by Robert Cole, Program Manager, Reinert Center
During the first week of June, nine SLU instructors gathered to participate in the Reinert Center’s sixth annual Course Design Institute (CDI). CDI is a five-day program leading to a complete or nearly complete syllabus and course. Some instructors were making significant changes to pre-existing courses, while others were designing completely new ones.
The institute follows the Backward Design process (Fink, 2013; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) beginning with the end of the learning process – what we want students to know or be able to do – and works toward the assessments, assignments, and various content to help students get there Most of us are content and discipline experts so it is natural to reach for content first. The backward design framework asks instructor designers to keep the content at arm’s length at first. This allows our focused intentions to dictate what we are asking of students. By the end of the institute, participants indicated they appreciated that this process allowed them to focus on course groundwork before moving on.
The middle of the week focused on assessments and assignments. We thought about how we will know if the students have learned what we want them to know or be able to do. We provided different models and allowed time to think about what kinds of assignments and assessments would work best for an instructor’s expected outcomes. In addition to introducing various assignment designs, we provided work time to develop or significantly revise assignments. Perhaps one of the more popular benefits of this portion of CDI is the ability to talk with colleagues outside of one’s own department, school or college. It was evident in conversation over the week that participants really valued the thoughts provided by their peers, especially those from other disciplines. The access to peer feedback was also utilized at the end of CDI by participants reviewing each other’s syllabi. These experiences allowed participants to gain valuable insights from colleagues that may not be in the same discipline.
After five days of thinking about courses and making thoughtful intentional choices around student learning, we were mentally tired but looking forward to the fall semester with a largely developed course and syllabus with feedback from our peers and support of the CDI facilitators.
When we asked specifically what participants would like to share with colleagues about the institute Michael Passage, Assistant Clinical Professor and Director of the Applied Behavior Analysis Program in the School of Social Work said, “I would highly recommend the Course Design Institute to any faculty member interested in strengthening their teaching and course design. The institute provided practical, evidence-based strategies that helped me better align learning outcomes, instructional activities, and assessments while creating a more student-centered course experience”. Another participant said, “The Reinert Center is great. They walk you through the process of designing your course and assessments, slowing you down to understand your own “why” that leads to your plan for undertaking course development and implementation. They bring a wealth of pedagogical knowledge and experience to the course design collaboration”.
The Reinert Center and the facilitators would like to thank all our participants in this year’s Course Design Institute for taking the time to concentrate on making intentional design choices focusing on the learning of their students. We invite everyone to consider joining us for next year’s CDI.
If you’d like to talk to someone regarding course design outside of this type of formal programming, please contact the Reinert Center for an individual consultation.
Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. John Wiley & Sons.
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2e). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
The Notebook 