Website: Designlearning.org

Template: Follow the directions and fill in “the blanks”

Example of a Well-Designed Course in: (Discipline)

Your Name:

Name of Your Institution:

  1. Specific Context
  • The subject matter:
  • The title of the course:
  • Typical class size:
  • Level of the course:
  • Mode of delivery:
  • (i.e., face-to-face, totally online, or blended/hybrid)
  • Type of institution:
  • (i.e., K-12, community college, 4-year college, or university)
  1. General Description of the Course
  • This will be the kind of description of the course that might appear in the institution’s Course Catalog.
  1. Big Purpose of the Course
  • You might want to lead into this with something like: "Students who complete this course will, later in life, be able to...."
  • Use your own wording for this, but this is the direction you want this statement to go.
  1. Important Situational Factors/Special Pedagogical Challenge
  • Identify 3 to 5 of the most important Situational Factors or Special Pedagogical Challenges you think your course faces.
  • Put each of these into separate rows in the left-hand column of the 2-column table below.
  • Then, in the right-hand column, put what you intend to do in the design of the course, to address or change each Situational Factor.

Situational Factors/Special Challenges: Course Design Response:

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  1. 3-Column Table
  • Use this table below to provide information about these three aspects of your course design.
  • You may have more than one learning goal, assessment activity, and/or learning activity in each row.

Learning Goals:Assessment Activities: Learning Activities:

  1. Foundational Knowledge:

  1. Application:

  1. Integration:

  1. Human Dimension:
  1. Learning about ONE-SELF:
  1. Interacting with OTHERS:

  1. Caring:

  1. How to Continue Learning:

  • Add 1-2 paragraphs of comments about the goals or your effort to identify good goals and appropriate learning and assessment activities.
  1. Weekly Schedule
  • Here is an example of a table to do this. If appropriate,modify this table to fit the time structure of your course.
  • Make sure all your learning and assessment activities from the 3-column table are put into your weekly schedule, in a sequence that enables the various units and segments to build on each other.

Week: MONDAYS: WEDNESDAYS: FRIDAYS:

  • Include, if possible, a brief description of your teaching strategy, that is, any particular combination and sequence of learning activities that you plan to use, in order to enhance student engagement and student learning.
  • Add 1-2 paragraphs of comments about anything special you needed to do, to make this course work right.

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  1. Evidence of Impact (optional)

Provide any evidence you have, quantitative or qualitative, about the impact of the re-designed course on:

  • The overall level of student engagement
  • The kinds of learning achieved
  • The proportion of the class that achieved high levels of learning
  1. Most Exciting Aspect of the Re-Designed Course for Me (optional)

Add 1-2 paragraphs about anything that was especially exciting to you, about the re-designed course, for example:

  • Enabling you to come up with a creative exercise
  • The reaction of students, the energy level of the class
  • Etc.
  1. My Contact Information

My name and institution:

My email address:

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