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I’d like to share with you five general principles to follow when creating out-of-class learning experiences that support student learning and foster autonomous learning behaviour.
First, variety. Include a variety of resources, when designing out-of-class learning tasks for students to complete, and a variety of contexts for students to engage with out of class. Make sure that students are asked to engage with both educationally curated and naturally occurring resources. You can also give students a choice where they determine what kind of resources they’ll engage in, print, digital, or social.
Purpose. Give students a specific purpose to fulfil when engaging with a resource. For example, when we give students a text, and we tell them to read it, we’re actually not providing them with adequate support for learning. What exactly are students meant to read, and you know, how much of it, and what will they do with what they’ve read? Instead, if we said, “Read the text, make notes of three key ideas, and then check if this summary has those key ideas,” or another specific task that gives them a purpose to read, that is far more effective. The purpose is manageable, it’s achievable.
Scaffolding. Students are more inclined to engage with tasks that provide explicit support for learning, such as a note-taking table or a template. Guide students in their learning of subject matter out of class. Depending on students’ familiarity with the academic content and with the task you’ve set, more or less scaffolding for learning can be provided. Scaffolding can be provided not only for learning academic content, but also in the development of metacognitive skills. Provide students with guidance in how they identify needs, and how they set goals, how do they monitor their learning? And evaluate the learning experience. Also, include tasks that assist students in recognising potential constraints to their learning, and identifying alternative learning paths.
Curricula alignment. Now, out of class learning needs to tie in closely with curricula content, obviously. Being interesting or enjoyable are not sufficient reasons for a resource to be assigned to students. Students, just like educators, want to use their time effectively and efficiently. So make it very clear to students how a particular resource fits in with the subject matter or the course, and what academic or personal gains, they will have by engaging with it.
Communication. Students are more motivated to engage with out-of-class learning if they perceive the experiences academically or personally significant, I’ve said this before. It’s essential, therefore, that we explicitly state the value of the resource of engaging with it. Many educators just restate subject learning outcomes that an out-of-class learning task is related to, but this can be insufficient. Instead, let’s explain the real life or the academic significance of a learning outcome. Let’s be clear and specific in explaining the academic, the personal gains that the student will have by learning out of class, so explicit communication. I strongly, strongly recommend that we avoid awarding marks to out-of-class learning. And I realise this is a contentious issue, and some of you might argue that that’s the only way you can get students to actually do anything out of class. However, that type of engagement where students are told to do something to receive marks out of class, will most probably be transitory. If we design tasks that are achievable and manageable, are relevant and significant to learning to subject matter, chances are students will want to engage with them, regardless of any assigned marks.
I will share with you three practical strategies that you can try, that puts these five principles into practise. One of the out-of-class learning tasks that I have used that has been very effective in my classes, has been giving students choice. So in an academic writing class, where students will typically have to do paraphrasing out of class or summarising, or you know, reading and note-taking, writing drafts, I would give students a choice in how they wanted to do a particular task. So some students might, for example, drafting. I would give the students the choice of, they could write it, they could type it up, they could audio record it, they could video record it, they could present it in class, they could perform a song about it, they could write a rap about it. So giving them a range of choices meant that students could show their personalities as well as their knowledge of the academic content in varied ways. I also gave students choice in slightly more academically-oriented activities as well.
So in the same class, for example, if it was paraphrasing, the choice was then that students would decide what they wanted to paraphrase. It could be an audio, it could be a video, it could be very academic, it could be less academic, could be non-academic if they justified why they wanted to paraphrase information from there. So I think, overall, what made the choice in how they engage with an out-of-class resource, the choice in the resource itself, I think, it allowed them to make their own decisions. So in that sense, gave them autonomy. It allowed them to also make personal decisions in what is it that they’re interested in, and that’s what they made choices on. So if the student was exceptionally interested in literature, they tended to go towards novels and short stories and writing. And if a student was really interested in soap operas, that’s kind of the direction they took. But they did engage with it, and to me, that was successful in meeting learning needs, taking initiative, and then in class, we would monitor their learning, and they’d identify further learning needs and goals.
The following five principles are essential for creating effective out-of-class learning experiences that encourage students to become independent, motivated learners:
Variety
- Incorporate diverse resource types (print, digital, social)
- Mix educationally curated and naturally occurring materials
- Allow students to choose their preferred learning formats
Purpose
- Provide clear, specific objectives for each task
- Example: Instead of “Read the text,” assign “Read and identify five key ideas to share”
- Ensure tasks are manageable and achievable
Scaffolding
- Provide learning support tools (templates, note taking guides)
- Develop metacognitive skills through:
- Goal-setting guidance
- Learning monitoring strategies
- Self-evaluation techniques
- Problem-solving alternatives
Curricular Alignment
- Connect all materials directly to course content
- Ensure resources serve clear academic purposes
- Make explicit connections between tasks and learning outcomes
Communication
- Clearly explain the value of each learning activity
- Highlight real-world applications
- Specify both personal and academic benefits
Best Practice Tip: Avoid grading out-of-class work. Instead, focus on designing engaging, relevant, and meaningful tasks that naturally motivate student participation.
Examples
Let’s have a look at three examples of how educators apply these principles in designing out-of-class learning experiences.
Example 1: Biology
A biology lecturer is aware that their students are struggling with the volume of biological terms they are learning. They want students to be able to learn these terms efficiently and remember them accurately. First, they collate a range of freely available videos on the internet that introduce and explain the biological terms covered in the course. They check that the information in the videos is accurate as not all naturally occurring resources are credible. They create a worksheet with diagrams, note taking grids and other exercises for students to complete as they watch each video. The lecturer also includes a three question auto-marked formative quiz at the end of each video. The videos and accompanying resources are made available to students via an online shared platform. At regular intervals, the lecturer does a poll at the start of a lecture asking students to vote for the video that has been the most impactful on their learning. The lecturer also incorporates these out-of-class resources into in-class teaching: Questions that have high incorrect answers in the auto-marked formative quiz are analysed and responded to in class; the lecturer also creates in-class group activities where students have a choice in the resources they use to complete the activity – they can use the textbook and lecture notes or the out-of-class resources.
Example 2: Referencing
In an online class, a lecturer aims to teach students the mechanics of referencing. They provide students with a written guide which the university library team have created and demonstrate to students in class how they can use this guide to format and edit in-text citations and reference lists in assignments. At the end of each marking period, the lecturer observes that a high number of students still have errors in formatting references. Prior to the next assignment submission date, the lecturer creates a discussion forum post for students to respond to out-of-class. The post includes an incorrectly formatted reference list and asks students to do two things:
– Find two errors in the reference list and post these errors. There are more than two errors in the reference list so ones that other students have not already found.
– Identify the resource you used to identify the errors. Where is this resource located and how is this a useful resource for other students?
The discussion forum acts as a collection of resources for students to use when formatting their reference lists.
Example 3: Oral presentation
A group of students are working on an oral presentation. They will be marked on both content and presentation skills. The lecturer knows from past semesters that students tend to focus mostly on content and neglect the soft skills associated with presentations, such as eye contact, voice modulation, and posture. With limited class time devoted to teaching these skills, the lecturer is aware that they need to create opportunities for students to develop these skills out of class.
The lecturer first shows an in-class recording of a mock student with outstanding content but poor presentation skills and asks students to evaluate the presentation using the marking rubric. The purpose of the evaluation is for students to recognise the role of non-verbal aspects of a presentation on audience engagement and understanding. The lecturer provides students with a range of resources they can use to develop presentation skills and asks them to engage with at least one resource outside of class:
– Articles and book chapters from the library on presentation skills.
– Videos from the internet that demonstrate and discuss how to give presentations.
– A short recording of the lecturer explaining what presentation skills are.
– A podcast on effective presentations.
– A reflective essay from a former student in which the student reflects on their presentation performance.
The lecturer devotes 15 minutes of class time where students discuss which resource they benefitted the most from and in groups collate their learnings on effective presentation techniques.
Discussions
What other principles do you follow when designing out-of-class learning experiences that foster autonomous learning?
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.