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Online pedagogy

Designing for Self-Directed, Self-Paced Learners

BLE 200 Homepage
Homepage sample illustrating the standardized layout and support resources that contribute to student success.

At CEOEL, we are starting to work on developing a new degree for UW System’s Flexible Option. Before embarking on this new journey, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the last one. I had the opportunity to work with a great group of faculty and instructional designers this past year while developing UW–Extension’s first degree, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA). In this post, I’ll highlight just a few ways that this degree incorporates research-based recommendations for designing and delivering learning experiences to self-directed, self-paced learners. These practices address factors such as learner characteristics, assessment methods, and presentation of materials.

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OERs: A Curator’s Perspective

It’s a busy time around here! With the fall semester starting and new competency-based program development in full swing, everyone is working hard to deliver the best learning experiences possible. Back-to-school season is exciting but challenging for learners, instructors, and those of us in supporting roles. Part of that hard work is curating learning resources—open educational resources (OERs). Today’s post will explore how some of our faculty are approaching OERs.OER logo

In the midst of all this preparation, I’ve recently heard conversations about how important thoughtfully curated learning resources are to a student’s success, and it occurred to me it might be interesting to look back at the transcript of a conversation I had with Kim Kostka about using OERs. Kim and her colleagues Tom Neal and Tony Millevolte assembled and annotated an array of OERs for one of our Flexible Option competency sets.

Here are some of the highlights from my conversation with Kim.

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Course Momentum

In this post, read about an online course that has great pacing and momentum to keep students engaged until the end. What follows is a description of five momentum-building activities from the course, as well as an interview with the instructor. Erin Ratelis developed and currently teaches HWM 335: The Worksite Health Environment.

Five Activities That Build Momentum in HWM 335

1. Photographs on the Discussion Board

Momentum buliders: Photographs of a road and a description of the photographs written by the instructor
Discussion Board Photo Activity (Author: Erin Ratelis)

What it is: Students take photographs of their health environment and post them to the discussion board in the first activity of the course. Erin shares what her environment looks like as well.

What I love about it: This activity does double-duty: an intro to the health environment and a social connector. By sharing their living environments in the context of the course, students are bridging the social gap that often comes with asynchronous online learning. This builds momentum by starting the course off with an activity that is exciting to students and inspires them to learn more in the weeks to come.

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2 Reasons to Create New Media For Your Online Course

screenshot of a video created for HWM 350
The instructor of HWM 350 explaining why research is important in a unit introduction video.

So, you’re putting your online course together and you realize that there are already videos on YouTube for all the topics you’re covering. You say to yourself, “Why even take the time to create my own videos and reinvent the wheel? I could save so much time and effort! I’d just be a talking head, anyway.” Before you make your decision, consider the following two reasons why it may be a good idea to create at least some of your own media.

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