COURSE DESIGN (Kim DeBacco, UCSB)

IDFS Program For Faculty: How To Design A Blended or Online Course

This Course:  COURSE DESIGN (Kim DeBacco, UCSB)

THE BIG PICTURE:  OVERARCHING COURSE OUTCOMES FOR PARTICIPANTS:

In addition to any personal goals you set, by the end of this source, you will have:

1. Understood the challenges and opportunities of making the move from face-to-face teaching to online;
2. Experienced what it is like to be students in an online or blended environment and apply that experience when designing a class;
3. Become familiar with and applied theoretical best practices (e.g., constructive alignment, backward design universal design) in course design and in the development of assessments and learning activities;
4. Designed graded and non-graded activities and rubrics;
5. Considered and evaluated the pedagogical effectiveness of different online tools;
6. Understood your and your students’ responsibilities around broader issues such as Universal Design and accessibility, copyright/IP, academic integrity;
7. Identified other faculty who are also developing online courses/course components with the same theoretical and academic standards;
8. Developed some syllabus components for your course.

This Course:  COURSE DESIGN

comprises 6 (+ 1) Modules

THE MODULES

COURSE DESIGN MODULES

MODULE 1.  Blended Course Design Examples: How Others Do it 

Facilitator Resources: sample syllabi (local campus examples or syllabi on web - including alternative formats), useful websites

Deliverable: draft syllabus

1. Individually:  Read through sample blended course syllabi, highlighting useful ideas and sections;
2. Whole group or groups:  Discussion or f2f  or webinar (3 questions): 

a.  If you were an undergraduate again (!), which course(s) would you like to enroll in, and why?

b.  What kinds of ideas and sections did you highlight, and why? 

c. What could you use in your redesigned course?

3. During activity #2 above, the instructor or a note-taker lists and summarizes the tips and ideas discussed.

4.  Share a link to websites that discuss good syllabus design, eg.

• http://oic.id.ucsb.edu/faculty-handbook-teaching/first-year-faculty/designing-course-syllabus
• http://oic.id.ucsb.edu/faculty-handbook-teaching/first-year-faculty/syllabus-checklist

5. Prepare a (very) draft syllabus for future discussion and improvement: key sections, important information for your students

MODULE 2.    How Taking Your Course Will Transform Your Students

Facilitator Resources:  sample SLOs (esp. ‘before-&-after’ samples), Q & A site dealing with common issues in writing LOs, presentation, readings

Deliverable: draft learning outcomes, on-going draft syllabus

1. Whole group:  Discussion:  Participants discuss examples of syllabus level SLOs and, preferably, view some ‘before-and-after’ SLO sets.

2. Whole group:  Webinar or f2f session.  Slide Presentation: “How to Write Learning Outcomes”. Presentation of key concepts, highlighting outcomes and/or verbs, showing more examples, Q & A.

Presentation topics include:

• SLOs, What makes a good LO
• Why SLOs matter for online learning -- Student retention, engagement, motivation
• LOs work at many levels: syllabus, module or topic, class/lecture, learning activity
•  Bloom's Taxonomy

3.  Individually:  Draft a set of learning outcomes for your course.

4.  Pairs or groups:  Questions for discussion, self review and/or peer review:

• You're a student reviewing course options. Why would you take your course? What's the promise? 
• How will your course transform your students?

5. Facilitator:  provide some private written feedback (Waypoint tool? email?) on each participants' learning outcomes focusing on level (Bloom)

6.  Integrate these learning outcomes into your draft syllabus and consider (make notes on?) other changes you might now make to the syllabus in light of these.

MODULE 3.    Brainstorming Activities and Assessments

Facilitator Resources:  VoiceThread or online forum, concept-mapping tool, sticky notes

Deliverable:  concept map depicting the backward design in your course, on-going draft syllabus

1. Individually: Post your draft course level learning outcomes to a VoiceThread (or Brainstorming Forum) and

   1. add some introductory comments [audio, video, text] on what you have developed;  invite feedback from others; 

   2. read the outcomes of 2-3 colleagues and
   3. offer suggestions for learning activities and assessments that will helps students achieve the LO/s.
2. Using an (online) electronic concept mapping tool, create a new concept map of:  SLOs -> Course Topics/Weekly topics/Modules --> Learning Activities -> Learning Assessments. 
   or:
   in an on-campus face-to-face session, participate in The O'Neal sticky-note exercise.
3. Integrate these learning activities and assessments into your draft syllabus.

MODULE 4.    The Student Pathway Through a Topic or Module

Facilitator Resources: Student Pathway visual (.pdf from Kim), pre-recorded lecture, online forum

Deliverable: flowchart for a module in your course, on-going draft syllabus

1. Whole group:  Pre-recorded lecture (5 min video):  Facilitator presents a 5 minute video lecture, visually depicting the Student Pathway through a traditional on campus course and a blended course.  Address also: expectations, routines, sequencing, modes. 
2. Whole group:  Provide a follow-up discussion forum for Q & A and comments.
3. Individually: Participants make notes and draw a diagram or flow chart of the student experience in one course topic, a weekly topic or module.  Add side notes about modes (online and f2f) and the (electronic, digital online) tools they might use.
4. Review the sequence the learning activities and the pacing of the assessments your draft syllabus.

MODULE 5.    Universal Design and Accessibility

Facilitator Resources:  C. Bagwell (!) – live or via Skype/webinar, Christine’s slides

Deliverable:  set of decisions and strategies addressing key UD requirements for the course, on-going draft syllabus

1. Christine Bagwell webinar (+ live Q & A) or pre-recorded video lecture  (discussion forum Q & A). 
2. Think-Pair-Share: invite participants to

a. identify and discuss (f2f or online) her 5 key points, regarding “Potential Pedagogical Changes” :

• Provide lecture outlines
• Provide study guides, review sessions
• Present both visual and verbal
• Multiple ways of demonstrating understanding, eg. combination of tests and projects

• Shorter, more frequent assessment   [Sources: Dr. Kara Kornher, Interwork Institute]

b.  Individually:  participants make notes regarding the implications (thus: decisions) of these 5 points for their course.

   3.  Integrate these decisions into your draft syllabus.

MODULE 6.    Seeing the Wood & the Trees: Self and Peer Review

Facilitator Resources: OIPP Course Inventory document; handout: ‘Criteria for Evaluating a Syllabus’ (Kim D.); chat room or webinar; online survey; Link/handout on FCPPP: Facts, Concepts, Principles, Procedures, Processes (Dan C.); evaluation questions ro items (for whole group and for individual online survey)

Deliverable: final course syllabus

1. Individually: Read over the OIPP Course Inventory and highlight familiar sections or items in the list; check off new sections you think (at this stage) you might include. Use ? to mark the sections you don't understand or probably won't use.
2. Read over the handout: ‘Criteria for Evaluating a Syllabus’ and self-assess your syllabus. 
3. You might also like to determine and reflect on the type of content make-up of your course (FCPPP: Facts, Concepts, Principles, Procedures, Processes).
4. Then post it to the Block 2 Syllabus discussion forum.  Invite someone in your group (one of your colleagues) to review it and give you feedback on specific aspects, referring to the handout: ‘Criteria for Evaluating a Syllabus’.
5. You provide feedback on another syllabus in the forum.
6. Make adjustments to your own syllabus in light of this review process, writing down what changes you made.
7. Whole group:  chat session or webinar: share and discuss the changes you each made to your syllabus; ask questions. 
8. Whole group: chat session or webinar: Evaluation: reflecting on the experience of this blended course on blended course design!
9. Individually:  online survey:  Evaluation: reflecting on the experience of this blended course on blended course design!
   
   

 (MODULE 7.  Parallel Discussion Forums and Threads for Syllabus Design Thoughts and Issues Along the Way)

1. Possible Online discussion topics (participant-led):
   a.     Course Readings: How much is enough?
   b.     Plagiarism/academic integrity;
   c.     Student attendance & absences;
   d.     Professionalism, visibility, accountability;
   e.     Other issues
2. Reply to two (or X no. of) postings in any forum.

_____________________________________

Dear ID colleagues,

Here below is what I had to work with (sticky notes and other notes from our February 2012 meeting).

Kim

______________________________________

Topics:  Accessibility & Universal Design, SLOs

Activities: 

• f2f The O'Neal sticky-note exercise
• Why SLOs matter for online learning
• How vs. why
• Student retention, engagement, motivation
• Bloom's Taxonomy
• SLOs
• You're a student reviewing course options. Why would you take your course? What's the promise?
• Research on web...and present a course structure/look you like; mode and style
• Critique the learning outcomes for this course
• Course inventory (see Kathy Zellers; Dan C.)
• Create flow chart using online tool
• Research and present on alternative syllabus formats:  concept maps; graphical, newssheet
• Determine the type of content make-up of your course (FCPPP: Facts, Concepts, Principles, Procedures, Processes)
• Advanced organizers (examples, theory)??
• Course architecture (alignment):  course level, module level

• Peer review of [draft] syllabus

•  
• Universal Design, Accessibility
• Storyboard a backward design process
• Use of color in module
• Browser incompatibility
• Text and font
• Document distribution formats
• Cultural differences in reading patterns (eye-tracking)
  

• Meyers-Briggs Personality Type inventory [teaching]

• CPU differences (Mac vs. PC)
  

Deliverables:

• their vision for their students' learning
• draft learning outcomes
• flowchart for a module in your course
• draft syllabus
• Storyboard your course
  
  
  
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