Examine carefully the textbooks and other materials you will be using for your course or course. Determine exactly how much time you have until the end of the academic semester to create a manageable schedule that your students can follow. Divide the course material up into even or similar-sized sections so that each section encompasses several chapters of textbook work or course notes. At the end of each section, you will need to offer an exam or some other type of assessment like an essay to determine whether your students are learning the course material.
Create all of your exams and quizzes at the beginning of the semester so that you can devote the rest of your time to developing and adding content to add to the coursework. Create quizzes and exams in a fairly simple fashion using most online distance learning platforms like Blackboard, Desire2Learn or WebCT. These usually provide you with some instruction on how to create different types of exams. Determine what kinds of quizzes and exams you will create. You can make them harder for students by adding a time limit and requiring a large number of questions. This will force students who rely on their book for too many of the answers to actually learn some of the material prior to exam rather than looking up each answer at exam time.
Add additional content to enrich the learning experience for your students. Distance learning students will typically benefit from links to other websites, video content, PowerPoint slides, lecture notes and any other form additional media that you can add to the course. Check with your school and your textbook publisher as well to see if there are any available course content packages that you can download. This can take hours of work off your schedule by providing you with quizzes, lecture notes and other valuable content.