Jessica Langlois

Discussion forums can be challenging for students with anxiety disorders. Visually impaired students may not be able to fill out online forms or navigate a webpage with a mouse. Scaffolding and clear deadlines helps students with cognitice impairments.

Students evaluations are useful to understand how they experienced the class, but not the best method to evaluate if the course is achieving industry standards or reflecting institutional guidelines.

I use peer assessments and rubrics, but this was a good reminder to have the categories/criteria in the peer assessment mirror those in the rubric

Plan robust discussion boards only for topics you know merit a lot of discussion, so it's not just busy work. Let students know how you are assessing their online participation, and participatein discussions as needed. Also: offer extra credit for students who answer others' questions on the FAQ page!

Use consistent language when giving instructions for similar assignments, that way students don't have to analyze the information again in a new way.

Also, avoid too much bold and italic, as too much emphasis equals no emphasis at all.

The importance of consistency in style and language is that it helps students -- they need visual cues and expected formulas so they can understand how to navigate the course and not have too many surprises. The most enterprising students will ask if there is confusion, but some will just drop off.