Open main menu Digital Learning

Selecting Content

Support Learners with Content

Avoiding Powerpoint

Choosing a Variety of Resources

Working with Images

Working with Multimedia

The path to learning is paved with content.

Learning outcomes communicate the goals for a course, and assessments mark progress and achievement, but students need appropriate exposure to activities and instructional materials. Course content is guided by course outcomes and assessments and offers specific knowledge and background that students can use to truly and fully participate and engage in a course.

Course content is the selection of instructional resources by faculty to promote learning, engagement, and achievement of learning outcomes – this includes various multimedia, readings, educational resources, and formative assessments.

Assessments, Learning Activities, and Instructional Materials are all module and course outcomes.

Stage Three of Backward Design is the planning of learning experiences and instruction – the content and activities of a course (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). However, there should always be clear and direct alignment connecting all three stages (outcomes, assessments, and content).

Not only is alignment a best practice in course design, it also gives students insight as to how each assessment, activity, reading, video, or other resource is helping them complete the course. They are motivated when they find relevance in content (Frymier & Shulman, 1995). Students are more apt to read an assigned video if they see ways it is applicable and relevant to their success, degree program and future career.

Consider making these connections for students by indicating how each learning outcome is met by each activity, reading, and resource in your course. Varied forms of content also capture students’ attention and facilitate learning.

SUNY Empire uses a quality course review rubric adapted from the SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR). OSCQR’s Standard #29 recognizes the importance of content alignment and the benefit of “access to a variety of engaging resources that facilitate communication and collaboration, deliver content, and support learning and engagement.”

Regardless of the format you choose, e.g. videos, textbook, articles, “it is important to ensure that the learning outcomes are supported and there is a balance, variety, and opportunity for students to engage with the topic in a manner that will assist them in mastering the stated outcomes” (UNTUNT Teaching Commons).

Support Learners with Content

Effective course design begins with the student in mind. Learner-centered course design focuses on meeting students’ needs and goals and is fundamental in content selection and delivery. The framework places the learner as the “chief agent in the process” within “cooperative, collaborative, and supportive” environments (Barr and Tagg, 2005). An example of a student-centered strategy requires students to take notes on content, watch videos, and focus on their needs; students using this method scored significantly higher on course exams (Connell, Donovan & Chambers, 2016). This active learning method also highlights the importance of content variety and involves students in their own learning. Students also perceive greater economic and educational value in this design approach (Nicklen et al., 2016).

Pacansky-Brock’s (2014) YouTube video How to Design Your Online Course demonstrates Backward Design to show student-centered learning results from the alignment of learning objectives with relevant activities and clear assessment methods and can be achieved through the following 3 Steps to Design Your Online Course:

  1. Identify desired outcomes. What do you want them to know?
  2. Determine acceptable evidence. How will you know that they have learned?
  3. Plan learning experiences and facilitation. What will they do? How will they develop and demonstrate the desired outcomes?

Demonstrate Content Alignment

Consider the following example:

Module 1 Readings and Resources

Required:

Additional Support (Optional):

Resources and Best Practices when Choosing Content

Avoiding Powerpoint

PowerPoint is widely used in the face to face classrooms to convey the main points of a lesson and provide visuals to accompany a lecture. According to Hopper and Waugh (2014), many instructors choose PowerPoint due to the prevalence of the tool in education and time constraints encountered by educators.

Utilizing a PowerPoint slide set for asynchronous online instruction provides a vastly different experience than when it is used to support an in-person lecture. Slides are often presented to the learners without accompanying audio or video lectures to provide context for the information. While slides may summarize and highlight points from the textbook or readings, they don’t expand upon the subject or encourage students to make connections. Using PowerPoint files forces students outside of the learning management system, where they can encounter technical and accessibility issues (Evans & Champion, 2007).

Here are some alternatives to consider when thinking about how to convey course concepts to students in a format other than PowerPoint:

Use Moodle pages to convert slide sets that are text heavy. These pages can be created directly within Moodle and should make use of the appropriate HTML formatting for headings, subtitles, and bulleted or numbered lists. This will make the content more accessible for all students.

Visual information that lacks context can be transitioned to a video with a voice over narration. This enables the content to be explained to the viewer by the instructor. Be sure to consider the multimedia design principles and include descriptive language and captions.

Explore visualization tools to present data charts and graphs. Diagrams can be transitioned to interactive media that allows learners to examine components and explore relationships.

Choosing a Variety of Resources

When you are ready to design your course, you should select a variety of learning materials and activities.

Remember to select activities that will allow students to practice skills needed to meet your module and course outcomes. Learning materials should be aligned with outcomes as well.

The collection of materials and learning activities you incorporate into your course is a large part of the learning experience for your students. Utilizing a range of multimedia materials and selecting materials that demonstrate concepts in different ways can help to accommodate learner differences. Be sure to choose relevant materials that are current in the field. Remember that you can promote active learning through providing engaging activities for your students.

Here are some examples of instructional materials and learning activities for you to explore and consider for your course.

Examples of Instructional Materials

Examples of Learning Activities

More Tips for Success

Working with Images

Why use Images?

Images play an important role in supporting student learning. Graphics can provide an additional way to represent a concept and complement or even enhance the instructional material (Livingston & Shaw, 2017). Hockley and Bancroft (2011) explain that visuals help with recall and comprehension. The most extensive research on the principles of multimedia learning was conducted by Richard Mayer and Ruth Clark. Clark and Mayer (2016) found that students learn better from words and pictures together than from words alone, especially when the images are selected carefully to support the content and are not used for decorative purpose only.

Infographic depicting 5 things to consider when choosing images: Function, Size, Message, Style and Usage Rights

Choosing Images that Support Learning

When you start to think about using images for your learning materials, first you should determine the instructional purpose for including images. Diagrams and representational images facilitate a deeper understanding of concepts that may be difficult for students to observe in their daily lives. Graphics such as maps, flowcharts, and animations help students to understand how various parts relate to each other and come together as a whole. Concepts that are illustrated with data should utilize graphs, charts, and other visualization types. Finally, images are used for instructional cues to create consistent style and branding for your course.

Clark and Mayer (2016) created a useful classification of the graphics based on their function. This classification can be used as a guide for selecting images that support learning. It is recommended to minimize the use of decorative and representational images (Greenwood, 2017).

Graphic Type

Description

Examples
Decorative Visuals added for aesthetic appeal or humor Picture of a question mark in the discussion forum
Representational Visuals that illustrate the appearance of an object Screenshot of a software application, screenshot of a form
Organizational Visuals that show qualitative relationships among content Maps, flowcharts, hierarchies, animations
Relational Visuals that summarize quantitative relationships Bar graphs, histograms, scatter plots
Transformational Visuals that illustrate changes in time or over space Steps in the process or procedure
Interpretive Visuals that make intangible phenomena visible and concrete Illustration of a theory, a principle, or cause-and-effect relationships
There are several additional factors that you should think about to ensure your images are suitable for your course.
  • Size – The image size and resolution must be appropriate for your materials.
  • Message – Make sure the image conveys the information and emotions that are relevant for your instructional purpose.
  • Style – The style of graphics should be consistent across your course materials.
  • Usage rights – Make sure the images are free to use. There are different kind of rights attached to the images, so the best approach is to assume all graphics are copyrighted until proven otherwise (Livingston & Shaw, 2017). Some of the safest types of images to use are the ones in the public domain, which means these images can be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner. Another option is to use Creative-Commons-licensed content with proper attribution and usage of the content.

Finding Free-to-Use Images

When incorporating images into your work, always make sure you obtained them legally. If you simply save an image randomly off the Internet, the chances are that somebody owns that image and you are using it illegally. Here are some sources of images that are freely available for use:

  • Pixabay contains only public domain deed images, which constitutes a copyright waiver. Anybody may use images from Pixabay free of charge without attribution. For more details, review Pixabay Simplified License.
  • Unsplash has a collection of over 1 million high resolution images that are free to use. Attribution is appreciated but not required.
  • Flickr is a crowdsourced image platform. When using images from Flickr, you should be mindful of their copyright license and attribute the images to their authors. You can search Flickr by a specific Creative Commons Licence or by a Public Domain Dedication.
  • Wikimedia Commons contains Creative Commons images whose licenses are clearly listed by the image, so there is never any confusion about how to reuse an image.

Working with Multimedia

E-Book available from Library (SUNY Empire Log-in Required)

When you have selected content, be sure to consider the next step: Assuring Accessibility

Resources

Barr, R. B. & Tagg, J. (1995). From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. Change, 27(6). Retrieved from https://usm.maine.edu/sites/default/files/facultycommons/BarrandTagg%20from%20teaching%20to%20learning.pdf

Borup, J., West, R. E., & Graham, C. R. (2012). Improving online social presence through asynchronous video. Internet and Higher Education, 15, 195-203. Retrieved from http://www.northeastern.edu/nuolirc/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/video-and-instuctor-presence-.pdf

Connell, G. L., Donovan, D. A, & Chambers, T. G. (2016). Increasing the Use of Student-Centered Pedagogies from Moderate to High Improves Student Learning and Attitudes about Biology. CBE Life Sciences Education, 15(1), doi: 10.1187/cbe.15-03-0062. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803092/

Frymier, A. B., & Shulman, G. M. (1995). “What’s in it for me?”: Increasing content relevance to enhance students’ motivation. Communication Education, 44(1), 40–50. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529509378996

Muller, K., Gradel, K., Deane, S., Forte, M., McCabe, R., Pickett, A. R., Piorkowski, R., Scalzo, K. & Sullivan, R. (2019). Assessing Student Learning in the Online Modality. National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. Retrieved from https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Occasional-Paper-40.pdf

Nicklen, P., Rivers, G., Ooi, C., Ilic, D., Reeves, S., Walsh, K. & Maloney, S. (2016). An Approach for Calculating Student-Centered Value in Education – A Link between Quality, Efficiency, and the Learning Experience in the Health Professions. PLOS ONE 11(9): e0162941. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162941

Pacansky-Brock, Michelle. (2014, March 26). How to Design Your Online Course. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E12H1NUDkT0&feature=youtu.be

UNTUNT Teaching Commons. (n.d.). Retrieved June 17, 2020, from https://teachingcommons.unt.edu/teaching-essentials/online-course-design/selecting-content-your-online-course

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (2nd Ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Evans, R., & Champion, I. (2007). Enhancing online delivery beyond PowerPoint. The Community College Enterprise, 13(2), 75-84.

Hopper, K., & Waugh, J. (2014). PowerPoint: An Overused Technology Deserving of Criticism, but Indispensable. Educational Technology, 54(5), 29-34. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44430303

Dixson, M. d. (2012). Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction, Updated Edition. NACTA Journal, 56(2), 99-100.

Wyatt, J. L. (2014). Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction. Adult Learning, 25(2), 74-75.

CC BY 4.0  Attribution: Online Learning Consortium, Inc. used and modified.

Hockley, W. E., & Bancroft, T. (2011). Extensions of the picture superiority effect in associative recognition. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(4), 236-244. 

Community Team. (n.d.). 7 Ways to Use Graphics for Learning – E-Learning Heroes. Retrieved May 12, 2020, from https://community.articulate.com/articles/7-ways-to-use-graphics-for-learning 

Greenwood, J. (2017). Mayer’s principles for multimedia learning. Retrieved May 12, 2020, from http://instructionaldesign.io/toolkit/mayer/  

Livingston, K., & Shaw, A. (2017, May 30). Using Graphics in Online Courses – Center for Teaching and Learning: Wiley Education Services. Retrieved May 12, 2020, from   https://ctl.wiley.com/using-graphics-in-online-courses/

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Cognitive theory of multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), Cambridge handbooks in psychology. The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (p. 43–71). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369.005

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (4th ed.). Pfeiffer/John Wiley & Sons.