Designing an Asynchronous Online Course for Student Success
When instructors are planning to teach an asynchronous online course, it can be tempting to focus on the modality and think primarily (or only!) about the fact that students will be at a distance. This can result in a poorly designed course that is overly focused on technology tools and attention-grabbing content, a course that actually makes it less likely that students will succeed and learn. While online courses are different from in-person courses in many ways, it is important to realize that the process of designing any effective course should begin with making a set of fundamental decisions. The backward course design process can help us make these decisions.
Backward course design is a research-informed approach that provides a clear roadmap for designing a learning-centered online course, or one that focuses primarily on student learning. This is contrasted with a more traditional content-centered course, which focuses primarily on the content that will be delivered. Learning-centered courses are much more likely to lead to student success, especially in the online environment.
This article will provide an overview of the backward course design process, emphasizing why this process is crucial for designing effective online courses.
The Stages of Backward Design
The backward design process unfolds in five key stages. It’s important to work through all five of these stages for your online course before you begin building the course in Brightspace. While it may seem that this takes too much time, it actually saves time in the long run: making these important design decisions first means that you can do the work of course building much more systematically and efficiently.
Stage 1: Articulate the changes you want students to experience
To design backward means to start by clarifying what you are aiming for so you can determine the process you will use to achieve that end. Effective backward course design requires instructors to start by thinking beyond the end of their course and to consider the long-term changes they would like students to experience as a result of their learning in the course. This requires some imagination (and certainly aspiration) on your part, but it is an important way to begin putting a course into a larger context.
For example, you may want your students to begin seeing the world beyond your course through the lens of your discipline. You may want them to change as learners by becoming more reflective, better at monitoring their learning, or better at seeking help when they need it. Or you may want them to change in more fundamental ways as people by becoming more caring or empathetic, more responsive to cultural difference, or more civically active. Regardless of the big changes you want to see, those changes will only happen if you clearly articulate them and intentionally design your course to help ensure those changes.
Here’s an exercise to help you think about the changes you want to aim for: imagine that a year from now you receive an email from a student who has taken the course you’re designing. That student says, “Your course changed my life! Ever since that semester, I have _______.” What would you want that student to say? Filling in that blank can help you complete the first step in backward course design.
This step in the backward course design process can take some time, but it is time well spent. Carefully considering how the course and the discipline can be a transformative experience for students provides a solid foundation for making effective and efficient course design decisions later. It also prepares you to communicate your course effectively to students.
Why is this stage crucial for designing an effective online course?
In a face-to-face course, we may convey our enthusiasm about our discipline and the value of the work we do in subtle, informal ways. An online course does not afford those same opportunities. This means that we need to make the meaning and value of courses very explicit for online students. When we take time to consider the important ways in which our course will change our students—as students, as future professionals, as citizens, and as human beings—we prepare ourselves to explain to them why our online course really matters. When students understand why they should care about the work they will do in our course, they are more motivated and will engage more deeply.
Stage 2: Articulate course goals
After you have thought at a high level about big changes for students, it’s time to use your thinking about those big changes to focus in on a set of course goals that aim at cognitive complexity.
The goals for a traditional, content-centered course focus on the content that will be covered (e.g., terms, concepts, theories, etc.) or students’ basic understanding of that foundational content. Goals for a learning-centered course are very different because they are articulated in terms of student learning and change. Learning-centered course goals begin with this phrase: “By the end of this course, students will be able to . . .” This means that instead of explaining what students will know after taking a course, goals for a learning-centered course articulate what students will be able to do as a result of new skills and ways of thinking they develop in the course. For example, by the end of a course you might want students to be able to use course concepts to do things like solve problems, analyze problems, evaluate different solutions to problems, or possibly even create novel solutions to problems.
Clarifying these goals early in the design process prepares you to make the important pedagogical decisions that will guide students’ work through the entire course, and articulating these goals with precise language provides focus for the remaining design steps. Frame your goals using concrete language that describes actions and changes that will be visible so that you—and your students—will be able to see the development of their thinking. For example, rather than saying that students will be able to “understand the importance of sociology for responding to social problems,” you might instead say that students will be able to “use sociological theories to analyze social problems” or “evaluate social problems using key sociological concepts.”
Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (later revised by Anderson and Krathwohl as A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessing) is one helpful tool for formulating and analyzing course goals because it provides a framework to focus your thinking on the levels of cognitive complexity you are aiming your students toward. Many versions of this taxonomy also provide language that can help you articulate and clarify course goals.
Why is this stage crucial for designing an effective online course?
When our goals focus students on memorization or low-level understanding of foundational materials, they will see course work as rote, meaningless, and lacking challenge. This will lead them to put minimal effort into their work and reduce their motivation to engage with you and with their fellow students in a meaningful way. When our goals communicate that we are aiming students at higher levels of thinking, they are more likely to see meaning in the course work and will be more motivated. This is especially important in asynchronous online courses, where students may be tempted to engage in very surface-level work if they do not see how they will benefit from their work.
Example of learning-centered course goals
Example of learning-centered course goals
(from a course in Upstate New York Farming History)
At the end of this course students will be able to
interpret primary documents within their historical context.
apply knowledge of historical changes in economic, demographic, and cultural aspects of American society to explain current social realities.
locate and cite data to support assertions about causes and effects in history
critically analyze and evaluate arguments and the evidence used in their support.
synthesize evidence for a historical interpretation in essay form.
Stage 3: Design a summative assessment plan
After you have a clear sense of your goals, you are ready to take the next essential step in backward design: making a summative assessment plan that will help you see students’ progress toward those goals.
Summative assessments are the assignments, tests, or projects that “sum up” student learning, meaning they indicate students’ progress toward the goals at a few key moments in the course. These are the “major” assessments in your course (papers, tests, projects, etc.) that together make up a substantial portion of students’ grades.
The most effective online courses have a coherent summative assessment plan that allows students to make multiple attempts at building the most important skills over the course. When a course includes a lot of different assessments that were not designed to build on each other or work together, students are likely to struggle and see assessments as hoops to jump through rather than meaningful learning experiences.
To design a summative assessment plan focused on student learning, you must consider very carefully the kinds of thinking students will need to engage in repeatedly throughout the course both to ensure that and to determine how they are making progress toward the course goals. This means that all the assessments in your plan should ask students to do the same kinds of cognitive work at increasing levels of complexity. For example, if the goals of your course are all aimed at having students apply disciplinary concepts to solve real-world problems in your field, the summative assessments in your course should ask students to solve increasingly complex problems as they move through the course.
This kind of planning requires you to think of your assessments in connection with one another and to see how the work students are doing builds over time. For this reason, it is useful to begin your plan by creating the final assessment or assignment for the course and then work backward through the earlier assessments.
Throughout the planning process, make sure to continually refer back to your course goals to make sure the assessments you are planning align with those goals. For example, if your course goals aim students primarily at the levels of applying and analyzing, then you need to make sure that your summative assessments are aiming at those same levels. Bloom’s Taxonomy can help you analyze your assessments for alignment with your goals.
It is important to have all your summative assessments sketched out in detail before moving to the next part of the backward design process. Summative assessment plays a more important and foundational role in a learning-centered course, and if you rush through this important step, you risk your students’ success!
Why is this stage crucial for designing an effective online course?
When summative assessments don’t require students to make repeated attempts at the same complex skills, they will struggle because they won’t be able to see their own growth or development. Instead, online assessments must be designed in such a way that students can see the value of their work and can track their progress toward the course goals. When students don’t see meaning in their work or don’t know if they are improving, they will be more anxious and more tempted to use resources inappropriately.
Example of summative assessment plan
Example of summative assessment plan
(from a course in Upstate New York Farming History)
Note that the plan requires 3 essays that build toward a longer essay. The skills required for each essay are related so that students practice historical thinking and writing skills across essays. The essays are short so that the instructor can manage feedback and grading.
Summative assessment #1: Students will write a one-page essay in which they interpret a primary document about a specific aspect of Upstate Farming History.
Summative assessment #2: Students will write a second one-page essay in which they interpret a second primary document about the same aspect of Upstate Farming History.
Summative assessment #3: Students will write a two-page essay in which they interpret a secondary historical resource about the same aspect of Upstate Farming History. Interpreting secondary historical resources will require students to critically analyze and evaluate the author’s position.
Summative assessment #4: Using the feedback they get on these three short essays, students will combine those three essays into a longer essay. This final, longer essay will include a section in which the writer suggests how the history of this aspect of Upstate Farming History impacts some aspect of current social reality.
Stage 4: Plan for frequent practice
After you have developed your summative assessment plan, it’s time to make a plan for ongoing formative assessment. Formative assessments are designed to help students develop the skills they will need to succeed on summative assessments, and these make up a significant portion of a well-designed online course. Most importantly, frequent formative assessments are opportunities for students to practice key skills so they can receive feedback on their developing thinking.
Once again, this is very different from a content-centered course, where most of the course is focused on delivery of content to students, whether through readings, lectures, videos, demonstrations, or other means. Students in these courses often have few or no opportunities to practice or receive feedback on the skills that summative assessments require, meaning that they often struggle with those assessments. A learning-centered course puts ongoing practice and feedback at the center of the course: well-designed summative assessments drive the learning, and students engage in frequent, ongoing work that requires them to practice the complex thinking those assessments require.
In an online course, formative assessments can also present important opportunities to build a sense of class community. For example, students might do some of this formative work together in discussions or group activities, so they engage with each other. When you give students feedback on formative assessments, you also create the opportunity for them to connect with you. These kinds of interactions help students feel like they are not alone in online courses.
To plan formative work, you need to spend some time analyzing the summative assessments you have created so that you can focus in on and articulate the skills that students will need to practice so they can receive feedback and adjust their thinking. For example, if the summative assessments in your course require students to use theoretical models to analyze case studies in the field, then you need to have them frequently analyze small cases, both on their own and in collaboration with their peers and with you. Giving them feedback on these attempts helps them prepare for the summative assessments and improves their chances of success.
It’s important that this practice work be ungraded or graded in a very low-stakes way (e.g., for completion only) so that students can feel comfortable making mistakes and see this practice as an opportunity for them to receive focused feedback on their developing skills.
Make sure you give yourself time to work through this very important stage of course design before making content selections!
Why is this stage crucial for designing an effective online course?
Students in online courses need to feel supported and connected to you and, ideally, to other students. These kinds of connections won’t be forged without deliberate planning. When you create a clear plan for practice and feedback, you can include opportunities for students to build community by working together, reducing feelings of isolation. In addition, when you give students encouraging feedback on their formative work, even in very small amounts, you send the message that you are there to help them be successful. Not only does this work prepare them to succeed on summative assessments, but it also helps ensure that students have a meaningful, immediate set of learning experiences.
Example of plan for practice and feedback
Example of plan for practice and feedback
(From a course in New York State farming history)
Here's an example of plan for practice and feedback/formative assessment for two weeks of the course (leading up to summative assessment #1).
In week 1, students complete these steps:
Read an important primary document related to farming history.
Write a short response in which they sketch out a preliminary analysis of this document, explaining the steps of their analysis.
Receive feedback from the instructor on their initial response.
Continue working with the same primary document and write a short interpretation building on their initial analysis, explaining the steps they took to conduct the steps of that analysis and how they developed their interpretation.
Post their interpretation to a small-group discussion. Use the discussion to come to agreement about which elements of the group’s interpretations were strongest and the steps that were most helpful in leading to those interpretations.
Receive feedback from the instructor.
Write down key steps for writing historical interpretation and make notes to plan for their work on summative assessment #1.
In week 2, students complete these steps:
Read a historian’s interpretation of a primary document similar to the one they have studied the previous week.
Write a short response in which they analyze that interpretation, explaining the steps this author used to present the interpretation and comparing those to the steps for writing historical interpretation they have previously identified.
Post their responses to a small-group discussion. Use the discussion to come to consensus about the steps to writing historical interpretation.
Receive feedback from the instructor.
Read 3 sample paragraphs of student work that include historical interpretation of primary documents. Make notes about the strategies they will use in their papers.
Share their strategies and get feedback from the instructor.
Stage 5: Select content that serves your course design
The teaching decisions you have made in the previous stages will drive your selections of course content.
In a content-centered course, instructors often find themselves struggling to figure out what they can cut because there just isn’t enough time, or they must determine how they will cover certain topics that students “just have to know!” Or worst of all, they assign large amounts of reading or video lectures to “expose” students to content that they don’t need to use in any meaningful way. This approach can lead students to disengage, especially in online courses.
A learning-centered course treats content very differently. Instead of selecting content based on what you think students should know, you will determine what content (e.g., key disciplinary concepts, theoretical models, or frameworks) they need to use in order to change their thinking in the ways you have targeted. This means that you are making decisions about content based on your long-term aspirations for your students, your course goals, and your plans for summative and formative assessment.
When you are ready to select the content that students will use in your course, review your course plan and ask yourself what students need to read, watch, or listen to in order to do the work you have envisioned for them. Thinking about content in this way often results in instructors realizing that they need to assign content in smaller chunks that will help students focus on what is most important for their learning. For example, instead of reading a full textbook chapter that outlines five different theoretical models, students may only need to read the sections of the chapter that focus on the three models they will use to complete a key course assignment.
Why is this stage crucial for designing an effective online course?
Choosing content in a deliberate way helps students see its relevance to their work in the course and increases the likelihood that they will engage with the content in the ways you would like. This is particularly important in online courses, where students may be tempted to just skim through readings or recorded lectures. When you make content selections based on your teaching decisions—and can explain those selections—students can see how the content has a role in their learning.
Resources
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). (1956-1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives. David McKay Company Inc.
Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences. Jossey-Bass.
Nilson, L.B. and Goodson, L. A. (2018). Online teaching at its best: Merging instructional design with teaching and learning research. Jossey-Bass.
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (Expanded 2nd ed.). Pearson.