Course Design

Effective course design begins with understanding who your students are, deciding what you want them to learn, determining how you will measure their learning, and planning activities, assignments and materials that support student learning. For all interactions with students, plan ahead by asking yourself:

1. Who are the students?
2. What do I want students to be able to do?
3. How will I measure students’ abilities?

While our courses vary in size, level and modality, effective course design helps determine what skills, knowledge and attitudes successful students will have and how those outcomes will be evidenced.

The Course Design Process

The course design process should cycle between the following five steps:

Working with an Instructional Designer

Working with an instructional designer could involve a single meeting to gain some fresh teaching ideas or teaming up for a full course design or re-design project. The instructional designer will become familiar with your teaching philosophy, teaching goals and help you use sound pedagogy and integrated technology to meet these goals.

An instructional designer can also suggest services offered by other teams who can further assist you in their area of expertise, including educational technology or immersive learning, the Library and the Paul Menton Centre.

Accessing Our Work

TLS uses a set of guidelines when evaluating online courses developed in collaboration between instructors and our staff members. These guidelines can also be used as a ‘self-evaluation’ tool to assist instructors in designing a new online course or in revising an existing one.