Provide clear orientation

Facilitate time planning

Minimize any technical issues

Encourage collaboration in small groups

Even though "self-organization" as a term actually suggests that the person in question does this "themselves," there are many ways in which teachers can facilitate this task for students.

This document lists some implementation possibilities. Not everything is suitable for every course, but perhaps you will find one or two suggestions that can be implemented with manageable effort.

Provide clear orientation

• Clearly communicate goals and benefits in advance (e.g., in the course description)
• Provide organizational information early and in sufficient detail
• Structure your course in a clear, logical, and uniform manner on the learning platform and use learning paths if necessary
• Do not nest course content too deeply on the learning platform, otherwise content that has not been expanded may be overlooked
• Keep the students’ perspective and needs in mind when designing the structure
• Prepare an explanatory video or use screen-sharing during the synchronous session to guide students through the learning platform
• Release content on the learning platform gradually to avoid overwhelming students
• Communicate the release of new content via push messages
• Clearly mark material as “mandatory” or “optional”
• Clearly mark tasks as “mandatory” or “optional”
• Make priorities clear
• Provide an overview of all tasks
• Where possible, discuss asynchronous tasks during the synchronous session first
• Make the task easy to find and clearly designate the place where the results are to be handed in
• Provide examples and/or checklists for more complex tasks
• Plan (peer) feedback and/or self-assessments as individual feedback on learning achievements
• Make learning progress visible, e.g., by using the learning path function
• Set up forum for mutual support by students
• Answer questions so that your responses are available to everyone, e.g., in the form of FAQs
• Where necessary, clarify misunderstandings in push messages to all students

Facilitate time planning

• Communicate the time required for the entire course in advance, distinguishing between synchronous events and independent study
• Let students facing special circumstances know that you are sympathetic to any justified concerns
• Announce all synchronous appointments well in advance
• Avoid postponements
• Indicate the planned time required for specific tasks
• When planning times, calculate rather generously so that the processing time is sufficient and successes can be experienced
• Do not exaggerate the amount of tasks
• Don’t schedule too many mandatory assignments per week
• Define milestones with deadlines for more complex tasks
• Designate all deadlines well in advance
• Avoid too many deadlines within a course section
• Provide a timetable with assignments and deadlines to print out and check off each course section
• Enter all dates (synchronous events and deadlines) in the course calendar so that all students can export them or subscribe to them
• Remind students of important upcoming deadlines via push messages
• Allow for preparatory and follow-up work

• Record synchronous events and/or document these in a course protocol

  (Note: Be sure to follow the university guidelines on recording events)
• Indicate the texts (e.g., textbook chapters) that students can use to follow up on the content of synchronous events
• Give your students a limited number of "get-out-of-jail-free cards" for when they are under time pressure, e.g., they only need to submit 10 of the 12 mandatory tasks
• Specify fixed times when you will respond to queries
• Wherever possible, automate feedback (e.g., for self-assessments or sample solutions for assignments) so that it can be provided more quickly
• Leave room for students’ individual learning goals and interests
• Allow time for a personal exchange with other students
• Refer to tips for self-organization (sample tips)
• Regularly invite students to reflect on their own time planning and organization

Minimize any technical issues

• Make preliminary inquiries about known and existing technology
• Use standard applications of your university that students are already familiar with
• Before an event, use the course description to inform students in good time which tools will be used and what technical equipment they need
• Set up and test your technology sufficiently in advance; be sure also to take the users’ view into account
• Grant access to all necessary tools in good time, including assigning the required rights
• If necessary, start the first synchronous meeting 30 minutes earlier and invite students who need help setting up their technology to join the meeting during this preliminary setup phase
• Consider offering a technology check for demonstrating useful settings and testing them together
• In case of bandwidth problems in synchronous events, switch off webcams if necessary
• Provide contact details for technical support
• Offer basic introductions to technology before the start of the course in the form of an explanatory video or provide links to tutorials
• Gradually explain additional technical knowledge which students may require during the course (e.g., with a verbal explanation, screen sharing, links to explanatory videos or tutorials)
• Try out the technology together (e.g., hand-raise function, chat, voting, digital white boards, forums)
• Offer areas where technology can be tested without any negative consequences (“sandbox”)
• Set up a help forum for your course on the learning platform where students can ask technical questions and support their peers
• Allow for time to reflect on and optimize the use of technology together
• Check and update links
• Make documents and resources accessible (e. g. Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker in MS Office)
• Also enable the offline use of resources, i.e., allow students to download/print them
• Enable collective downloads of multiple resources, e.g., entire folders
• Design resources so that they can be used on different devices (e.g., laptop, tablet, smartphone)
• Provide videos in different resolutions so that students can also use them with a low Internet bandwidth if necessary
• Add subtitles to videos
• Enable highlighting and commenting in scripts

Encourage collaboration in small groups

• Help students to get to know each other at the beginning of the course
• Provide an overview of team tasks, expectations, and deadlines at the start of the course
• Ensure that tasks are clearly defined
• Support the formation of small groups
• When arranging the groups, don’t just consider students’ interests but also take their scheduling into account (e.g., when do individual members of the group have time for synchronous discussion in the group?)
• Encourage small groups to discuss what they need for good teamwork and work out possible times for synchronous collaboration at the start
• Share tips for digital learning with students (e.g. provide the document “digital learning - Tips for students”)
• Assign responsibilities and divide tasks
• Provide an area within the course on the learning platform available for work in small groups (e.g., with a forum, folder for file storage, collaborative document-editing capabilities)
• Indicate useful digital tools for work in small groups (e.g., collaborative writing tools, tools for synchronous online communication)
• After the joint synchronous session, keep the cloud meeting room (including break-out sessions for self- selection) open for another 30 minutes so that small groups can coordinate within a breakout room (as a substitute to planning in the hallway after face-to-face sessions)
• Set clear guidelines on how to handle the situation if some students do not participate in group work (e.g., twice per semester is okay if this is communicated to the other group members well in advance; failing to participate without notice is not okay and must be reported to the teaching staff so that they can inquire what’s going on)
• Schedule an interim review of the group work outcomes and collaboration (What is going well? What can be optimized and how?)
• During the course, talk about factors that promote efficient group work (In doing so, also talk about difficulties and approaches to solutions found)