Teach
- Encourage students to get familiar with the Web environment for their course
- Incorporate warm-up activities in first module to introduce everyone to each other and to let students “practice” features of the Web-class environment
- It is recommended that there is something new for students at least every two to three days
- Step Seven: After You Teach - Evaluate and Revise Course
- Keep notes during the teaching phase of their course – issues, problems
- Thoughts, general or specific, on the design, structure, pacing, and/or sequencing of the courses, or of any of the activities should be documented as the courses are taught
- What worked well?
- What did not? Why?
- What could be improved? How?
- Were discussions successful?
- Were assignments and other activities successful?
- Were students able to complete all the modules in the course?
- Did most of the students complete the course?
- How was the workload for the instructor and for the students?
- Was the instructor able to keep up?
- Was there anything missing?
- Were there any points in the course where students did not do or understand the activity?
- Step One: Get Started
- Course management Tips
- Course Development Process
Faculty should do the following:
-
- Log into their courses on a scheduled basis – especially at the beginning – gives students a sense of security
- Respond to all student e-mail immediately – e-mail should be used for private communication between student and instructor otherwise it should be placed in the appropriate place in the course
- Check for and respond immediately to any student queries in the course itself
- Grade and return evaluated assignments to students as quickly as possible
- Check to see that students are responding in the appropriate locations in the course and address any problems immediately. Keeping a course tidy and free from problems, false starts, or empty student documents created by accident keeps the “classroom” running smoothly, cleanly, and free of potential sources of confusion.