Online Teaching

Content


The content you select and the activities you design for your online course should support students’ achievement of course learning outcomes and align with any planned evaluations. In an online context, you can take advantage of both digital and traditional media, including text, graphics, multimedia, downloads, and links. Use a variety of content in order to accommodate the breadth of students’ strengths and preferences.

There is overlap between content and other elements of course design. For example, you can have students curate content as an activity or produce content as an assessment. Games, websites, videos, online tours, simulations, etc. could serve as assessments and activities, as well as content.

Organizing and Sequencing Content

Weekly modules are a typical setup of asynchronous online courses and the best way to curate your course content through Brightspace. Planning out what students will do during a week requires a shift in thinking about how courses are organized—from class sessions on particular days to a weeklong sequence of content and related activities. Read more about organizing and sequencing content.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

OERs are teaching materials, including content, that are free for you to use in your teaching, remix to align with the specifics of your course, and redistribute for student learning. These digital resources are particularly suited for the online environment and represent a cost savings for students. Read more about Open Educational Resources (OER).

Lectures and Seminars

Online, lectures and seminars can occur both synchronously and asynchronously. Virtual lectures are short and best pre-recorded to promote accessibility and student learning. Even if lectures and seminars are held synchronously, recording the live sessions and posting them in your online course space can gives students the flexibility to return to the materials, to re-watch or re-listen, at their own pace. Read more about lectures and online seminars.


Dalhousie Libraries’ Content Support

Ideally, all of your readings and other resource materials should be readily available to your students in your course site. Dalhousie Libraries provides services that can assist you in accomplishing this goal.

Contact your subject liaison librarian to help you to find content that’s accessible online including videos, e-articles, e-books, and datasets. The librarians can, in some cases, find equivalent content from an Open Access source or an Open Educational Resource instead of a commercial textbook, working with you as the instructor of the course to ensure it fits your students’ needs. The cost to purchase these resources and to get copyright clearance is covered by the Libraries.

Once you know which sources you want your students to use, send your list to the Course Reserves team (they prefer 2 weeks’ notice). They’ll obtain copyright clearance and then load them into your course site for you.