Let’s consider a scenario. Towards the start of a semester, you have 30 students for your online course. These are 
students who might come from different backgrounds with varying levels of experience in online learning. You might find some students who have taken only 1 or 2 online courses earlier; however, there may be some who have never taken them. Now, how will you be preparing your students to take the online courses? This is precisely why you require orientation for online students. Also, what features will you consider critical to assist your students in quickly adapting to the online learning environment. Here are some essential tips that will explain to you the process of creating an online student orientation. You will get to know about the analysis and design part of creating an online student orientation course.
The Analysis Phase
In this phase, one is required to identify the requirements and set the agenda for student orientation in online courses. There are mainly four objectives in the student orientation:
- Understanding online learning
- Understanding management system
- Technical problems involved in learning management system
- Abilities required for online learning and understanding of learning skills and ability
The Design Phase
Keeping in mind the above objectives, you need to design online orientation modules; there can four modules (it can be more or less) which would cover various things concerning an online student orientation. If you are an instructor in online courses, you can customize according to your instructional needs and assist the students in getting used to online learning quickly. The modules can be –
Module 1 – The nature of online learning
The purpose of online learning is to assist students in understanding the nature of online learning tool. Therefore, the module should consist of
- Online communication
- Assignments
- Learning resources
- Learning environment
Module 2 – Technological requirements of an online course
This module should be developed to bring in sufficient technological requirements for an online course. You can basically identify these aspects in the module
- technology requirements
- Online course software requirement
- Technical problem solving
- Accessing the online course.
Module 3 – Motivation and learn skills needed for online leering
The purpose of designing a module is to assist the students in self-determining their eagerness in choosing an online course. Here, the students can be provided with a survey to know their beliefs concerning their individual capability of taking an online course. It can include things concerning the students’ belief in personal capabilities to 1) finish an online course, 2) interaction with classmates for educational needs, 3) interacting with the instructor and others, 4) plan, analyze, understand and adjust tasks for learning, and 5) usage of tools in learning management systems.
For more detailed insights, on student orientation programs take part in our online webinar where we outline steps that have been successful in higher education for the purpose of replication: if one college can do it maybe another can learn from it.
