Decide on an organizational structure
It is time to decide how you want to divide your course up into manageable parts and present those parts to the student. You may have already partially or fully decided on a course organization, but this is where you'll drive a stake in the ground and say, "This is how I'm going to organize my course content."
Read Chapter 4 and 5 in your textbook!
Please don't skip this step. You need the information in Chapters 4 and 5 of Smith to proceed. She addresses chunking in Chapter 5, and we'll cover that first. She addresses learning guides in Chapter 4, and we'll cover that a little bit later, but it's good to be thinking about all of these things as you progress through your course development. I am not asking you to complete any of the exercises she has in the back of the book for a grade. It is, however, very important that you know the tips and tricks she describes in these chapters. She speaks as someone who has online teaching and course development experience, and as she tells you in her book, she has learned some things the hard way (as have I).
Smith gives you some ideas about how to "chunk" your entire course into manageable segments. I will add the following:
- Refer back to your learning objectives for the course. Which ones are related? Do they all deserve their own chunk? Or should some be combined in a single chunk (or module, or unit)?
- What are you going to call your chunks? (Please don't call them chunks.) Modules and units are two common terms. You may have others in mind.
- It is not recommended that you call the chunks "Week 1, Week 2" etc. for reasons that Smith explains. However, it works fairly well from a student point of view to align units with weeks, so Unit 1 might be completed during the usual Week 1, etc. You just don't want to be limited by those labels on your units if you happen to teach the course during a condensed summer session or something like that.
- Make sure each of your learning objectives and the assessments and activities on your course plan has a place in one of the modules or units. I should be able to read any one of your learning objectives and say to myself, "It probably belongs in that unit."
- If necessary, subdivide your modules into separate units to cover the learning objective in reasonably sized portions. If you aren't sure what a reasonably sized portion is, consult with me. It depends on how quickly material needs to be covered, but for a regular quarter or semester term, I recommend making each chunk equal to about a week's worth and not more than two weeks of course material.
- I designed the course you are taking now to have five modules with subdivisions into units. You can choose to have just modules or just units. Make your organization make sense for your course, and make it make sense to your students.
- Give the chunks appropriate and consistent names (titles). Make them as brief but as descriptive as you can, and be sure they will be meaningful to the student. For an example of this kind of naming, see the titles I've applied to the modules and units in this course.
- For the purposes of this course you are taking now and for your own functional peace of mind, I recommend that you do not make your individual modules cover too much material. You'll be expected to fully develop at least one module or unit for your course in order to earn some of the points in this course (7727). If you have only two modules in your entire course, you'll be developing half a course in the span of two weeks. That will be very intense and probably not a good time for you. Create chunks that you and your students can manage.
- Don't get stuck on this chunking step. It should be relatively easy, so if you are having difficulty, consult with a peer in the class or with me.
