The Benefits of Using Supplemental Resources in the Online Classroom
When you plan or design an online course, it’s crucial that your assessments, objectives, and instructional materials align with each other. However, creating a coherent structure isn’t just for your own benefit. It also helps your students and other instructors comprehend why each course component is presented in conjunction with one another.
Sometimes you may inherit a previously designed course and are unsure of how much flexibility is granted in the design based on student performance, prior knowledge, and preferences. Supplemental materials can provide instructors a way to fill in perceived gaps within the prescribed instructional materials and can offer instructors additional approaches to motivate students. Complementary supplemental learning materials can also aid instructors with meeting the diverse needs of all learners. What do students desire to be aware of in addition to the given topic?
Supplemental resources are the non-required educational materials in an online course. When used effectively, these assets can inspire and transform learning, enhance motivation, and even supply additional assistance for online students who need it.
Selecting Supplemental Resources
As with all the pieces of an online course, you must carefully select supplemental resources that are in alignment with your instruction. First, consider the context of your course, know the students you have, the sequence of the course in the program, and other unique identifying factors for your course. Having this in mind, ask yourself these questions:
- What learning preferences do my students’ exhibit?
- How will the content in this course prepare my students for future courses?
- What are my students interested in?
Your objectives, assessments, and instructional materials are the main ingredients of your course, therefore, the materials you select for your course are important. Supplemental resources can augment these elements of your course and can also add value to the design of your course. For example, if you are aware of your students’ interests you can embed supplemental resources such as, real-world scenarios or case studies. These enriching activities encourage learning, practical application, and critical thinking skills that are uniquely tailored to your students. Additional supplemental resources that can be added to your course can be learning activities or instructional videos that support the content. These resources add value to the course because students can interact with the content as many times as they need to, providing additional opportunities for reinforcement of the learning objectives.
Did you know that our very own Alvin Sherman Library has amazing resources that can help enhance your course? Through the Library, you have access to resources that provide cutting edge research, a recording studio, and a repository of video with content that you can share with your students. For additional information about some of the supplemental resources available within the library, check out this article that we shared a few months ago.
Using Supplemental Resources to Encourage Learning and Provide Support
Supplemental resources are an added benefit for your students. It can enhance their motivation about a given topic. In this regard, it helps students stay up to date in their field. Supplemental resources are not exclusive to encouraging exploratory or additional learning. Instructors can include supplemental resources to help those students who may need remediation to help them be successful. There are two areas of support you can provide to your students: proactive support and reactive support. In proactive support, you select the resources that you anticipate will be the greatest challenge for your students. In reactive support, you send your students supplemental resources where you notice that students are not meeting the learning objectives.
Supplemental resources are a powerful learning tool in your online course. When used effectively, they can help engage, motivate, and support students with making connections with the content of your course. Including these supplemental resources can add value to your course and provide meaningful learning opportunities to be successful in your course.