Simplifying a course web page

Pictographs by
Carlos Sarmento
from the Noun Project
(CC BY 3.0 US).

As part of my Four Steps to Digital Teaching here is a real example of simplifying a course web page. This shows the page for my ICT Sustainability course as it was when first offered at ANU in 2009 and the latest version in 2016.

Between 2009 and 2016 I removed the paragraphs of text, as the emphasis should be on what the student needs to do. The details of why and how are now in subsidiary documents.

The Terminology List, Course Outline, and Background have been consolidated into an eBook of course notes. There is a chapter in the eBook for each week, which includes the "Read me first" and "Work Notes".

The list of major assessment items had been added to the top of the page.  A reminder is timed to appear a week before the assignment is due and again the week due. The links point to where the assignment is submitted, which is also where information about how to complete the assignment is provided. This avoid confusion when students get multiple and contradiction sets of instructions about assignments. However, having the full title of each assignment makes for a lot of text and I am shorten this in the next version.

The "Discussion Questions" are now listed at the end of the chapter of course notes for the week. Each question is also posted to the "weekly forum" as a thread for the student to reply to. This way the student is prompted by the system to enter their answer.

The "Friday Message" to students is now posted to the weekly forum. This provides feedback on how the students are doing overall, which research suggests the students appreciate.

A weekly automated "quiz" has been added. The quiz and discussion forums have time limits. The student has a week to contribute and receive a mark. A tick box indicates they have completed each of these tasks (as well as the major assignments).

A timed "reminder" appears for the last day to drop course without penalty. At this point students have several weeks of assessment results and so very few students fail the course. The completion rate for the course is similar to conventional courses, but rather than fail, students withdraw while they can.

2009 Version

ICT Sustainability

Green ICT Strategies is an online course about how to use computers and telecommunications in a way which maximises positive environmental benefit, with minimum energy and materials use.

• News forum
• Chatroom
• Terminology List
• Course Outline
• Backgound to development of the course

18 January - 24 January

Week 1: Introduction to Green ICT Strategies

Understand environmental, social and business context for sustainability, and overview of background, boundaries.

• Read me first - Week 1
• Work Notes - Week 1
• Workload
• Assessment
• Seminar - Week 1
• Discussion Questions - Week 1
• Friday Message

22 February - 28 February

Week 6: Methods and tools

Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.
• Read me first - Week 6
• Work notes - week 6
• Seminar - Week 6
• Discussion Questions - Week 6

2016 Version

ICT Sustainability

• News
• Chatroom
• Contact Your Tutor
  
• Course Notes: ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future
• Assignment 1a due week 4: Describe an organization and how you will study its ICT sustainability ☑
• Assignment 1b due week 6: Estimate the Carbon Footprint ☑
• Assignment 2a due week 10: Approach to Reducing Carbon Footprint ☑
• Assignment 2b due week 12: Reduce the Carbon Footprint ☑
• Tasks Every Week: Read, Answer and Discuss
• Sample Quiz ☑

22 February - 28 February

Week 1: Politics, Science and Business of Sustainability

• Week 1 Discussion ☑
• Week 1 Quiz ☑

Week 6: Methods and Tools

• Week 6 Discussion Forum ☑
• Reminder: Assignment 1b due this week.
• Reminder: Last day to drop course without financial/academic penalty is 31 March 2016.
• Week 6 Quiz ☑

Four Steps to Digital Teaching

Pictographs by
Carlos Sarmento
from the Noun Project
(CC BY 3.0 US).

To help with the change in teaching techniques at ANU, I have set out Four Steps to Digital Teaching. These are illustrated on the cover of my book "Digital Teaching In Higher Education". The idea is to provide some quick and easy to understand steps to help academics to adapt existing courses and materials, not to turn them into educational designers or technology specialists. My approach, the educational jargon, is constructivist, collaborative and experiential.

1. eBooks: Provide ebooks and other curated content on the topic. Finding what they should read, and do, when can be confusing for a student. The course materials should be laid out like a book, with a table of contents, providing an overview, the course materials and activities in the order in which the student should undertake them and at the end any additional material. There should be an introduction, and a list of all the assessment the student is to undertake.
   
   The electronic format used for the course materials and the providing it is not so important. However, using many different systems and formats can be confusing for the student.
2. 
   Discussion: Facilitate discussion between the students. Discussion is not only a useful way for the student to learn, but is a valuable graduate skill in itself. At least on asynchronous text based forum should be provided.
   
   Synchronous text, audio and video "webinars" may also be used, but students may not be able to all attend at the same time, so multiple sessions and asynchronous alternatives should be provided.
   
   Students need to be told in advance what the purpose of the discussion is, how they are expected to participate and how the discussion will be assessed. The discussion must be assessed in some way, to provide the student with an incentive to participate and to make it educationally relevant.
3. eTools: Provide tools and techniques for the student to explore the topic. The basic tools used for a course will be the provision of reading materials, discussion questions and a forum to answer the questions in.
   
   Quizzes may be provided to help students with surface knowledge. There may be more specialized tools which emulate those of the discipline on-line or are actual on-line tools.
4. Assessment, including formative feedback, to help them learn. Whenever a student is asked to do something, there should be some form of assessment to check how well they did it.
   
   For a standard twelve week course, there should be some form of assessment at least every week, making up about one to two percent of the total assessment per week. To improve learning and reduce the instructor burden, most of this assessment can be automated quizzes and peer assessment. The assessment scheme can be set so that this progressive assessment does not count for high grades (above a "Credit").
   
   Assessment is stressful for the student and time consuming for the instructor. Stress and time can be reduced by using rubrics, to clearly set out what is required. Also firm deadlines with no extensions can help reduce stress and time: student then know when assessment is due and that missed deadlines result in zero marks. To make this less stressful small progressive assessment items can be on a "best of" basis, such as the best ten out of twelve weeks being counted.