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Instructional materials are the content or information conveyed within a course. These include the lectures, readings, textbooks, multimedia components, and other resources in a course. These materials can be used in both face-to-face and online classrooms; however, some must be modified or redesigned to be effective for the online environment. The best instructional materials are aligned with all other elements in the course, including the learning objectives, assessments, and activities.
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Why Is It Important?
Instructional materials provide the core information that students will experience, learn, and apply during a course. They hold the power to either engage or demotivate students. This is especially true for online courses, which rely on a thoughtful and complete collection of instructional materials that students will access, explore, absorb, and reference as they proceed in a course.
Therefore, such materials must be carefully planned, selected, organized, refined, and used in a course for the maximum effect. The planning and selection of instructional materials should take into consideration both the breadth and depth of content so that student learning is optimized.
How to Put Into Practice?
Consider these questions as you select instructional materials for your course:
Is the scope and coverage appropriate?What will learners read/explore?What will learners view/hear?What could learners experience/create?Will you find or create this material?Do materials and media support and align with the stated learning objectives?Is there sufficient interactivity and engagement?
Instructors and/or instructional designers should cast a wide net and aim for a variety of materials to include in their course. At the same time, they should be deliberate with these choices so that the course has the appropriate combination of instructional materials. Below are just a few categories of instructional content to include in an online course.
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Where to Find Resources?
Examples of Instructional Materials
The following table provides examples and links to resources and tips for the common types of instructional content.
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Note: If you are viewing this table on a mobile device and the table is cut off, try swiping your finger over the table to view the content.
| Print Materials: Readings, Syllabus, Lesson/Assignment Files, Rubrics, Handouts | AssignmentRubricsDiscussion Prompt | Create accessible course materials |
| Digital Media/Recorded Lectures (Audio or Video): Movies/TV Clips/ YouTube, Podcasts, Screencasts, TEDx Talks, etc. | ||
| Course Introduction Video | Tips to create an introduction video | |
| Presentation Materials: Lecture Notes, PowerPoint, Prezi, Adobe Captivate) | Prezi Example: John Hawks – Intro to Anthropology Course(Tip: use the arrows to navigate forward and backward)Adobe Captivate Examples: | |
| Expert Interviews, Guest Speaker Recordings | ||
| Case Studies/Scenarios | ||
| Educational Games | 7 things you should know about games and learning | |
| Simulations | Uses, trends & implications for simulation technologies in education | |
| Visualizations: Illustrative Pictures, Graphics, Interactive Data | Tips for using word clouds in eLearning | |
| Third Party Tools and Software | Over 100 third-party tools and servicesfor assessment, content, collaboration, & interactionTools include: | |
| Role Playing | Thiagi’s Training Games | |
| Student-Created Content | For the most part any of the other content types can also be created by students as an assignment and then could be used as examples in your course.
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Tips for adding student-generated content |
| Expert Blogs | The Rapid E-Learning Blog is a great resource for building learning. | 7 things you should know about blogs |
| Open Educational Resources (OER): Textbooks, Online Articles, Audio or Video Clips, Links to Online Resources, Databases, Examples; Simulations | OERs to explore |
Please note: Not all of the listed technologies are officially supported by the university.