Supporting Student Success Online with Instructional Design

This presentation outlines the significant role instructional design can play in fostering student success in online history courses. For many history faculty instructional design is an afterthought, even though course design is a primary factor shaping how students engage with an online course and its content. Common student struggles in online courses include finding instructions, understanding the flow of a course, submitting assignments, demonstrating learning, engaging with content, and determining grading expectations. These issues are often due to instructional design decisions rather than an instructor’s content or enthusiasm for teaching. Incorporating universal design principles ensures that online courses are accessible (as required by law), but also streamlines the learning process for all students and addresses many online learning obstacles. This presentation will address the basic tenets of universal design and provide specific examples of how a history instructor might start to incorporate universal design. The presenter will also highlight design recommendations from the California Virtual College-Online Education Initiative Course Design Rubric. History faculty can explore innovative approaches to online instruction and express their creativity while incorporating established principles of course design that aid student learning.