Thanks to modern technology, students no longer have to be bound to a physical classroom to pursue a college education. Equipped with a device and an internet connection, students can earn an associate, bachelor’s or master’s degree from the comfort of their own home.
“It’s the way of education, and it’s the way that students will go to school,” says Justin Louder, assistant vice president for academic innovation at Anthology, an education technology company that produces the learning management system Blackboard Learn. “A vast majority of students will take at least one online class a semester.”
Online learning is not necessarily a novelty, but its popularity has grown in recent years and is expected to continue. Online degrees have also experienced a wave of innovation and wider acceptance in recent years, says Louder, who previously oversaw online degree programs as associate vice provost of e-learning at Texas Tech University.
How distance learning is delivered varies among colleges and even professors, but most online courses have similarities, experts say. Here are five basic components of online courses students should be familiar with before signing up for classes.
The Learning Management System
When a student enrolls in an online course, they’ll be asked to log in to a learning management system, or LMS.
For fully online courses, the LMS is where everything for class exists. On this platform, students can access their syllabus, see their professor’s contact information and access most course materials, including online readings, videos, audio files and other resources. This is also where students participate in discussion boards — written exchanges with fellow classmates — and submit assignments.
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Although some schools design their own learning management systems, most colleges use Blackboard Learn, Moodle, Canvas or Brightspace, and experts say most of these systems are similar and fairly intuitive.
“What is important for students to understand is how the professor has designed their course — including the overall structure, schedule, organization, content and resources, activities, and assessments and assignments,” Eric Fredericksen, associate vice president for online learning and a professor at the University of Rochester in New York, wrote in an email. “A good practice is for professors to spend time at the beginning of the course to orient the students to the course in the LMS and to provide clarity on their expectations for students in the course.”
Course Materials
The materials students use in online courses vary depending on the professor’s preferences. Some online instructors prefer that students read e-books, while others suggest ordering textbooks. In some cases, the instructor may provide options, which could include a hard copy or a digital version, Fredericksen says.
“In the course I teach, I use a textbook that is part of a service from our library and students can access it and read it online at no cost to them,” he says. “There are lots of different kinds of educational resources that can be used.”
Other possible resources include podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, webcasts of lectures and instructional videos, which can be embedded into the LMS and available to students to watch on their own schedule. Lecture videos can also typically be made accessible to include captions and a transcript for students who need accommodations. Students can also download the audio from a lecture and listen to it on their own time.
“You think about different learning styles. Some students are auditory learners. Some students are more visual learners,” Louder says. “Online courses can appeal to all different types of learners.”
Course Structure
Online courses are either synchronous, meaning students and professors are logged in and engaging at the same time like in a traditional classroom setting, or asynchronous, where students can complete assignments and watch lectures on their own time.
Undergraduate degree online courses tend to have synchronous components, such as a live class discussion, office hours or proctored exams, says Melissa Loble, chief academic officer at Instructure, an education technology company and creator of Canvas. Tools like Zoom allow instructors to conduct live lectures and break students off into small groups for further discussion.
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However, the majority of classes tend to be asynchronous, experts say.
“For non-degree programs like certificates, synchronous components are more rare as they cater to a wide range of timezones and the needs of working professionals,” Loble wrote in an email. “For synchronous classes, they tend to be bite-sized lectures. This is true for even courses that may have recorded content. The days of long lectures have passed, especially after COVID.”
No matter the structure, a successful online course includes “high levels of interaction with the professor and their students, as well as between the students and their classmates,” Fredericksen says. “This can happen synchronously or asynchronously. I believe professors need to be flexible, humorous, thoughtful and kind with their students — both online and in the traditional classroom.”
As students gravitate more toward online courses, Louder says they can feel confident in the education they’ll receive regardless of whether the class is synchronous or asynchronous.
“In a well-done, quality online course, student outcomes and success should mirror that of a face-to-face class,” he says. “You shouldn’t see a difference based on the modality of the course work.”
Assignments and Group Projects
Students in in-person classes can expect to submit some of their work digitally, such as discussion board responses or term papers, but tests and other assignments may still be completed on physical paper. In online courses, everything is done virtually, whether a test or a group project.
Students submit their work through the LMS, where instructors can also share grading criteria and due dates. In addition to papers and discussion boards, students may be asked to create blogs or videos demonstrating their subject knowledge.
And just because online programs require less face-to-face interaction doesn’t mean instructors don’t require group projects. Online students usually conduct group projects through Zoom, Google Meet or another video conferencing platform. Text messaging and FaceTime calls also make it easier to complete group projects.
Professors can use the LMS to manually or automatically assign students to groups and provide a central location to share materials, Loble says. “Groups can then submit a single project to a professor for grading, as well as engage in peer review to provide feedback on the contributions each member of the group makes.”
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Loble says one of the biggest struggles for students in online courses when it comes to assignments is time management.
“When you are a student in an online course you have to be accountable for your own work remotely,” she says. “This is hard for some students even with built-in reminders for due dates.”
Grading
Online instructors use the LMS to grade assignments and give feedback. Instructors can also build online quizzes and other computer-graded activities, which can decrease the wait time for students to receive a grade.
“I do believe prompt feedback is essential for student learning,” Fredericksen says. “And it is also important for professors to provide an expectation of when feedback and grades will be provided back to their students.”
Alexandria Aguilera, who earned a master’s in education through an asynchronous online program at Western Governors University, says she had the most interaction with her professors via virtual feedback.
“They gave very timely and detailed feedback in submitted assignments,” she wrote in an email. “I even met with one one-onone to discuss the assignment I submitted. I was able to take their comments and suggestions and redo my work.”
Online professors strive to create a sense of community with their students, so frequent discussion is crucial to a successful online course. Whether that’s asynchronous through discussion boards or synchronous with live class discussions over video, it’s common for professors to factor that participation into their grading.
To deter cheating on exams, most online professors use proctored exams or locked-down browsers. Most LMS platforms also include some type of artificial intelligence or plagiarism-detection software to ensure students submit original work.
“We are seeing an increased volume of professors giving in-person exams that are proctored, either by people or by video, during fully online courses to help address issues of academic integrity,” Loble says.
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5 Basic Components of an Online College Course originally appeared on usnews.com
