Step 3: Planning the Course Design: Integrating Online and Face-to-Face Interactions
When planning your course design it is important to consider whether the student activities and interactions should be entirely online. As outlined earlier, this depends on two factors: the proximity of the students and the learning goals. If your students cannot meet face-to-face, all interactions must be online. (Timms et al, 1999; Ingraham et al, 2001). However, in most college and university teaching, students have the opportunity to engage in a range of face-to-face interactions with you and with their peers. The integration of face-to-face activities (e.g. group discussions) with online interactions (e.g. posting discussion summaries online) must be carefully planned and articulated to students. It may be useful to document this within a course plan or storyboard.
There is a useful resource to help you at: NSW Public Schools Website
Use of Storyboarding
One way of planning your course design is by drawing out the learning activities within a clearly documented storyboard. 'Storyboarding' - a term derived from a technique commonly used in scripting plays - is an effective method for planning online courses, and is somewhat similar to devising a lesson plan. In the context of course design, storyboarding involves linking activities, resources and roles within a common environment. Here is one approach to constructing a storyboard, based upon the study carried out at the Open University of the Netherlands, referred to earlier, in which a large range of e-learning designs were analysed and abstracted to a single statement: 'People engage in activities with resources' (Koper, 2003). Within this context:
Activities are tasks that students complete in order to attain one (or more) learning objective(s).
People refer to students and teachers who are assigned roles within these activities (e.g. moderator, group summariser etc.).
Students are given access to resources (learning materials and software resources, such as discussion boards, groupware etc) to support their learning.
These resources and activities are integrated within a learning environment.
Learning activities
Using this approach, you would begin designing a course by thinking up a number of learning activities for your students - both online and face-to-face. The storyboard can be used to illustrate how these activities link with the learning resources and roles assigned to teachers and students. This involves documenting individual activities and linking these together in an overall plan outlining:
the aim of the activity,
how the tutors and students will interact (for example through online discussions or groupwork),
the resources which are available (e.g. texts, simulations and so on), and
how the students will receive feedback (e.g. from tutors, peers etc) - see the following table which gives an example of a storyboard of a series of learning activities on 'Integrating evidence of evolution' (used with kind permission from Jane Tobias, Bell College of Further and Higher Education).
| Tutor Activities | Student Activities | Resources | Feedback | |
| FACE-TO-FACE | Divide students into four groups (in class). Introduce students to task 1(in class); | |||
| ONLINE | Initiate a 'translation' list on a separate board. Place a few words and their translations as exemplars (online). Moderate stage 1 discussion (online) | Each student group investigates one piece of evidence for evolution. Students upload terms they are unsure about into a 'translation' board - then respond to others by providing definitions in their own words. | 'Evolution and Early Development' article Discussion Board for translation |
Peer feedback on meanings of terms. Tutor encouragement and feedback when terminology is misunderstood. |
| FACE TO FACE | Give feedback re translations and encourage continued use | Group discussions offline (in class) about evidence. Group agrees on a summary and group summary writer posts this to the discussion board. | Discussion board | Feedback from peers during group discussion |
| ONLINE | Monitor boards, ask relevant questions to stimulate discussion | Post initial group summary. Read postings from other groups. Determine what the common themes are across groups (by accessing bulletin boards and holding group discussions around a single laptop) - post ideas onto submission board. | Feedback from student groups to other groups.Overview from tutor - summary of main issues articulated by student groups. |
The main problem with this type of storyboard is that it does not illustrate non-linear relationships across activities. These sorts of relationships can be represented in a concept map, which can help to populate the virtual learning environment with learning resources and activities.
A concept map of the online course outlined above
Resources on storyboarding:
Littlejohn, A.H. and Higgison, C. (2003), E-learning Guide for Teachers in Higher Education, Learning and Teaching Support Network Publications - LTSN e-Learning Guide for Teachers
Littlejohn, A.H., (2003) An incremental approach to staff development in the reuse of learning resources, Chapter 17, Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to e-Learning, (Ed. Littlejohn, A.), Kogan Page, London, pp 221-233 ISBN 0749439491
Presentation storyboarding - INDEZINE Website
