Design Your Online Non-Majors Biology Course with Connect® Based on the Quality in Online Learning Certification

We interviewed Biology Professor, Elizabeth Mays of Illinois Central College about best practices for planning your course with Connect and your Quality in Online Learning Certification.

How would you recommend a new faculty member get started?

"The first step in designing any course is to start with well-defined learning outcomes. If you don't know your destination, it is difficult to navigate your path! The objectives need to be discrete and measurable. This will help both you and your students identify learning success.

Once these outcomes are defined and grouped into units or modules, it's time to address learning activities that will facilitate understanding of each outcome. As we would do in a classroom, we need to provide multiple avenues for students to reach this goal of understanding, as each is a unique learner.

Finally, you need to address assessment of these learning outcomes. Keep in mind that if you are struggling to define a way to assess a learning outcome, that outcome may need to be revised to a more functional form, or even eliminated as unnecessary!

In my courses, I use McGraw Hill Connect® in two modalities, formative assessments before lecturing/instruction takes place and summative assessments after each chapter and unit. This allows me to meet my learners where they are at, identify misconceptions or trouble spots, and guide them more effectively as they engage with the content."

What are some of the standards you need to keep in mind?

"Organization and clarity of instruction, continuous communication, student engagement and community building, accessibility, and continual improvement are essential.

It seems like a large list, but in reality, I think most instructors attempt to incorporate all of these components into their courses on a regular basis. However, executing them in an online environment may take a bit more work. There are some fantastic course design rubrics readily available on McGraw Hill's Success at Every Step website and elsewhere online, to help you address whether you are reaching these standards successfully.

I also think there's a misconception that you can set up an online course and almost forget about it. Instructors need to critically assess what they are presenting and how students are engaging with the materials and each other on a daily or weekly basis and adjust as needed. For example, one of the simplest recommendations I have is to always go back and *look* at announcements or instructions that you've posted for your students. If it looks like a giant block of print, STOP, remove extraneous words, simplify, add bullet points, and make sure there's white space to break up the text."

What specific Connect tools would you recommend using?

"For starters, I always recommend SmartBook® assignments as formative assessments before students engage with other materials (recorded or live lectures, videos, worksheets, etc.). This has a dual purpose–student preparation and lecture/presentation alignment. How many times have you said or heard, "I wish my students came to class prepared," or "I wish students read the chapter(s) before coming to class?” Once I started assigning content in SmartBook, these desires became reality! Because I can also view the reporting in SmartBook, I can see content my students struggled with and devote additional lecture/presentation time to those topics, add more curated resources, and even reduce content if students were successful on their own.

I also recommend using the Question Bank assignments for summative assessments at the end of a chapter or module. Again, this can help the students and you assess whether your learning outcomes are being achieved and whether modifications and supplementation may be necessary.

If time allows, I'm also a huge fan of the Relevancy Modules supplemental eBook and assignable questions available within Connect for biology courses. The Relevancy Modules are short, engaging readings on relevant topics such as cancer, antibiotic resistance, and climate change. For my non-majors students, it is so important for them to make connections with the material to foster engagement. These modules are excellent reads and great starting points for active discussions."

How would you take McGraw Hill’s Connect Virtual Labs and recommend deploying it online?

"Virtual Labs have been a life-saver for us moving online! I do recommend always assigning the tutorial first (and the instructors doing the tutorial as well). We use Virtual Labs to replace activities that are difficult to replicate at home using lab kits or other materials. The design of the Virtual Labs into discrete simulations makes this quite easy–for example, we can have our students run a simple diffusion experiment at home, and supplement it with the Virtual Labs diffusion through dialysis tubing simulation, as that is a bit more cumbersome to do at home. The preview mode of Virtual Labs is fantastic because instructors can run through the experiments themselves prior to assigning them.

Virtual Labs would also be great as pre-labs or even review if you are using hybrid modality doing the labs in person on campus."