Teaching Online, Hybrid and Technology-Enhanced Courses

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Last updated: Nov 24, 2020
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Teaching effective online and hybrid courses requires advance planning, intentional course design, good communication, organization and a commitment to providing timely activity feedback to students. Reference this article by Bethel's Online Learning Oversight Committee for more information. 

Communicate Consistently

Develop a pattern of communicating with the students in your course on a consistent basis.  An example might be to communicate at the beginning of each module (day, week, class, topic etc.) with an overview and expectations for the module.  The Moodle Announcements Forum is a good tool as it emails students and also leaves a time-stamped copy of the communication for later access by students long after they have deleted or forgotten your message.

Use Moodle for communication with students
  • In your Moodle preferences set up Moodle notifications to support timely interactions with your students.
  • Ensure students receive your communications promptly by directing them to set up their Moodle notifications.
  • Use the pre-existing Announcement Forum to send course-wide communication. Your posts will be automatically emailed to students.
  • Create a General Discussion Forum in your Moodle course for students to interact with each other, and you, on general topics (i.e. course logistics, topics related to ideas and issues in the course content, personal connections, prayer requests). 
  • Subscribe to the General Discussion Forum so that you see and can respond to student questions promptly.
  • Track unread forum posts to help stay on top of forum communication
  • Use Moodle Quickmail to email individual students and groups of students.
Use your Bethel email to communicate with students
  • Your Bethel email is an efficient way to communicate with your students.
  • Filters in Gmail can help you manage a large volume of email by setting up parameters to route incoming emails based on sender, subject, content, and/or size of the message.
Use Zoom, Google Meet, Phone, or Google Chat for Office Hours

Consider using Zoom, Google Meet, phone, or Google Chat to host office hours for your remote students. 

  • Set up a recurring calendar event (this will allow you to use the same meeting link for all recurring events)
  • Communicate with students ahead of time providing them with:
    • Date and time
    • Link to the Zoom meeting, Google Meet, phone number, or Chat
    • Install mobile app (optional)

Communicate Clearly

When we provide clear, detailed instructions, students do better work, learn better and get on task faster without needing to ask questions about your intent.

  • What: Provide detailed instructions on what you want the students to do, and support scaffolds for how they can successfully complete the work.
  • Why:  Explain why you are asking students to do the activity and how it fits into your course scheme and outcomes.
  • Where: Explain where they will do and submit their work. 
  • When:  Clearly communicate your due dates and times.

Shorter is Better

Provide bite-sized chunks of learning.  The temptation is to provide too much information and take too long to teach it.  The average viewing time of a YouTube video is around 8 minutes and the longer that textual web page is, the more quickly we look for a more "cliff-notes" version. So:

  • Create brief segments.  Chunking your content works for in-class, hybrid and online learning. Long lectures, ongoing discussions, or complex assignments may not be helpful in learning your content.
  • Select focused readings. The temptation is to ask students to read all the important papers, works, or chapters.  Again if we can "chunk" the reading appropriately students may be able to more easily assimilate the information.
  • Create focused outcome-based assignments. Take one outcome and design a brief assignment or activity that asks the students to demonstrate their understanding of, or ability to, apply the concept.

Mix it up

Be creative with both how you provide information to students and how you ask students to be involved in or demonstrate their learning.  There is a a tradeoff between creating a consistent flow of information and process for how to work in your course, and the danger of the constant, never changing routine that can impede learning.  See the Moodle Exemplar Online Course for hints and Ideas.

Involve your Students

Either in-class or online attempt to use active learning that involves the students and learning within their current environmental setting.  The more you involve the students in their own learning in their current learning environment the more likely they are to achieve content, assignment, and course learning outcomes.  Examples include: teach a concept to a peer or a sibling or parent, create a brief lesson (textual, images, audio, or video), explain a concept or practice, research a concept (Library database or Google), find applications for a concept in current current events, etc.

Technology Access and Capabilities are Diverse

Not every student has access to the same technology and internet access and not every student has the same aptitude for technology.  For example not every student may have access to reliable high speed internet and while rare, not every student has a smart phone. Also even in good technology environments if parents and siblings are all using technology, the availability and quality of technology may be limited even during "normally scheduled class-time".

  • If you are holding "synchronous" online courses in Zoom or Google Meet (or elsewhere) encourage students to mute their video and audio to keep the bandwidth down for folks on lower quality internet connections.  Make a recording of your session and share the recording link with your students for those that could not attend or had network issues.  Students can also optionally "phone in" if they have issues or limitations via computer access.
  • If you ask students to "scan" documents for submission, be aware that this may take many forms, including pictures taken with cell phones or digital cameras. 
  • Be gracious, helpful, and understanding and don't assume the technological capabilities or access of your students.  Don't let the technology get in the way of learning!

Students are Diverse

Not every student is the same and so a one-size-fits-all course may not be ideal.   Consider providing alternatives or at a minimum being flexible and open to alternatives.  

  • If you have a Narrated PowerPoint, save the PowerPoint as a PDF and link it along with the YouTube link. Remember to make your PDF accessible for screen readers. Follow the steps recommended by Microsoft.
    • WARNING: You can upload the .pptx file of your PowerPoint presentation (without audio) to your Moodle course, but be aware that students have many different versions of PowerPoint or may not have have PowerPoint, and so they may not be able to access your file. Linking a PDF of your slides is a better option.
  • If you create a Narrated PowerPoint, type the narration in the Notes field and then you save the Notes (or slides and notes) as a PDF and link the file in your course Moodle site. (Print Speaker Notes - choose PDF printer option). 
  • Consider giving students multiple format options for assignments (e.g., written assignment, video, narrated slides, images, audio presentation).  By offering alternative format options students can pick the format that allows them to best demonstrate their achievement of your outcomes , making them more likely to be successful instead of being stymied by the "technology" or inflexible requirements.

Synchronous Learning

Use video-conferencing to host real-time class sessions

Required Hardware

  • Internal or external web-cam
  • Internal or external microphone
  • Headphones recommended
  • Headphones with a microphone are ideal, if you have access (earbuds work well)
  • Computer or mobile device
  • A wired (ethernet) connection to internet may provide a better quality experience
Additional Synchronous Activities

Asynchronous Learning

Creating Pre-Recorded Lectures and Informal Weekly Videos

Pre-recorded lectures and informal weekly videos provide a format for you to share content with your students asynchronously. Both of these video types play an important role in asynchronous courses. This Confluence article offers considerations for each video type. For technical tips on recording audio and video check-out these video and audio tutorials and this video overview on producing, uploading and linking videos and narrated presentations. 

Discussion Forums
  • Consider intentionally setting your expectations and the tone for course discussions by providing students with interaction guidelines.
  • Consider being active in the forum discussions. However, balance your interaction. Students need to have space to explore new ideas together, but they also need to hear your voice in discussion.
  • Alternatively, instead of replying to individual discussion threads, record a video or post a written announcement providing feedback on broad themes and/or particularly significant points that came up in the discussion.
  • Remind students to be encouraging to one another, even on challenging or heated topics, while also inviting them to analyze and debate. 
  • Connect personally with students to thank them for their contributions or encourage them to contribute in a different way. Point out interesting contributions and good work by participating in forums or sending an announcement (via the Announcements forum) and encouraging the class to read a particular post.
  • Try to avoid giving points just for showing up in a discussion forum. Consider giving points for discussion forum posts that make meaningful contributions to the conversation and student learning.
  • See Discussion Forums for more information and examples.
  • Grading options for forums
Google Docs and Slides
  • Google Doc and Slides can be used for individual and group assignments.
  • Examples
    • Collaborative documents to record group discussions
    • Collaborative documents or slide presentations to showcase learning
    • Templates to facilitate individual or group assignments
    • Creation of Class Notebooks
  • See Asynchronous Activities with Google Docs and Slides for more information and examples.
Additional Asynchronous Activities

Provide Prompt Feedback

Prompt feedback is important all the time, but in online, hybrid and technology-enhanced learning environments prompt and consistent feedback becomes essential.  As faculty we need to schedule time for ourselves to provide feedback to our students. You might consider communicating to your students the timeline that they can expect your feedback. You can do this both with individual and "corporate" feedback on student, group, and class work.

Note: If you don't see a student active in your Moodle course site, consider communicating with them directly.  You can view last access in the Participants page and see more detail in the "Reports" section of your course Moodle site (Course home page > Actions (gear) Menu > More > Reports, especially Activity and Course Participation Reports or Logs (multiple options) .

Assignment Grading Tutorials
Gradebook
  • Grade student work promptly and provide specific feedback; this is even more valuable in online and hybrid instruction. 
  • If you are using the gradebook in Moodle, review your gradebook to ensure it accurately reflects the graded assessments in the course.
  • Student feedback indicates that they find the Moodle gradebook to be the most valuable feature of Moodle.
Monitor Student Participation

Note: If you don't see a student active in your Moodle course site, or you notice that a student is struggling, consider communicating with them directly. You can view last access in the Moodle course Participants page and see more detail in the Activity Reports section of your course Moodle site.

Reduce the Risk of Cheating

  • Assignments
  • Quizzes
    • Unproctored 
      • Long answer quizzes allow for greater assurance that students are doing their own work
      • If you are concerned about students cheating by looking at their book while completing an online exam, consider rewriting the exam as an open book exam. In addition to minimizing the risk of cheating, open book exams allow you to focus assessment on cognitive levels of learning beyond information recall, like application, analysis, and synthesis.
      • If your exam needs to focus on information recall, consider putting a time limit on the exam. Properly designed timed exams require students to know the information to be recalled because they do not have time to find the information if they do not already know it. 
    • Proctored
      • Proctor exams and quizzes by having students take them during a Zoom or Google Meet session. This is limited proctoring because you can’t see the students’ screens. You can, however:
        • Watch and listen for others in the room.
        • Watch students to see if they appear to be chatting with each other or reading more than would be expected for the quiz or exam.
        • Use it more as a deterrent than an enforcement mechanism.
      • Use Proctorio, a comprehensive learning integrity platform