Principle Two - Modularization

Open any textbook that you use for any of your courses, and the first thing you will typically see is that the textbook is divided into chapters, with each chapter based on a central topic or concept that relates to and supports the overall topic of the textbook. All the information and activities the textbook includes on a particular topic is included in that topic's chapter. Textbook authors and publishers do this for a reason - this level of organization has been proven to promote learning!

This is also a convenient model for setting up online courses, only instead of calling the sections "chapters", we might call them "Modules" or "study units". Sometimes, when our curriculum is very closely associated with the textbooks, we name our modules after the chapters. Other times, we may group what would be the content of more than one chapter of our textbooks in a module we call a "Unit".

Sometimes our curriculum does not relate to a textbook at all, but we still organize our courses around major themes or topics and "containerize" those topics into modules - just as a textbook does. Essentially, everything that relates to and supports a specific unit of study is usually included in a unit or module. This is also sometimes referred to as "chunking" information for your students.

The typical module could include:

An introduction or overview,
The module level learning objectives,
All learning materials for that module's topic (readings, external links, videos, etc.),
All learning activities related to that module's topics (assignments, discussions, practice exercises, etc.), and
All assessments.

There are many different models for accomplishing this. The following images are of possible models of chunking information organization that can easily be adapted to your online course. These prototypes are individually different, but they are not mutually exclusive. You will have to decide which is best for your curriculum, teaching style, and students; but whichever you choose, be sure to be consistent in how you do it in your courses.

On the next page we will examine Principle 3 - Navigation