TABLE OF CONTENTS


Introduction

This guide covers general guidance for designing an intentional flexible course.  A flexible course is designated with a F in the section name and means that students have more than one way, or a choice, to interact with peers, the instructor, and course materials in a synchronous and asynchronous format. 


Questions to Consider

  • What modalities do you plan to use and how will they be included in the course activities and instruction? Do you want to have all students who are meeting in person use a laptop/device/phone and headphones so that they can join those on Zoom for breakout rooms or help relay questions that are posted in the chat?
  • How will you engage students in different modalities? For example, do you need to add instructions to your lesson video for asynchronous students to pause and perform a task or engage in an activity? See our tutorial on adding quizzes in YuJa to learn how to add a reflective pause.
  • How are the unique components of a flexible course reflected and addressed in your syllabus?



Syllabus Policies

Getting off to a good start and creating a smooth experience for both the instructor and the students is often all about setting clear expectations in the beginning. Consider creating policies and procedures for the following topics to help students understand how class will be conducted and what their responsibilities are. When it comes to flexible design, three key policies should be considered: attendance, testing, and AI usage.  Feel free to explore our example syllabus policies for flexible courses. 

 

Intentional Organization

Because students in your course may not be participating in the same way, to make sure every student is still on the same page for what they should be doing, organize your Canvas page consistently and take advantage of text headers.  Especially when it comes to flexible courses, text headers can help direct students how and when they need to engage in course content.  This will increase transparency in your course for students who decide to complete the course asynchronously online.  


Additionally, incorporating text headers can help signify to students:

  • Important dates
  • Reading material
  • Assignments needed to be completed
  • Optional resources 


Module Organization

You may wish to set up your Canvas course for each week or module in the following way: 


Activate: include an online, asynchronous pre-lesson activity to engage all students 

Gather: attend the in-person class; log on virtually; complete the online materials.  Again, use clear labels for asynchronous discussions/links for online students to participate with clear deadlines (grading these items fairly for all students needs to be considered)

Apply: Independent work that all students complete on their own


Whether it's "activate, gather, apply," "weekly overview, reading, assignment(s)," create a page or a video explaining your organization and the terminology you plan to use to divide your material and publish it in your Start Here module. 


Assignment Organization

Organize your Canvas elements the same way utilizing the TILT method.  This will reduce confusion and create consistency for students who may switch between learning modalities.


Reading material and Optional Resources Organization

Though flexible means students have a choice in how they can learn the material, there is an online teaching strategy you will want to apply for organizing your course content: Chunking.


Break up course content into manageable pieces that allows the students to control the pace in which they learn the material to reduce cognitive overload.  This is great for in person courses and online.  Using Richard Mayer's 12 Principles as a reference, here are some of the more popular take aways to keep in mind as you create and chunk material for your flexible courses: 

  • Keep videos under ten minutes and allow students to control the play/pause button
  • Build in pauses and/or tasks for students to complete to help them digest the material
  • Use bullet points or lists to break up long paragraphs
  • For in person lessons, cover material in short segments, breaking up material to ask clarifying questions, a brief discussion, or quick activity to apply the material
  • Check out our YuJa video resources for how to create chapters, edit videos, and embed video questions


Active Learning Across Modalities

Active learning methods involve students in their learning by asking them to actively engage with the content they are learning. This could include discussion, investigation, creation, or any other activity that asks students to take an active role in mastering content. This is often much easier to do in person than online, so this page will give you some suggestions for how active learning could be adapted across modalities. 


More importantly, it can take time and practice to get students across modalities to engage with one another.  Even if we have students engaging with you and the material in a way that is equitable, if students are not engaging with one another, it may feel like you are prepping for three different sections of the same class.  We don't want that!


Here are some ways you can incorporate active learning strategies in your class to create a more seamless feel between your online, virtual, and in-person students.  

  • Chat monitor role: Having an in-person student act as a chat monitor can help virtual students stay engaged and take the pressure off the instructor.
  • Polls: There are many free resources for creating and disseminating polls which can be used by students in all modalities. 
  • Collaborative documents: This could include notes, brainstorming, research, etc.

Want more active learning strategy ideas?  Check out our full list of Active Learning Strategies for Instructors.