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What is a Course Design Pattern?

When faculty design and develop a course, they often generate a repeated sequence of learning activities and assessments that occur every one or two weeks. These repeated weekly activities form a course design pattern. A course design pattern helps faculty to (a) clarify their thinking about the overall plan for the semester, (b) establish a balanced workload for both students and themselves, and (c) ensure the course meets accreditation standards. The pattern of activities may also be adapted as a checklist for students. Although the primary purpose of the course design pattern is to help faculty in the initial stages of their course planning, it can also be used as a tool to analyze an existing course and find ways to improve it. Furthermore, it can be used as a reference for creating various menus of navigation links within the learning management system.

In this learning activity, you will propose a course design pattern for your online course.  Note that this exercise may be better suited to instructors who have been teaching their course for some time, and have already identified the sort of activities and assessments they would like to use. For those of you with brand new courses, consider your design pattern as more of a mental warm-up activity. After reviewing the information provided, please proceed to the Design Task Activity that follows. Your course design pattern will be reviewed with your instructional design consultant during one of your scheduled meeting times.

Example of a Course Design Pattern

The course design pattern below represents only one possible sequence of learning activities. There are many other options that you have for creating a unique pattern that best fits your own needs. You are welcome to adopt and adapt this pattern in any way you would like.

This course design pattern shows a 1-week sequence of events for a three-credit, fifteen-week on-campus course with a total of 7.5-9.0 hours of instruction per week. Note that the pattern does not begin with the first week of a course. This is because the first and last weeks of a course typically have unique patterns that are not repeated throughout the rest of the course.

Module 03

Due Tuesday (2.5-3.0 hours)

Module Introduction (5 min)
Exam (50 min)
Reading and Quiz: Chapter 00 (90-120 min)

Due Thursday (2.5-3.0 hours)

Homework (60-90+ min)
Research (30+ min)
Group Discussion: Initial Post (30 min)

Due Saturday (2.5-3.0 hours)

Group Discussion: Reply Posts (30 min)
Exam Prep (60-90+ min)
Reading Preview (30 min)
Module Self-Evaluation (10 min)

Please notice that the course design pattern contains a brief descriptive title for each of the learning activities and assessments. The estimated time that students will spend on each activity is written in parentheses. In the design task below, you will create a similar course design pattern for your own course.

Design Task: Draft a Course Design Pattern

Please complete all of the steps listed below to propose a possible course design pattern for your online course. You may do this design task on your own, or you may work with your instructional design consultant to complete any or all of the steps.

Step 01. Review the 5-9 course learning objectives that you have written and consider what types of activities students will need to do to acquire these skills in your course, and how they will demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Step 02. Next, list all of the learning activities and assessments that you’d like students to complete for one week of the course. Following the course design pattern example provided, create a design pattern for one module in your course.

• We don’t expect you to write out all of the activities in every module yet. For now, we’re just looking for the general pattern of activities that you think may be repeated each week. 
• The course design pattern can be used as a template to generate a sequence of the types of activities that will be included in most modules.
• Don’t be concerned about those activities when students start the course, and please do not list the activities in Module 01. It is best if you think about what students might do later in the course during Modules 03 or 04.
• Again, specific details aren’t needed. At this point, you don’t need to think about the specific directions that you’ll have students follow in each learning activity. A general statement of the activity or assessment is good enough. For example, if you know you want students to complete some type of homework activity related to the reading, but you don’t know exactly what the homework will be, it’s okay to write “Homework Activity” as one of your learning activities.
• It’s okay to include open-ended activities such as “Exam Prep”, where you suggest effective study habits that sets an expectation but doesn’t involve monitoring.
• If you are unsure of what sort of activity you want to do, just write “Undecided Activity” as a placeholder. You can fill it in later after you discuss your options with your instructional design consultant.
• When you finish, you should have a list of everything that will happen during the week.

Step 03. After each activity or assessment, write the average amount of time (in minutes or hours) you think it will take students to complete the work.

Step 04. After you have written time estimates for everything, count it all up to see if you are still within the time constraints of 2.5-3.0 hours per week per credit for a fifteen-week course.

• The range of minutes per credit varies by the number of weeks in the course. If unsure, please confirm this with your instructional design consultant. (37.5-45 hours per credit * number of credits / number of weeks) = minimum hours of study per week.
• If you aren’t within the time constraints, modify the plan until it is somewhere within the acceptable range. For example, a three-credit, fifteen-week course should not have fewer than 7.5 hours or more than 9.0 hours of coursework per week. Any amount in between is acceptable and will meet accreditation requirements.

Step 05. You will continue to revisit your course design pattern with your instructional design consultant over the next two or three weeks, and revise the activities or assessments you will use with the goal of supporting student achievement of the course and module learning objectives. You may need to go through several rounds of feedback and revision until you come up with something you like.

• You may also share your course design pattern with other faculty in your department and have a conversation about what you’re thinking students might do for each activity or assessment each week. Explaining your design decisions will often clarify them for you and help you quickly identify the parts of the pattern that may need revision.

Step 06. Submit the draft of your course design pattern using the assignment link below. You may submit the web link to the shared document, or simply provide a note for your instructional design consultant about your progress on the design pattern.