I’m an eLearning specialist, so part of my job is to provide advice and workshops on improving online learning. We often refer to “How Course Web Design Impacts Student Engagement” by Dian Schaufhausser and the infographic that inspired the article during these consults and workshops. The article is a summary of a study of hundreds of courses using a particular Learning Management System (Canvas). Although I often use this as reference material for online course design consults, it should also apply for course sites supporting face-to-face classes. So, when teaching a medium sized first year course this year, I decided to apply my own medicine and try to create a simple and deep design to my course site. From the article:
A simple, deep design might lay out the course directly on the home page with a lot of different activities organized to give the student a clear indication about how to move through them. A given week’s lessons page might include hyperlinks to each activity the student is supposed to do, and there’s no question about what comes next.
So, I divided my course up by themes (usually one per week), and set out with a template for each unit tab seen below in cartoon fashion: