5 Hacks to Simplify Course Navigation & Strengthen Learning
What utensil would you reach for to begin eating your cereal?
Chances are, you would most likely reach for a spoon, right?
So-how might cereal relate to online learning?
Consider your online learning environment. Your eLearning lesson and content are the milk and cereal, itslearning is the bowl and spoon. Your lessons are the essential part of the online learning environment-aka, the cereal you want your students to navigate to, and enjoy. The spoon represents how the students navigate to the lessons-the cereal, if you may. Ideally, we want our cereal eating experience, like our learning, to be smooth. We want to get to the cereal as efficiently and directly as possible. However, if we substitute the spoon with a fork, we technically can still get to the cereal, but we may find ourselves struggling a bit more. We may spend more time focused on the task of trying to scoop up the cereal rather than enjoying the meal itself. We may get frustrated or abandon the mission entirely. In our online learning environment, we do not want our students to focus on navigating itslearning, but instead dedicate their focus on our lesson "cereal." Within itslearning, there are a few simple strategies we can leverage to provide our students with a spoon to reach our lessons rather than a frustrating fork.
What and Why:
Simple, streamlined course navigation is a crucial component for successful online learning. We may create fantastic, engaging virtual lessons for our students. However, if our students cannot find the lesson, it doesn't matter how great it is. By reducing the amount of scrolling, clicking, and searching, our students can spend more time learning the content. Plus, they'll be less likely to miss critical details like assignment requirements and due dates.Reduce Cognitive Load
Moreover, simplified course navigation helps with reducing cognitive load and boosts memory. Our working memory can only handle a few pieces of information at once (though an item of debate for years, most generally agree we can process 4-7 items in our working memory at once). When we burden our working memory with too many pieces of information at once, we reach cognitive overload, according to educational psychologist John Sweller. When we have surpassed our cognitive load, we cannot process new information, grow frustrated, and have compromised decision-making. Every time a student pauses to ask questions like, "Where do I go next?" "What is due?" "Is this clickable?" can weigh down working memory. If our students have too many steps, or clicks, to remember to navigate to lesson content, our students will not be able to focus or retain the actual lesson content itself.
Boost Engagement
In terms of Universal Design for Learning, clear, easily accessible lesson resources can help boost engagement. Often, teachers display lesson goals in a central location in the front of the room, so students are familiar with the tasks, resources, and schedule for the day. When designing eLearning lessons, we need to be sure we consistently, clearly provide the goal, plan, and lesson resources to our students in a direct-manner. Just as our whiteboard puts our lesson goals directly in front of our students' faces in the physical classroom, we need to put our eLearning materials directly in front of our students' faces on their screen. Direct links to lesson content rather than several clicks within the "resources" tab can help reduce the number of distractions for students in navigating course materials. Also, simplified navigation can help sustain effort and persistence by providing learners with clarified goals and objectives in a central location.
How:
Course navigation can be simplified for eLearning lessons in several ways. Consider the suggestions below, implement one or two, ask for student feedback, iterate, and re-implement. A change midway through eLearning will not ruin your lesson-it may help provide helpful insight for future lessons.
- Announcement
- Add an announcement (formerly known as bulletins) to the "overview" tab in a course.
- Include goal, instructions, and any assignment resources within the announcement
- Update Course Page
- If using an itslearning page as the course landing page, update the page to reflect current eLearning lessons only, not general resources.
- Add links to previous eLearning lessons for any students catching up on work.
- itslearning Plans
- If using the itslearning plans feature (planner) to organize the course, update the planner columns to reflect UDL principles such as goal, resources, and activities.
- Link corresponding lesson resources and activities within the plan as well as checklists.
- Activate plans so the plan will automatically populate on the overview tab.
- Learning Paths
- Turn any itslearning folder into a step-by-step self guided lesson, known as a "learning path".
- Learning paths are designed for online learning and sequentially guide students through resources, activities, and assessments.
- Deactivate Content
- Hide (deactivate) any non-eLearning materials in the "Resources" tab to create a clear, clean course.
Ready to get started? Check out the supplemental resources below.
Have an idea you would like to share? We would like to hear your ideas!
Image Courtesy Alexander Mils
Danny Halarewich, "Reducing Cognitive Overload for a Better User Experience", Smashing Magazine (website), accessed April 20, 2020.
John Sweller, "Cognitive Load Theory, Learning Difficulty, and Instructional Design", Learning and Instruction, Vol. 4, pp 295-312, 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd, accessed April 20, 2020
CAST, "UDL: Universal Design for Learning Guidelines", The UDL Guidelines (website), accessed April 11, 2020.
http://udlguidelines.cast.org/
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