Preparing a Course: Course Design

Preparing a Course: Course Design
From the Center for Teaching Excellence, Kansas University

Course design involves the planning of curriculum, assessments, and opportunities for learning which attempt to meet to goals of the course and evaluate whether those goals are indeed being met. The designing of a course can be adeptly performed through the use of backwards design, which is based on the principle of working first from the material and concepts you want students to master, in order to plan how you will assess whether this learning has occurred, and this information thus guides which resources and methods of teaching are employed in order to enact learning of this material.

Four questions from Wiggins & McTighe (1998) are suggested as a guide for condensing the course’s material into a few key topics:

1. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process represent a “big idea” having enduring value beyond the classroom?

2. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process reside at the heart of the discipline?

3. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process require uncoverage?

4. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process offer potential for engaging students?

Also consider the goals and characteristics of your future students. Some reasons that students may be taking your course include: to develop a philosophy of life, to learn to interpret numerical data, to understand scientific principles or concepts, to learn to effectively communicate, to learn to organize ideas, or to understand how researchers gain knowledge. As the instructor, you can use this information, along with your own goals for the course, to guide your course structure and teaching pace.

After having determined which material will guide the course design, the next step in backwards design is to establish the criteria you will employ to evidence student learning. Instead of using a lone cumulative exam to assess learning, however, backwards design is guided by the concept that understanding increases across time, as students process, reassess, and connect information. Therefore, assessments to measure this increasing level of understanding should be conducted throughout the semester, using a variety of methodologies such as discussions, tests and quizzes, projects, and assessments in which students analyze their own level of understanding. Once key concepts and assessment criteria have been decided upon, you can then focus on which teaching methodologies and activities you will use to help students reach these course goals. In this manner, teaching is driven by the concepts that are crucial to the course, rather than the course being driving by the teaching methodology itself.

Resources:

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Merrill Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.