Before you start building your blended learning course, it helps to step back and think through the bigger picture. This section guides you through the planning decisions that will shape your students’ experience, from how your course flows week to week, to the tools you’ll use and how you’ll set students up to succeed in them.
You’ve chosen your modality, now it’s time to map out how your course will actually flow. This page will help you think about where students are at any given moment, how you’ll use each type of learning space, and what a smooth week-to-week experience looks like for them.
Consider before you read on
- What did you decide about which modality to use, and when? Considering your chosen modality, how will you structure your course?
- Where are your learners in each session and across the week and how does that pattern suit their needs?
- What are the best types of activities for your face-to-face time versus your virtual or asynchronous time?
Create a course flow document
Before you start building content in Moodle, create a blended learning planning document that outlines how your course flows week by week. A simple table showing what students are doing, where, and when is enough to surface gaps and misalignments early.
Your planning document should capture weekly student tasks and the spaces they take place in (in-person, online synchronous, asynchronous). It also helps you see at a glance whether your online and face-to-face components are balanced and connected.
Use your time well across different spaces
Think carefully about where you want to build in teaching presence and social presence, and how students will engage with content, with each other, and with you across modalities. Not all types of learning belong in all spaces.
Match activities to your modalities
Some activities are a natural fit for in-person time: collaborative problem-solving, hands-on practice, discussion, and activities that benefit from physical co-presence. Others work well online: reading, watching, reflecting, independent practice, and asynchronous peer exchange.
Think about how curriculum resources are distributed across sessions and types, and whether the pattern you’re creating gives students a coherent experience, not two disconnected courses happening in parallel.
Plan for smooth transitions between modalities
Students notice when the online and in-person parts of a course feel like they don’t belong together. A consistent weekly structure, even a simple one, helps learners know what to expect and reduces cognitive load.
Build in teaching and social presence
Blended courses can feel impersonal if the instructor is only “present” in face-to-face sessions. Consider where and how you’ll show up online, through announcements, feedback, discussion posts, or short video check-ins, and how students will be encouraged to engage with each other across both spaces.
Reflective activity???
Effective blended course design starts with alignment, ensuring that what students do and how they’re assessed connects clearly back to what they’re meant to learn.
Questions to guide your thinking
- Do my learning activities support student success in my assessments?
- Do my assessments allow students to demonstrate achievement of my learning outcomes?
Align outcomes, activities, and assessments
Use backward design as your framework: start with your learning outcomes, then design assessments that let students demonstrate achievement, then create activities that prepare students for those assessments. This applies across both your in-person and online components.
Think about alignment across modalities, not just within them
Activities in your online component should prepare students for in-person assessments and vice versa. If students can’t see the connection between what they did online and what they’re being asked to do in class, the blend is working against them.
Supporting Resources
Blended learning creates new opportunities to meet a broader range of student needs, but only if inclusion and flexibility are built in from the start, not added as an afterthought.
Questions to guide your thinking
- What can be flexible in my course, for example, attendance, participation mode, or deadlines?
- How do my choices support equity, accessibility, and inclusion?
- How can I build in curricular flexibility to meet emerging topics, interests, or events?
Maximize flexibility and choice where possible
Recognize that your students bring a broad range of needs, circumstances, and contexts. Where you can build in flexibility (around attendance, participation mode, or how students demonstrate their learning) do so intentionally, not reluctantly.
Incorporate universal design for learning
Apply UDL principles where possible. Consider students’ life circumstances (caregiver status, disability, financial constraints) when making design choices. Flexibility is not a lowering of standards; it is an acknowledgement that one size does not fit all.
Build in curricular flexibility
Structure activities and assessments to allow for student-centred choice for example, where currency is at the center (a headline of the week for political science or business). Building in topical flexibility keeps the course responsive without requiring full redesign.
Supporting resources
Example of flexible, student-centred activity?
The technologies you choose shape the student experience in profound ways, for better or worse. This page helps you make thoughtful, informed choices that support your outcomes, your students, and your own capacity.
Questions to guide your thinking
- What technologies are available to me and my students at TRU? How sustainable are they?
- How do the technologies I’m considering align with my learning outcomes and assessment strategies?
- Does using this technology feel comfortable to me right now, and what might I need help with?
- Are the technologies I’m using easy for students to access and use, given their different levels of experience and available resources?
- Do any of my chosen technologies require students to create external accounts or share personal data?
Start with TRU-supported platforms
Where possible, use technologies that are directly supported by TRU. These tools are maintained, updated, and supported long-term. They comply with privacy standards and are free for faculty and students to use. Starting here reduces risk for both you and your students.
Choose tools that fit your level of technical expertise
Select technologies that fit your current ability to support students with their use. A tool you’re not confident in is a tool that will create friction for everyone.
Consider student access and privacy
Think about the different contexts your students are learning from (home, workplace, on-campus) and whether your technology choices work across all of them. Consider student privacy carefully: where is their data being stored? Can the technology be used without creating external accounts?
Include technology requirements in your course outline
State media and technology requirements clearly in your course outline so students know what they’ll need before the course begins. Provide tutorials and guides to help them get started with the tools you’re using.
Supporting resources
Student tech survey template?
Sample syllabus language for technology requirements?
Students who understand why the course is structured the way it is, and what’s expected of them in each space, are better positioned to engage and succeed. Preparation is an act of care.
Consider before you read on
- What challenges might students have with interaction in this course? (e.g., camera-on expectations, bandwidth, mental health)
- How and when will you communicate with your students about how the online and in-person components relate?
- What are your expectations for students in the in-person and online environments?
Communicate standards and expectations clearly
Discuss with students their role and your expectations before the course begins. Ensure students understand what and how to communicate if they’re not able to meet certain expectations, for example, camera policies. Students should not be required to disclose personal details such as mental health status or living situation.
Ensure ongoing communication
Use lots of announcements. Follow up with conversations after class or via email or course chat as needed. Ensure that both you and your students understand how the online and face-to-face components of the course relate to and build upon one another.
Provide tutorials and guides for your technologies
Don’t assume students know how to use the tools in your course. Provide short tutorials and guides, and include technology requirements in your course outline so students can prepare before the course begins.
Supporting resources
Blended course implementation checklist