Are you looking for ways to maximize the potential of your online learning course, but you don’t know where to start? Don’t worry; we decided to do the legwork for you. In this article, we will discuss three practices that will supercharge your online learning course.

Practice One: Combine Core Concept Learning with Personalized and Customized Learning

Core concept learning merely means that the students have a set concept that they will learn and a structured path that will be taken to reach that goal. This essential online learning best practice states that you take that core concept learning and customize it to each individual student. Therefore, the steps that each student takes to get from point A to point “I understand and can recreate this concept” are structured according to the student’s needs, abilities, interests, and level.

In order to know how to personalize your students’ learning, you must know what your students know. Many teachers advocate “visible thinking.” This requires students to talk, explain, judge, create, write, inquire, analyze, and report. When students complete these activities, it’s simple for the students and the teacher to clearly know how much they fully understand the presented material.

Visible thinking can be engaged through many means. A few are blogging, small group work, discussion forums, and journaling.

Practice Two: Record Live Sessions

Many teachers are being told to teach live. This is all good and well, but some students cannot make it to the live sessions due to time constraints. Ensure that you record any live sessions that you teach and make them available to your students for later viewing.

This is not only important for those who may have missed the class; it is also essential for those who need to review.

Practice Three: Equity and Accessibility

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is more than just a tool or a list of thou shalts. It’s mentioned by name in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA;2016) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The UDL is a tool to help teachers meet the objective of the law: to meet every kid where they are and teach them to where they need to be.

This practice has to do with the UDL in that you must make your digital materials equally accessible to everyone. This may take a little more foresight with online learning since you have color blindness, hearing impairment, slow internet, and so many other things to consider. 

To practice equity and accessibility, you must merely present your material in many ways. This way, your students can absorb the material in whatever fashion is most beneficial to them. 

A few ways to do change things up are to:

• Transcribe your videos and put the transcript below it. Use voice to text while you record, then fix the errors. Easy peasy!
• Integrate visuals into your online learning. Use mathematical equations and the word language. Use timelines as you teach history. Show diagrams while you are teaching science.
• Accept mastery of knowledge in different ways. Equity and accessibility also mean making sure that every student has a method available to them through which they can demonstrate their knowledge. Some students cannot type well for various reasons. You could let your students choose between giving a video response, taking a picture of an equation done on paper, or typing in a written response.

When you’re teaching in a classroom, your students give off specific visual cues when they do not grasp the material. You’re not able to receive those cues in an online classroom. Therefore, you must cater to everyone’s way of learning and present the material in as many ways as possible to reach every student.

Conclusion

In this article, we have outlined 3 ways that you can supercharge your online course. Do you know have any tips to share? If so, leave them in the comment section below.