Structuring Activities

Integrating activities for learners to do as they go through the content provides them with opportunities to practice what they have learned. Integrating activities in your course content is a good way to keep your learners engaged with the content and helps them with the cognitive processes (store and access information)

Activities in online courses can take many forms, from interactive objects (clicking on "hot spots" that lead to more information to dragging labels to the correct spots) to discussions or quizzes or webquests - your creativity is the limit. Active learning places learners at the centre of the learning process as they take responsibility for their own learning and is driven by activities such as discussions, case studies and problem solving.

Regardless of the type of activity you may have in mind for a specific chunk of content, what will make it successful is how you structure it: ensure that there are clear instructions for what learners are supposed to do, that the objective for the activity is stated and that it includes feedback to guide learners. Have a look at this activity format guide.

Examples

The following are examples of different types of activities. Notice how they are structured to ensure that learners know what to do and learn whether or not they are on the right track.

• Interactive learning about the ports of a computer
• COL's "Creating Learning Materials for Open and Distance Learning" includes a few samples of learning activities