Institute of Teaching and Learning
Deakin University
There are various ways to design a unit you will be teaching wholly or partly online. Here is a straightforward method based loosely on Dick and Carey's (2001) 'Systems Approach Model'. It involves systematically rethinking the approaches you may have taken in the past to teaching your unit. Even if a unit you are planning to teach does not need this level of revision, working through the following activities should highlight its strengths and weaknesses.
Another approach is to 'start small', just add online elements to your face-to-face teaching strategy as you see the need. For further information on enhancing specific aspects, see: Strategies for providing learning materials online, Communication strategies, Assessment strategies, Group work strategies and Site management strategies.
There are five key stages in developing a successful unit, whether its mode of delivery is online, face to face or a combination. These will be described in the context of developing an online teaching strategy:
1. Plan
Before you start to build, work out what teaching and learning goals you want to achieve.
2. Design
Decide on the best strategies to achieve your teaching/learning goals, given the resources available.
3. Develop
Source, write or otherwise create your resources, set up your communication and assessment strategies and get someone else to test your site.
4. Deliver
Deliver your educational strategy. This involves managing your students' expectations and your time to meet their needs while not having to be online 24/7.
5. Evaluate
Evaluate the outcomes of your project. How effective were your strategies and materials in meeting your teaching/learning goals? Were the needs of your students met?
First, identify your students' characteristics and learning needs, match them against the stated and assessed learning outcomes, and set your teaching/learning goals.
Write a short response to each of the following. Note any questions you're unsure of to discuss with your unit team, faculty teaching and learning staff or teaching and learning committee.
Although you may not yet have met your students, working on what you do know and can reasonably predict about them, what are likely to be your students' major learning needs and characteristics? Consider:
Much has been written recently on the particular learning styles of 'Generation Y' students, who have grown up in an environment awash with technology. While not all of your students will conform to the stereotypes presented in the literature, it is worthwhile understanding these characteristics and bearing them in mind. Educause 
provides links to numerous publications in this area.
The next step is to decide on the best strategies to achieve your teaching/learning goals, consider the resources available to you - both to develop your teaching/learning materials and to interact with the students - and draft a plan.
Your answers to each of the following questions will form a design map. Download the attached Word document table (.doc). List your unit teaching/learning goals in the first column.
What types of knowledge or skill will your students require to achieve the teaching/learning goals you have identified (eg factual knowledge, procedural skill, analytical skill, strategic thinking, etc.)?
If you are free to set the assessments, for each teaching/learning goal, now consider the most appropriate ways to assess the various types of knowledge and skill you have identified. For example, multiple-choice tests are useful for assessing factual knowledge, and reflective journals can reveal students' ability to apply and analyse key concepts. Some types of assessment make it possible to assess multiple types of skill and knowledge at once, eg oral presentations (via eLive) can be used to assess not only presentation skills but also factual knowledge, technology skills and critical thinking skills; peer-assessed collaborative projects can be designed to assess teamwork and organisational skills as well as factual knowledge, information handling skills and critical thinking skills; and authentic practical projects such as portfolios can make it possible to assess the students' ability to synthesise their learning in the creation of new, useful artifacts.
Remember that students will tend to put most of their effort into the activities that are assessed, so if a teaching/learning goal is important, make it assessable.
For further information on online assessment, see the Australian Universities Teaching Committee website: 'Assessing learning in Australian universities' .
For further general information on assessment, see the Institute of Teaching and Learning teaching and learning module on assessment .
Online learning at Deakin is not restricted to reading and listening to recorded lectures. When considering the best ways for students to achieve the teaching/learning goals for your unit, also consider authentic tasks, problem-based activities, role-plays, collaborative work, reflective tasks, self-tests, simulations, etc. Be a little adventurous at this stage - it might not be as hard as you think to set up the learning experiences you think would be perfect!
Again, make sure the link between each of these learning experiences and the work that is assessed is clear - today's students need to know they are spending their study time wisely.
For further information on online teaching/learning strategies, see Ron Oliver's 'When teaching meets learning: design principles and strategies for web-based learning environments that support knowledge construction' (.pdf).
DSO can support a wide range of media, and there are advantages in providing a mix - different students prefer different media, each medium has its own strengths for communicating certain types of information or supporting certain types of interaction, and using a range of approaches can add interest and introduce a range of points of view.
Consider textbooks, online study guides, web resources, iLecture recordings, online asynchronous discussions, eLive sessions, multimedia animations, virtual or real lab sessions, online quizzes, online group-based assignments, etc.
For further information on online teaching/learning resources, consult your faculty teaching and learning staff or contact the ITL Support Service for advice on the best ways to meet your resource needs.
If your unit is new, if you are making a transition to wholly online delivery, or if your enrolment numbers are high, implementing your plan may involve significant logistical issues. If you consult your faculty teaching and learning staff early and plan for these, processes can be streamlined.
is strongly advised. The table you have created should make it easier to work out a week-by-week teaching/learning plan, though if you have concurrent assessments or assessments/activities covering multiple learning outcomes it will probably not be possible simply to sort the assessments and learning experiences in your table into a practical chronological order.
Source, write or otherwise create your resources. Allow plenty of time, especially if you need expert help. Again, it will be helpful to discuss your needs with your unit team and faculty teaching and learning staff or contact the ITL Support Service, especially if you are unfamiliar with the tools.
To develop your design, you might need to:
(staff only) for guidelines on usability testing and general information on how to create usable websites. The Site management strategies site also contains useful tips on how to make your site and attractive and effective teaching space. Deliver your educational strategy. This involves managing your students' expectations and your time to meet their needs while not having to be online 24 hours a day. It also involves anticipating questions and difficulties, and providing useful, timely feedback. Creating a safe learning space is vital, as is projecting a supportive, sincere online presence. Students need as much interaction online as they do on campus, if not more.
Usage statistics show that students access their DSO sites at all hours of the day, on all days of the week. Because instant communication is possible via the online discussions, some students expect instant replies to queries they post there. However, you can train them to be more reasonable.
. provides an overview. While the University's Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units (SETU) system may provide some useful feedback, you will need much more information to evaluate properly the effectiveness of your online teaching/learning strategy.
It is not necessary to wait until the end of semester to evaluate (and improve) your materials, techniques and overall strategy - indeed, Deakin University's 'Indicators of quality in online units' (Online technologies in courses and units procedure, amended 2005) include 'a built-in feedback mechanism' to provide student feedback on design, usability, what worked, what didn't, and what could be improved or discontinued. A dedicated discussion forum or a periodic online student survey are simple methods to gain feedback in time for you to do something to address any student concerns.
A comprehensive summative evaluation should include consultation with all stakeholders, including not only students but anyone involved with teaching or supporting the unit. However, to consult so widely to evaluate each of your units every semester would not be an efficient use of your time. While it is important to be open to feedback of all types, deciding on key questions and then focusing on who is likely to provide the most useful answers to each will be the most useful approach. The list of key questions and consultations could be kept quite short for minor evaluations, while they would obviously be much longer for unit and course reviews.
For more information, see: 'Evaluation and redevelopment in the context of online developments' (.pdf).
A comprehensive approach to evaluation that will produce sufficient information to enable you to make rational decisions on whether and how your strategy can be improved would include a mix of the following. Once you have decided your key questions, consider which of these sources of information would be likely to provide the most useful answers.
guide)) and/or a dedicated discussion area for feedbackDeakin University (2005), 'Online technologies in courses and units procedure', The Guide , Deakin University, Geelong, accessed 19 October 2006.
Dick, W. & Carey, L. & Carey, J.O. (2001), The systematic design of instruction, 5th edn, Addison-Wesley Longman, New York.
Laurillard, D. (2002), Rethinking university teaching, a conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies, Routledge, London.
Powazek, D. (2002), Design for community : the art of connecting real people in virtual places, New Riders, Indianapolis.
Salmon, G. (2004), E-moderating: the key to teaching and learning online (2nd edn), Taylor & Francis, London.
Vista and other Blackboard product names mentioned are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Blackboard Inc.
