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It’s a Monday morning. Students are flooding out of chapel and across campus, headed to their next class. Backpacks are dropped on the floor next to chairs, laptops retrieved, and eyes turn toward the front as the instructor opens class.  

Now, what happens next is different depending on the individual class. In some, the instructor may be beginning a lecture on that day’s topic, while in others, instructors and students may be gearing up for something a little more “hands on” — discussions, peer reviews, or some other sort of activity.  

You may look at these different pieces and think “Okay, there’s so much richness that happens in these classrooms. How can that possibly be mirrored in fully online classes or programs?”  

The simple answer? An online course or program will never be an exact mirror of a face-to-face course or program. But it will still serve students in the same way, meeting the same objectives, covering the same content, and preparing students equally well — it will just look a little different.  

For Cedarville, navigating these differences is where the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) comes into the picture.  

The CTL is a small department that works with faculty to improve University-wide learning. This takes a variety of forms. They consult on educational problems students and faculty are facing. They produce a blog and podcast to keep faculty up to date with goings-on in the wider educational and technological world. And, especially recently, they collaborate with faculty to develop online courses.  

Not every online course is created in the exact same way. The CTL has a standard project process they use, but the actual components of a course will vary depending on the course itself and what it needs to effectively help students learn. All course developments start off with a kickoff meeting with CTL staff and the subject matter expert (SME) to establish timelines, gather preliminary information, and generally ensure everyone’s on the same page.  

After that is when the magic happens. One of the CTL’s instructional designers will continue to meet with the SME to make sure that the course content will help students meet the course objectives and to help them create that content. Other staff members (such as the Instructional Media Producer and the User Experience Designer and Editor — me!) are brought into the course development projects when their skills are needed; rarely do courses exist without needing video pieces.  

Each course is reviewed carefully with the benefit of years of experience developing quality courses. The CTL’s recent course project résumé (84 courses created from scratch or as full-scale revisions since 2021) only strengthens the quality of online courses yet to come.  

Sometimes, you can directly translate some elements from a face-to-face course to its online version. In-class discussions can easily become discussion boards where students respond to an initial prompt, then converse with other students about their responses. Written assignments are typically still turned in online even for a face-to-face course, so there’s not much change there. Any potential paper quizzes or exams can easily be built online using a quiz tool. The delivery of the course content, however, is an area where we can see some of the biggest differences.  

For a lecture-based class, the entire lecture could simply be recorded and placed inside the course for students to watch. But while that does technically work, it’s not the most effective way to present the information for students to actually learn and understand. Instead, online courses will often use shorter videos (typically between 6–12 minutes) laser-focused on the topic. Courses also sometimes use written introductions or pieces from the instructor to convey the information, or even a content guide where the assigned readings are interspersed through a written piece, giving context and transitions between each. This is where the CTL's expertise shines, as staff work with instructors to make sure each class is formatted to best help students learn.  

Let’s take a look at an example — Fundamentals of Speech. When taught as a face-to-face course, students complete readings, weekly quizzes, peer responses, and a biblical communication paper. During class periods, the instructor covers the topics for the day, then students give their required speeches or participate in discussions or other activities.  

When translating Fundamentals of Speech to an online class, the CTL worked with the instructor to adapt each of these pieces, making sure that every activity met module and course objectives. Some elements were able to stay essentially the same (like quizzes on the readings), but others needed some extra attention. Students couldn’t simply walk to the front of the room to give their speeches. And while full lectures could be recorded and placed in the course, that’s just a recipe for students losing focus and important points being missed. 

Let’s tackle these problems one at a time, starting with students giving speeches. The CTL found a simple solution: Students just submit a video of themselves giving the speech. And to make sure that students were prepared well to do this “extra step,” the course included a list of expectations for speech videos, detailing how the space they were in should look, how they should be positioned relative to their audience (because they needed to be able to present their speech to actual humans!), and how the camera and table needed to be set up to capture their speech well. With these expectations in place, any nervousness about technology is quelled, and students can focus on the content and delivery of their speeches.  

The CTL also modified the course by preparing the content so students can easily digest and retain the information. We mentioned before that videos for online courses tend to be shorter, and this course was no exception. Content was divided into individual topics, and the instructor wrote scripts for each one. Creating scripts ensures the videos stay on topic and are as clear as possible — everything that stays in the final script has passed multiple levels of review. Once these scripts were completed, the CTL recorded and produced a total of 30 videos spread across the course modules.  

This is just a small glimpse into the world of course creation that the CTL lives in, and it’s only one of the courses they’ve worked on. Cedarville’s been offering and working with online courses for a while now — Cedarville started offering online undergraduate courses in 1998, and Cedarville has been running successful, fully online graduate programs since 2013.  

The new undergraduate online programs will only take Cedarville’s online offerings to the next level. With these new programs, the Cedarville experience is expanding and becoming more accessible to students; those who cannot travel to campus for various reasons, such as financial, family, or health difficulties, can now still graduate with a Cedarville degree. Whether learning online or in-person, students will still be receiving the same quality education, preparing to go wherever God leads.