Not satisfied with your current course or unsure how to transform your course to remote teaching? Then follow a proven strategy to change your course! First evaluate your current course and think of new possibilities for aligning and setting learning goals, assessment and learning activities in a remote context. Then work it all out in detail. Let's give it a go.

Where do you start redesigning your existing course into a remote version of that course? For the development of a remote course, the same strategy as for a campus based course applies, but you can adapt parts of your course to suite to the online context. Central remains the concept of Constructive Alignment: align the learning goals, the assessment and the learning activities.

Follow these steps or download the guide for more details

Constructive Alignment.png

Step 1

Establish alignment principles with the courses that run parallel to your course.
60 minutes
This is what you need: colleagues, course syllabuses, global course schedules

Get the context right

Who is coming to campus. Check the most recent information about the current restrictions on VU.nl. In case their is a restriction in the amount of students that come to campus, establish principles a the faculty level which students best can come to campus (most likely only one time visit on campus per student during a period is possible) and decide carefully for what purpose you will use such an in-person meeting. Also keep in mind that international students most likely cannot come to the campus.

Do not overload students. It is important not to overload students with time-competing forms of online meetings, assignments and assessment forms. Know in advance how the course schedules are set-up for the most likely curriculum route of most students.

Groups and bonding. We recommend at this stage that you keep students as much as possible during the first semester of academic year in the same group in every course. By doing so, chances are the highest that student can bond and help each other.

Step 2

Evaluate your course learning outcomes: Are they all still needed? Clean up your course to focus on what is really important.
60 minutes
This is what you need: the curriculum outcomes and your course learning outcomes

In online teaching it is important that you keep students focussed on what is really important. Focus more on the central message of your programme and processing of those messages (by applying concepts, solve problems, analysing cases) and less on unwieldy details.

Step 3

Evaluate your course assessment set-up. Are all assessment forms still needed and in line with your cleaned-up learning goals? Could you think of more tasks your students can do at their own pace, that you can guide and in which peer learning and peer feedback activities play a role that you can reward toward the course assessment?
60 minutes
This is what you need: your current syllabus, assignments, tasks and exam

Assessment drives learning the most. How can students demonstrate that they have acquired the learning outcomes and the needed level of attainment. Do students need to have sufficient command of the global concepts or is it really needed that students know nitty-gritty details or achieve a high level of automation in solving numerous domain specific skills. Focus again on what is most important.

Can you change a traditional exam around in an exam assessment format that results in a more evenly distributed study performance over time and ample time to re-process information? Read more about exam possiblities during corona times

Exams in times of corona

Step 4

Evaluate your course learning activities. Which learning activities lead your students to acquire the learning goals. Redesign you learning activities and adapt your teaching activities based on the learning activities.
60 minutes
This is what you need: your current materials, assignments and tasks and ample examples and methods to get students going with learning

Then, finally, design your teaching activities: what do you need to do to support your students exectuting your learning activities? What learning materials do you provide?

Consider to provide your students with video's to explain the main concepts in small chunks. In that way you prevent that you will lecture online for hours of which we know that students really get de-motivated by.

Then decide how many online meetings you need and what you do in each meeting. Focus in these meetings on getting students motivated, getting them to learn to know each other and help each other and to process the learning materials. You can find a lot of information on how to conduct engaging lectures and knowledge clips on the Online Education webpages.

Step 5

Work out all your course details, course materials and the online meetings.
3-8 days, more days if you decide to produce knowledge video clips
This is what you need: all your options to work effectively and develop materials

Now work out all your course details and materials. Rewrite your schedule and your syllabus, rewrite your assignments and your assessment tasks, redesign your learning activities, find or develop video materials explaining or illustrating your main course concepts and develop each separate online meeting.

Another way to get going is by getting hold of some easy to use schemata to reconsider your course. The SURF versnellingplan and Avans Hogeschool developed some appealing 'placemats' for your inspiration.

Placemat Online Didactics

The Versnellingsplan developed a placemat with an overview of the most important steps in an online teaching situation.

Download

Placemat Avans Online Teaching

Avans Hogescholen developed a simple placemat with the most important guidelines for online learning.

Download

Where can I get further support for online education?

Fill out this contact form (Links to an external site.) for questions or to set up an appointment with an expert;
Or contact your faculty support.

In case the Frequently Asked Questions do not cover your question, please fill out our contact form.

VU taxonomy

Want to know more?

VU Quality ambitions for online education