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Effective page design requires a balance between white space, or negative space, and positive space. Positive space encompasses all elements of content; on a course page, content elements might include an introductory paragraph, a lecture video, an infographic, an opinion poll, or a thought-provoking quotation, among other possibilities. Relative to these course components, white space might seem like a nice-to-have. However, white space plays a key role in instructional page design by reducing distortion and promoting clarity.

If you’re developing a course with synchronous and asynchronous elements, you have a host of options for engaging students and delivering content. Research suggests that incorporating multiple modalities increases accessibility, engagement, and learning (Mick & Middlebrook, 2015; Margolis et al., 2017). With that said, it is important to be intentional about multimodal course design. Both synchronous and asynchronous methods of delivery are effective, but activities can be better suited to one or the other modality, and synchronous time is often limited. Delivering selected content asynchronously can support students’ understanding of how information is organized and leave more time for interactivity in synchronous sessions.

This Envision piece focuses on version 2.2 of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines, released in 2018. The UDL guidelines have undergone multiple version updates since the release of version 1 in 2008. For more details on the most recent iteration of the guidelines, review the UDL guidelines overview from CAST.

In online courses, opportunities for student engagement need to be deliberately designed (Martin & Bolliger, 2018). One common way to promote student engagement online is through discussion forums, for which there are widespread, established best practices. However, the Q&A discussion forum, which is typically not graded or required, is often thrown into a course without clear intentions or structure. When purposefully designed, a Q&A forum can facilitate the crucial engagement types that are essential to building a community of inquiry in an online classroom, ultimately improving student satisfaction and learning outcomes. These engagement types are student-content, student-student, and student-instructor (Bernard et al., 2009, as cited in Martin & Bolliger, 2018). A Q&A forum should incorporate best practices around all three engagement types.