Typically, I set up my online courses in the LMS using a week-by-week structure. However, I have never really liked that structure because it seems more natural to me to think in terms of activity, especially when those activities occur over multiple weeks. From a student-scheduling perspective, I realize that a week-by-week structure might help folks. But, I am always afraid that the week-by-week structure hides the complexity and context of projects...potentially causing important details to be lost.
When I started working on this course, I kept thinking about what I would do in an on-campus course in an attempt to simplify things, and get the workload for students (and me) under control. So, all of the structure for this course is based on what I do in on-campus courses. I provide descriptions of activities and projects with the syllabus. Then I use weekly agendas to drive what happens each week, with pointers to the various activity and project descriptions. For me, this seems more manageable, simplistic, straight-forward.
I am not sure what the students think about this structure, especially given the fact that many of them have spent a year in online courses that followed a week-by-week structure. So, my decision to structure the course based on activity type -- with weekly agendas for reference -- could fall flat. My hope is that the folks in the course will share with me their views on the design of the course so I can continue to enhance it while in progress and for the next run of the course.
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