Course Design

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 Overview

Although there are many models for designing a course, all include some basic elements:

• identify learning goals, both content and skills;
• determine methods to assess student success in meeting those goals;
• provide activities and assignments that help students meet learning goals.

In her book Tools for Teaching, Barbara Davis lists 5 general strategies to consider before tackling plans for a specific course--

1. If the course is new to you but has been offered before, talk with faculty who have taught it previously.
2. If the course is new to you and has never been offered before, review textbooks on the topic of the course.
3. If you've taught the course before, begin by assembling everything associated with the course--syllabus, texts, handouts, exams, notes, & student evaluations.
4. Identify the constraints in teaching the course--time, number of students, level, majors v non-majors, requirements, etc.
5. Consider how your course relates to others in the department.

With new environments for learning steadily increasing, course design has become specialized to accommodate different modes of teaching and learning.  Designing an online course or linked course must take into consideration such factors as technological requirements or sharing teacher responsibility.

"Learning-centered course design"  is a model of course design developed by the Center of Teaching and Learning at Stanford University.  In it the teacher first identifies the learning goals of the course and then "works backwards," designing the course from the perspective of what students will have learned from the course when it is over, and then figuring out how best to help them achieve these goals. 

MTSU Resources

Rebekah Alexander, Teaching Excellence Course Design Workshop, 9/2008

Jan Hayes 2005 Lesson Design Workshop

Guide to Best Practices for Academic Program Analysis & Improvement --This site provides suggestions on how to collect, analyze, synthesize, and interpret information to evaluate curriculum for the purpose of improving student learning outcomes.

Instructional Media Resources can provide materials and tools to use in your course.

LTITC Resources

Teaching Tip May 2008: Designing and Teaching Hybrid Courses.  Includes additional sources for designing hybrid courses.

From our library--

Fink, D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Jacobs, L.C., & Chase, C. (1992). Developing and using tests effectively: A guide for faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

McGee, P., Carmen, C., & Jafari, A. (2005). Course management systems for learning: Beyond accidental pedagogy. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing.

Ouellett, M.L. (2005). Teaching inclusively: Resources for course, department, and institutional change in higher education. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Piskurich, G.M. (2006). Rapid instructional design: Learning ID fast and right. San Fracisco: Pfeiffer.

Pregent, R. (2000). Charting your course: How to prepare to teach more effectively. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.

Richlin, L. (2006). Blueprint for learning: Constructing college courses to facilitate, assess, and document learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Stim, R. (2004). Getting permission: How to license and clear copyrighted materials online and off. Berkley, CA: NoLo.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Online Resources

See University of Oklahoma, Course Design Tips, Instructional Development Center. Covers the design process in all its components.

Design & Teach a Course, Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, Carnegie Mellon. Best on the Academic Web!

The Cutting Edge Course Design Tutorial  will help you "articulate goals for a course; build a course that meets those goals and assesses student learning; explore a variety of teaching techniques to engage student learning and make students responsible for their learning; develop a plan for a rigorous, effective and innovative course.

Instructional Design Course -- This opencourseware is posted on Utah State U web site, providing lecture notes (worksheets etc), videos, & supplemental resources used in this semester-long course.
Course Design Best Links is a list of both online and publications on course design.

A Radical Course Revision--A Case Study by Julie Stout, Indiana University, lists her steps to success for an overhaul of a classroom course design.

Teaching Goals Inventory, a tool, originally created by Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo in Classroom Assessment Techniques, contains 53 prompts to help instructors identify their goals for a particular course. This on-line version offers rapid self-scoring and data comparisons across goal areas and disciplines. The book Classroom Assessment Techniques is available from the LTITC library; read a review.

Designing a Course
http://teaching.ucsc.edu/tips-design.html

Fink's Five Principles of Good Course Design
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/finks5.htm

Vanderbilt Center for Teaching: Course Design
www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/resources/teaching_resources/preparing/course_design.htm

Designing and Teaching a Course
http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/designing_and_teaching.pdf

Instructional Strategies for Online Courses
www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/pedagogy/instructionalstrategies.asp

Redesigning On-Site or Traditional Courses for Online Environments
Author Julie Stout of West Virginia University takes you step-by-step through her redesign of an on-site editing class for an online program.

Illinois Online Network provides insight into designing online courses.

Verbs for Identifying Learning Objectives or SLO verbs