Module 2 Overview

Info Introduction

A successful digital learning environment centers on the needs of all learners to build a thriving online learning community. Learners need to feel seen and heard, in-person as well as online. You, the instructor, also need to be seen and heard so that your expertise and personality become the foundation of the online classroom.

Supporting these conditions can be challenging online because of large class sizes, time differences, lack of body language, etc., so being intentional in design helps to foster these communities. The intentional practice of supporting students of all abilities, genders, ages, races, backgrounds, and more are integral to our learners' success.

In this module, think about the characteristics of your learners individually and as a group. Then, consider the ways that you can center your learners' needs through your course design. Designing in ways that supports all learners helps to create a framework that will build a community across the digital portions of your course.

Topics covered in this module...

  • Who are Your Learners?
  • Universal Design for All Learners 
  • Accessibility and Digital Course Design
  • Active Learning, Interaction, and Engagement
  • Learning Communities as the Community of Inquiry (CoI)
Intentional Design: Chunked content pages

You'll notice that this module contains a large number of pages because the content is delivered in deliberate chunks. Chunking pages like this allows the content to be split into smaller, digestible chunks of information. It also makes it easier to locate and/or search for specific topics or concepts. At first glance, your students may be overwhelmed by the number of pages, but if you are transparent with them about why this was done, they will be prepared for it.

Objectives Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  1. Define learner variability.
  2. Distinguish between the different types of learners and varying learner needs, and diverse populations.
  3. Identify Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies relevant to your course to support inclusive online instruction.   
  4. Recognize strategies for inclusive and diverse online instruction.
  5. Identify best practices for accessibility in online courses based on state and federal guidelines.
  6. Devise strategies that enhance instructor presence and humanize the digital learning experience.
  7. Access your development course.
  8. Create an instructor introduction.

Do This Activities & Assignments

Complete the following activities for this module:

  1. Review the Learner-Centered Course Design section of the Course Design Planner  (optional)
  2. Complete and submit BYCA: Instructor Introduction

NOTE: The documents above are UCF specific work samples to be adapted and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Links to an external site..