Asynchronous courses offer students the ability to participate in the course at any time or location. Students are given weekly deadlines and expected to plan their time to achieve these milestones. Modifications are necessary when adopting this type of course template for residential students. The asynchronous remote structure works best with students who exercise self-regulated learning strategies.
Lecture
Lectures are recorded in advance and shared with students.
Considerations
- Make recordings in your home or office with individual viewers (not a group setting) in mind.
- Add personal elements, so that students get to know you.
- Do not correct every instance of imperfect speech, as students appreciate familiar and natural, rather than formal, speech.
- Consider the following options:
- Use screen capture with audio narration.
- Script your presentation to create a succinct video that can be watched multiple times for initial understanding and further review.
- Break videos into chapters to keep the content focused and allow for students to easily find segments of your lectures. For example, one chapter might provide an overview of three main concepts; another might contain lecture material on the first concept, etc.; and another might preview the lesson’s assignments that follow.
Individual Activities
Individual activities allow students to engage with course content through knowledge checks, practice, and critical thinking.
Considerations
- Plant reflective prompts in the lecture video.
- Consider embedding a quiz in the video using Kaltura.
- Add reflective prompts to other assignments in the course.
- Assign practice problems or study questions (ungraded).
- Consider the order of operations when inserting individual activities (e.g., first read, then do individual activities, then meet to discuss group project).
Group Work
Group work brings otherwise unconnected students together to meet various learning objectives.
Considerations
- Facilitate student group formation, collaboration, and team building with assignments and technical tools (such as Canvas, Microsoft Teams, Box, CATME, Google docs, etc.).
- Encourage groups to meet synchronously to work on project deliverables.
Assessments
Since students cannot be monitored while they are completing assessments, strategies should be employed to mitigate threats to academic integrity.
Considerations
- Consider multiple low-stakes quizzes/exams that can be done online or different assignment types that can also evaluate students meeting learning objectives.
- Assign students to submit pre-recorded videos of their individual assignments (e.g., talking through their coding assignment) to be assured of academic integrity.
- Set deadline constraints with some flexibility built in for assignments and homework.
Attendance
Attendance is generally not required, as participation in the course is determined by completing assignments.
