CS4ODFL/Planning your course structure, learning activities, feedback and communication strategies/Structuring

=Planning your course structure, learning activities, feedback and communication strategies= Every teacher aspires to create a memorable, meaningful, and engaging experience which results in high levels of student success and satisfaction, in addition to providing students with the tools they need to achieve their education and career goals. What better way to do this than a well-structured course that provides a clear path for students to progress? The course structure refers to the choice of topics and the organisation and sequencing of course content.

By providing structure and clear, welcoming instructions and information, students will be more comfortable, confident and be able to navigate the course and locate information effectively. As a teacher, it is essential for you to remember that online courses are more than texts and videos that students are expected to browse through; they are carefully drafted sequences of learning outcomes built around interactive course materials and activities. While structuring a course, it is a good practice to keep the teaching principles in mind for designing effective courses.

Teaching Principles
Teaching is a rewarding activity. Yet its complex and multifaceted nature requires us as instructors to juggle multiple tasks and goals simultaneously and flexibly. The following principles can make teaching both more effective and more efficient, by helping us create the conditions that support student learning and minimise the need for revising materials, content, and policies. While implementing these principles requires a commitment in time and effort, it often saves time and energy later on.

Items of consideration in structuring a course
From an instructional design viewpoint, a quality online course is one that enables students to achieve learning outcomes in a flexible and effective manner. Ideally, the learning process will also be efficient, but online activities such as discussions, web searches, and collaborative assignments frequently take time, and efficiency is sacrificed for effectiveness.

Quality is an elusive concept, as all who measure it can define it differently. Although quality is affected by the context in which the measurement is taken, the real measure of a quality course is whether it helps learners achieve the stated learning outcomes.

In order to do so, the course should comprise a number of components and attributes that will lead to learner success. Given below are six items of consideration in structuring an effective online course.

The importance of providing students with a structure for learning and setting appropriate learning activities is probably the most important of all the steps towards quality teaching and learning. Good course structuring is an amalgamation of teaching principles with the best practices for designing a course. It is important to provide sufficient instructions, additional information, and begin to calibrate student expectations of the course by modeling appropriate behaviour. Suitable and measurable learning activities, together with feedback from the instructor are also the core components of a well-designed course.