Intro
Indicators
Canvas Tools
Examples
Try It!
Resources

Introduction

The purpose of this standard is to encourage you to reflect on how your course is organized. Students should feel confident moving between different areas in your course and should know what materials will be found in each area. One way you can encourage this type of confidence in your students is to present your instructional materials, assessments, and learning activities in a way that they can be easily located and retrieved by students. For clarity and ease of use, your course materials should be organized in thoughtful and logical groupings or sequences designated by self-describing, contextualized, and meaningful titles. Designing a well-organized and consistently structured course will help your students focus on learning, rather than stressing that they can’t find things.

Why it Matters to Students...

According to the course schedule, all quizzes are supposed to be due on Thursday evenings but Ariel is having trouble figuring out which quiz is due this Thursday. (5.3.c) Thinking back to the orientation video, Ariel remembers that the course is organized into weekly modules labeled Week 1, Week 2, and so on. The teacher also mentioned that all of the other content items were numbered too, which sort of made sense at the time, but not so much now. (5.3.a) In Week 3 the class completed Reading #5 and Reading #6 and submitted Quiz #2. It’s now Week 4 so Ariel thinks it’s time to start working on Reading #7 and Reading #8 then take Quiz #3 but isn’t 100% sure because the numerical labeling is confusing and difficult to follow. After locating the Week 4 module Ariel discovers that the content is in a completely different order than the other modules and that the readings are missing. In the previous modules, the readings were always at the top and the quizzes were always at the bottom of the module but this week the quiz is at the top making Ariel wonder if the quiz should be completed first. (5.3.b) To add to the confusion, Ariel sees that Quiz #3 is actually due on a Wednesday, not a Thursday as stated in the course schedule and that the due date on the quiz doesn't match a recent course announcement. (5.3.d)

Consider This ...

How do you ensure that students don’t find themselves on an endless hunt trying to locate files, readings, assessments, quizzes, and other related content that has been assigned for the week or learning unit?
What course design strategies do you use to help keep students on the right path and moving through your course in the intended way?
How are you communicating scheduling expectations and consistent due dates to your students?

Indicators Explained

The Indicators for Standard 5.3 are organized by Essentials and Next Steps. Click the menu bars below to expand and read about the Indicators in each section.

Essentials

Applying all Essential Indicators demonstrates that your course design includes the basic foundational elements that must be present for students to succeed in an online course.

5.3.a - Course includes clearly defined learning units with consistently organized sections.

Structure is comforting for students and there are many ways you can choose to structure and sequence the content in your course. It doesn't matter so much which organizational structure you choose as long as the learning units are clearly and consistently defined. In Canvas, these learning units are referred to as modules. Modules are commonly divided by skill to be mastered, by week, by chapter, and/or by topic. Typically, modules and the content they contain, are posted in the course in the order students are expected to complete the coursework. Most students will expect all instructional materials and their corresponding learning activities/assessments to be grouped together in the same module. Module content can be further organized by adding hierarchy, such as a header or indentations. Using these repeated elements with clear, consistent labeling creates an expected rhythm in your module design allowing students to settle in and find things more quickly. And, having a consistent layout or template to work from makes course building go much faster for you! Grouping topic related items together in a single, well-organized learning unit can also save you time having to answer student questions about where to find things, which order to complete them in, and what they should do next.

Grouping relevant or related content items together so they are visually clear and consistent aids students in understanding which items belong together. For example, displaying topically related content in a module in the order in which students should view or complete it helps create a learning path students can follow. Where possible, each module should follow the same pattern or order of presentation. Headings can be used within a module to indicate change of topic, hierarchy of materials, or the grouping of similar content items. For example, sections titled GET STARTED - a section containing the overview and objectives for the module, LEARN - a section containing all of the learning materials for the module, and TO-DO - a section containing things the student needs to complete and submit. Carrying over the same module structure to the next learning unit will help students know what to expect and where to find things in subsequent modules.

5.3.b - Course includes logical and consistent naming conventions for learning units and assessments.

You can help students navigate your course more efficiently and make content connections more easily by using a clear and consistent naming convention for modules and other content items such as pages, discussions, quizzes, and assignments. For example, all modules could be named using a number plus the topic covered - Module 1: The Student Perspective, Module 2: Communications, Module 3: Course Customization, and so on. Corresponding assessments might be labeled as Module 1: Introduce Yourself Discussion, Module 2: Communications Quiz, and Module 3: Reorder & Hide Course Navigation Assignment and then placed in their respective modules. However you choose to name your items, it is important to provide context and use the same naming format consistently throughout your course so students can quickly identify which course components belong together.

5.3.c - Course design organizes content into easy-to-perceive segments.

According to brain science, human working memory can hold a limited amount of information at any given time. This limited ability to process data means that students can get overwhelmed when too much information is included in a course or learning unit. You can help prevent this from happening by chunking, or breaking down, your course materials in smaller blocks. The concept of chunking can be applied to the organization and overall length of a course, learning units or modules, and also to the individual content items in a module like pages, assignments, and discussions.

To get started chunking, think about how you plan to guide students through the resources in your course. Next, decide on how to group the items into meaningful learning units, being mindful of the overall length of each unit/module to prevent excessive scrolling. Now identify the most important “need to know” items and consider removing or regrouping anything that is extraneous. From here, organize and sequence the items using headers. And finally, look at the organization and length of your pages, assignments, and discussions by repeating the process of thinking about how to guide students through the information, what does and doesn't need to be included, and how you will organize it. Well-designed learning materials and learning units will not be excessively long, will have paragraphs that are both informative and concise, and will use headers to separate items.

5.3.d - Course design scaffolds skill building for learning mastery.

Scaffolding the content, concepts, and skill building in your course will provide students with a framework for success that helps guide their learning toward increasing levels of independence. Like scaffolding at a construction site, instructional scaffolding provides much needed support for students helping them bridge the gaps between what they can do with assistance and what they can do on their own. Breaking down complex, high-stakes tasks; providing a range of student work examples; creating opportunities for reflection and self-assessment; and chunking course materials are all strategies for creating scaffolding in your course. Without scaffolding of concepts and skills, students may find it difficult to complete more complex coursework before mastering the foundational skills required to do so. So, if you want students to really thrive, consider breaking that final project or final paper down into multiple draft submissions that build smaller skills in progression over time allowing students to learn, grow, reflect, see examples, and receive feedback along the path to success.

Next Steps

Applying all Essential Indicators for this Standard combined with one or more of the following Next Steps Indicators demonstrates that your course design includes the basic foundational elements necessary for students to succeed in an online course plus additional elements that are intentionally designed to increase student success in your online course.

5.3.f - Learning units include an overview introducing the module-level objectives and topics.

XXX

5.3.f - Learning units include a summary revisiting the module-level objectives and describing key unit takeaways.

XXX

Canvas Tools

These Canvas tools can help you meet this standard and made your work easier:

Modules: Modules allow students to see the logical flow of content throughout the course.
Text Headers: Text headers added to a module help group related content together and help students walk through course resources and learning activities in a sequential fashion.
X: X
X: X
X: X

Examples of Standard 5.3

Want to see how other instructors have applied this Standard in their course? Check out these examples!

Example 1

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Example 2

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Example 3

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Example 4

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Example 5

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Ways to Apply Standard 5.3

Need some ideas for how to apply this standard to your course? Try one of these!

5.3.a - Clearly defining learning units

(5.3.b) Create a module for each week or learning unit in your course using clearly defined and consistent naming conventions for labeling. Then add the appropriate content items to each module. To speed up your work, create a mostly empty module to use as a template then use the “Duplicate” feature in the Module settings to make a quick copy of it.
(5.3.b) Add text headers to each module, one that says “Learning Materials”, and one that says “To-Do”. Then, drag and drop the module content items under the appropriate header.

5.3.b - Logical and consistently naming learning units

(5.3.b) Review your module titles to ensure they are named consistently and give students a sense of order and topical context.
(5.3.b) Review your module structure and headers for consistency to ensure that your module layout makes sense and that headers give students a sense of what each section of the module contains.

5.3.c - Easy-to-perceive segments

(5.3.c Review the overall length of each module in your course to ensure students don't have to endlessly scroll to view all of items in the module. A list of about a screen's worth in length or shorter is a good general rule of thumb to follow for the number of content items in a module.
(5.3.c) Review the overall length of the pages, discussion prompts, assignment directions, and quiz directions in your course to ensure students don't have to endlessly scroll to read each one.
(5.3.c) Review the assignment directions in your course to ensure that you have built in opportunities for students to build skills progressively so they can succeed when completing more complex or higher stakes tasks or projects. This could be as simple as breaking a larger submission down into draft subbmissions that allow students to learn, grow, and get feedback along the way.

5.3.d - Scaffolding skills for mastery

(5.3.d) XXX

5.3.e - Overview introducing the module-level objectives and topics

(5.3.e) XXX

5.3.f - Summary revisiting the module-level objectives and describing key unit takeaways

(5.3.f) XXX

Resources

Recommended Reading

... coming soon!

References

5.3.a - Clearly defining learning units

Pollard, H., Minor, M., & Swanson, A. (2014). Instructor social presence within the community of inquiry framework and its impact on classroom community and the learning environment. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 17(2)

5.3.b - Logical and consistently naming learning units

OSCQR. (n.d.). OSCQR – Standard #16. OSCQR - SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://oscqr.suny.edu/standard16

5.3.c - Easy-to-perceive segments

Malamed, C. (n.d.). Chunking Information for Instructional Design: Reduces Cognitive Load. The eLearning Coach. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/chunking-information
Thalmann, M., Souza, A. S., & Oberauer, K. (2019). How does chunking help working memory? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 45, 37-55. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000578

5.3.d - Scaffolding skills for mastery

Ludwig-Hardman, S., & Dunlap, J. C. (2003). Learner support services for online students: Scaffolding for success. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 4(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v4i1.131

5.3.e - Overview introducing the module-level objectives and topics

XXX

5.3.f - Summary revisiting the module-level objectives and describing key unit takeaways

XXX

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