Here are a few helpful ideas to orient your course design for student success.

Put a Face (or a voice) with a Name

Help your students see you and their classmates as real people. Create a brief video to introduce yourself and post it at the beginning of the course. It’s ok if it’s not perfectly polished or professionally created. Students will appreciate getting a glimpse of who you are “in real life.”

Ask your students to create and post their own video or audio recordings so they can introduce themselves to you and their classmates. To help build community, require students to select the posts they can relate to and ask them to respond to their classmates’ introductions.

Stay Consistent

Help your students easily navigate course content and expectations by establishing a consistent structure for the way you communicate and share information. One simple way to organize and deliver course content is to use a modular design in which each module represents a unit or lesson. Clearly label modules and organize them in chronological order. Maintain the same framework throughout each module (ex. overview, learning outcomes, steps to completion) so students will know how and where they can locate important information.

Leverage Available and Supported Technology

It is important to use available technology to help facilitate student learning. Kaltura is a form of technology that is integrated with eLC. Use Kaltura to record mini lecture videos, narrate slideshows, or create announcements that you can then share with your students. Schedule Zoom sessions with your students to address questions or issues, hold virtual consultations (i.e. office hours), or host optional study sessions. Encourage students who are working in small groups to create their own Zoom sessions to help facilitate collaboration. G Suite at UGA also gives you and your students access to collaborative tools in Google, such as Google docs, Google sheets, and Google slides. Finally, select and use relevant videos from sites like YouTube to add an additional dynamic to course content and deepen student understanding.