Structuring Your Online Course
Using Content Mapping to Create a Course Outline Think about your course. How does it flow? Is it sequential? Topic-oriented? Chunked or scaffolded in some way?
There are lots of different ways to organize your course content for online delivery, depending on the subject matter you're teaching and your own teaching style. Creating a visual structure for your content may help you determine how to deliver the content online and make it clearer for your students, as well.
You have practice doing this in any course you teach. Just think about how it will work online. Will each Module look the same? Students do appreciate some sort of pattern so they can get used to the activities and assignments each week. Remember, students always ask the question: "What do I have to do?"
The first page of each Module should provide an overview, much like the first page of the Modules in this course. Tell your students exactly what they need to do to complete the module. Include things like readings (text and links), learning objectives, discussions, quizzes, writing, planning for the upcoming project. If you do assign a big project, break up the planning and writing among several modules.
Be sure to keep in mind the workload you are creating for yourself as the instructor.
Example of Concept Mapping using the FREE software called Coggle. Website for Coggle: https://coggle.it/
