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The Course Design Map, Student and Course Evaluation plans, Course Design Pattern, Multimedia plan, and Syllabus course design documents have helped you with planning and decision-making, and facilitated conversation between you and your instructional design consultant throughout the seminar. We recognize that each of these course design documents represents the tip of the iceberg in illustrating all your ideas about the design of your course, and we look forward to discussing these with you in person, in more detail in the development phase of the seminar.
Each week we introduced another layer to consider in your design. Now that some time has passed, you may find that different instructional strategies, activities or assignments will work better than ones you had originally planned. Perhaps you have learned new techniques, or feedback on your assignments or discussions between faculty may have led you to question the assumptions you made when drafting your initial course design plan. For these reasons, your course design documents may no longer be current. We have set aside this time in your week to have you review these key design documents for your course and consider as a whole, how accurately they reflect the design you envision right now. If these documents are not current, consider how you will communicate your course design effectively.
NOTE: We don’t expect you to have your design fully worked out, although that may be true for some of you. We understand that your course design is a work in progress. If you haven’t quite figured out all the details for every module, we will work with you to move in that direction.
Course Design Review Activity
At this point in the course, please review the course design documents that you have developed and make any revisions that reflect your latest thinking about your course, then carry out the following steps before you proceed to the next activity. You do not have to submit any documents for this activity. We just want to encourage you to complete the steps below before you begin to write your Course Development Plan in the next learning activity in this module.
Step 01. Review the course design documents that you developed in the design tasks for each module. Consider whether these documents effectively capture and communicate the course design decisions you wish to carry forward to development.
- Your course design documents are located in Google Drive associated with your myBoiseState/GSuite login. You can search for these documents in Google Drive using your course name.
- Review your Learning Objectives, Student Assessment Plan, Course Design Map, Course Evaluation Plan, Multimedia Plan, and draft Syllabus.
- Use the commenting feature in Google Docs to note which components may need to be updated.
Step 02. If it makes sense to do so, update your course design documents and share them with your Instructional Design Consultant when you meet with them in the next week or so. You should be getting ready to commit to a plan of action in order for development to begin in earnest.
- Make sure your Course Design Map outlines the course design pattern for at least two modules before continuing to fill out the remaining modules. In some cases, two modules may be all you are able to do right now. In other cases, you have established that a weekly routine involving readings, quizzes, and discussions will be used, but need more clarity to define the activities that will vary from week to week. In these cases, it may be a poor use of time to complete a whole course design map.
- Don’t burn yourself out trying to update everything in one sitting. Balance the effort of completing all modules in your course design “on schedule”, and putting together something that is developed with more thought and feedback. What will help you and your collaborators most in reaching a shared understanding of your course?
- Engage your Instructional Design Consultant to help you work through key decisions about your course, as needed.
Step 03. What questions do you wish to discuss with your Instructional Design Consultant in more detail? What additional resources might you need? Write these down.
Step 04. Write a brief agenda to describe what you would like to discuss with your Instructional Design Consultant about development.
It’s important to have a shared understanding of your course design, and how your Instructional Design Consultant can help you accomplish it. Once you’ve checked your course design map and thought about what you want to discuss, you will be ready to proceed to the next activity where you will draft a Course Development Plan.