How do most instructors run an online course? This will be my first online course I'm running soon!
That's a great question, @donnie!
What I like to do is focus on three areas: competence, connection, and completeness. By competence, I mean what it is I want my students to learn in the class, how they will demonstrate what they have learned, and what content they need to consume to help them with that demonstration. Connection is the relationship that I have with each student and they have with each other. If they don't make connections with other people, they are much less likely to persist and succeed. Finally, completeness refers to the presentation, details, etc. of a class. Anytime we use a learning management system, the classroom is open 24 hours a day. That means our students can effect their learning at any time, but we are not available at any time to provide the clarity that some may need. So a course is complete once its instructions are clear, rubrics are easy to read, content is accessible, etc.
Your question inspired me to provide a succinct answer, and I hope that it is helpful. Each of the steps I describe can be detailed in a zillion ways, but if I focus on a few important topics the details fall into place.
I hope that others in the Community share their perspective too.
I recommend that you organize all of your course content in modules. Many instructors create weekly modules; others create unit modules. I recommend that each module have a uniform look. Start with a page that provides an overview of the content, learning objectives, and tasks that must be completed. Organize each module in a similar way with text headers for the major sections. A clear, consistent structure is key.
Emphasize to your students the importance of going through the Modules. Set up module requirements so that your students will get green checkmarks for completing each item, and you can view their progress. You can also set up "prerequisites."
Enable "Modules" in the student navigation bar, but disable Assignments, Discussions, Files, Pages and Quizzes. It's much better for students to click on Modules and access everything from one place.
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