Learning Activities for a Remote Course: Options, Considerations, and Tools

After you’ve outlined the learning goals for the course, divided that course into manageable units (e.g., modules? lessons? weeks? acts?), and determined the learning goals for those units, you’ll be faced with a daunting task of selecting learning activities. How will you help the students meet the goals of the module and/or the course?

Now in a lot of the writing on remote teaching, it suggests a list of ingredients – a series of activities any instructor could select from. Here, we’re offering a recipe. Try to follow a general pattern. Select an activity that encourages students to THINK ABOUT a particular topic; then select a series of activities that ask students to READ, WATCH, or LISTEN to a set of ideas; and then select one or two DO activities, where students get to apply, practice or test out their thinking.

There are a lot of ways to give that structure (THINK ABOUT, READ/WATCH/LISTEN, DO) a shape that works well for your course. You can see a few of those possibilities on our Sample Plans for Remote Courses page.

THINK ABOUT

The activities in this stage are designed to engage or “hook” students’ attention, establish relevance of the materials and activities that follow, and build motivation for learning. In these activities, students may interact with the instructor, their classmates, and course content.

Options Considerations Online Tools and Support Resources
Opening Image(s)
  • Ensure the picture provokes thinking and/or an emotional response
  • Do a minimum set-up; e.g.) “Take a look at this image and think about this question …”
  • Clarify whether responses are personal reflections or will be shared elsewhereand then, as needed, track/ summarize what has been offered; avoid drawing firm conclusions; end with a statement like, “This gets us thinking about … by the end of this module let’s see how our thinking has evolved.”
  • Confirm copyright permissions
Thought-provoking statement(s)
  • Select the most appropriate format:
    • “Which of these two statements is most true …”
    • “To what degree do you agree with this statement?”
    • “Why is this statement not true?”
  • Prompt students to reflect on and share their prior knowledge of the core topic either individually or as a group
  • Ensure that some type of feedback (peer, instructor, automated) is provided to support students in assessing their initial thoughts about the material
  • Encourage students to offer reasons for their choices; signal you have heard; point out similarities and differences; avoid conclusions; plan to return to the statement in some way at end of the module
Video or Audio Clip
  • Select one that is no more than 5 minutes long
  • Provide clear directions of how to access the clip
  • After the clip, ask an open-focused question that encourages them to assess what they have just seen or heard
  • Gather responses and summarize what has been offered; avoid drawing firm conclusions; end with a statement like, “This gets us thinking about … by the end of this module let’s see how our thinking has evolved.”
  • Confirm copyright permissions

**Other strategies to encourage students to think about key topics or themes include the presentation of a vivid/helpful analogy, short story, or real-world examples.

READ, WATCH, AND/OR LISTEN

The activities in this stage prompt students to engage directly with the learning resources relevant to the module’s main ideas. Students receive or discover new ideas or new skills. Students primarily interact with the course content.

Options Considerations Online Tools and Support Resources
Online journal articles and/or other digital readings
  • Ensure that links connect students directly to the required material
  • Provide clear and explicit page counts for required readings to assist students in planning their time on task
  • Provide reading tips, guiding questions, or a graphic organizer to support students in grasping key takeaways from readings
  • Reading lists, drawn from Trent’s digital collections and subscriptions, can be prepared for direct integration on your Blackboard course site using Leganto;
  • Posting content for reading :
Open Education Resources (OER)
  • Ensure that links connect students directly to the required material.
  • Provide clear and explicit page counts for required readings to assist students in planning their time on task
  • Provide reading tips, guiding questions, or a graphic organizer to support students in grasping key takeaways from readings
  • To search across multiple repositories to locate relevant OER, try Oasis (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search). Also, eCampusOntario Open Library offers a wide selection of Open Textbooks and other openly licensed learning resources.
  • Posting content for reading:
Video (including your own recorded video or other online audio/video resources)
  • Determine whether your own recorded video is the best option; are you presenting unique information, specific to your course or context? What material do you need to deliver? What material can you curate and guide students through?
  • Keep videos short; most research suggests 5-8 minutes, which isn’t always practical in academic settings; see 20 minutes as a maximum
  • Stick to key concepts; break longer lectures into manageable chunks
  • Keep lectures informal, but plan and practice before recording
  • Provide run times for videos
  • Provide viewing tips, guiding questions, or time codes to help students understand key takeaways
  • Connect the video to a learning activity from the “DO” category

 

 
Lecture (synchronous class meeting)
  • Decide whether a synchronous lecture is your best option by considering the complexity of ideas and the course’s learning outcomes; more complex discussions, for example, might benefit from synchronous meetings
  • Limit the length of synchronous meetings
  • Structure synchronous meetings; offer an outline; determine the questions ahead of time
  • Identify ways that students can contribute
  • Consider offering an asynchronous option wherever possible
  • Hosting a synchronous class meeting

DO

The activities at this stage of the module prompt students to analyze and/or apply the concepts and information that they have gathered through reading, watching or listening. During this stage, students may interact with the instructor, their classmates, and course content.

Options Considerations Online Tools and Support Resources
Discussion
  • Select the appropriate format
    • debate
    • reflection
    • application questions
  • Ensure that discussion activities are set up to encourage true exchange and dialogue rather than multiple responses to closed ended questions.
  • Provide time parameters for contributions to these exchanges to guide student planning for their posts and replies
  • Consider breaking the class into smaller discussion groups of 15 students or less
  • Invite students to take on the role of discussion moderator when/as appropriate
  • Encourage students to review and take notes on discussion threads as part of their weekly learning
Journal
  • Provide a consistent set of questions to be answered in each journal entry (e.g., key takeaways and stumbling blocks)
  • If possible, present a sample journal entry to guide student understanding re: expectations
Case Study Analysis
  • Choose whether students complete the case studies on their own or in groups
  • Provide a straightforward framework for analysis
  • Ensure that the case provides enough information for students to identify possible solutions and consider how to apply those solutions to other situations
Individual or Collaborative Annotation
  • For large classes consider breaking out students into smaller groups when annotating collaboratively
  • When encouraging students to post questions via annotation, clarify expectations regarding when/how they can expect feedback or responses to those questions
Presentations
  • Make clear what you'd like students to present and how they will show the presentation to you and other students
  • Give feedback (from you or other students) on presentations
  • Remember that students will need extra time to learn how to record their presentations
  • Consider giving low-bandwidth alternatives such as posters or infographics
Elements of an "assessment suite" where smaller activities or assignments are components of a larger final project
  • Design the requirements and number of components of the assessment suite to allow adequate time for instructor and/or peer feedback to inform/support work on each consecutive step
Quizzes (formative)
  • For low stakes quizzes, consider allowing multiple attempts to encourage student mastery of content
  • Avoid “trick” questions and complex question formats
  • When/if possible, take up quizzes by video announcement/message or video conference
Tests or Exams
  • Design the test or exam as an open book assessment
  • Prior to the first online test, post a link to, and underscore for students the importance of reviewing and conducting themselves in keeping with Trent’s Academic Integrity Policy.
  • Design questions to require application of concepts/knowledge to a given scenario rather than simple recall
  • Consider using the tools offered in Blackboard to randomize the presentation of test questions and of options within multiple choice questions so that each student attempts a different version of the test
  • Keep the time-frame for each test attempt reasonable, but within parameters that assume study and preparation have taken place in order to complete the assessment

**For all forms of assessment in Blackboard courses, student progress can be tracked and graded through the Blackboard Grade Centre

A downloadable, Microsoft Word version of this resource is available.

Written by: Joel Baetz and Maureen Glynn

Edited by: Maureen Glynn and Ian Thomson

Last Updated: 19 August 2020

 

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