Module 01: Writing Learning Objectives and a Course Design Pattern
Module Overview
Module 01 begins with an orientation to the seminar and an opportunity for you to share some information about yourself with other participants. You will gather existing course documents and resources that may help you conceptualize your online course and make design decisions about what students will learn and how they will learn it. You will also share the documents you have gathered with your Instructional Design Consultant by submitting the documents in Blackboard or in a shared folder in Google Drive that your Instructional Design Consultant will create. Next, your Instructional Design Consultant will help you write a draft 5-9 of the main course learning objectives and establish a general pattern of learning activities that your students will complete most weeks in your course.
Learning Outcomes
After completing this module, participating faculty should be able to:
A. Successfully participate in an online course.
A.1. Identify key components of the syllabus, schedule and participation guidelines.
A.2. Navigate the course menu.
A.3. Identify technological requirements and how to contact the Boise State Help Desk.
A.4. Use essential features of this course management system.
A.5. Contribute to the growth of an online learning community.
C. Use the information from course conceptualization documents and resources to make course design decisions.
C.1. Identify resources that may be used to guide course design decisions.
C.2. Analyze (rethink) the resources to identify key information and its implications for course design.
C.3. Analyze the situational factors to identify the constraints, resources, and expectations of your online course.
D. Apply instructional design principles and Quality Matters standards to the design and development of learning objectives.
D.1. Write a set of course-level learning objectives for the course you are teaching.
D.2. Check all objectives to see if they meet all of the criteria for well-written learning objectives.
D.3. Determine the general order/sequence in which the objectives will be taught.
D.4. Document the course-level learning objectives in the course design map.
H. Draft a framework (course design pattern) for each module.
Why This Module is Important
This module provides a foundation for understanding the seminar structure and becoming familiar with the tools and skills needed to be successful. Introductions provide an opportunity for all of us to get to know each other. Equally important is the process of conceptualizing your course, a necessary first step in the course design process. Whether your course is a new course or one that has previously been taught in person, a clear concept of the course involves knowing what the course will cover and an idea of how you would cover the subject in a face-to-face setting. We know this may take some time and you aren’t expected to have all the details worked out yet. However, you will want to get started as soon as possible in order to build momentum that will keep the course design process going.
Your course learning objectives provide direction for the design of assessments and activities that support your objectives, so we will work together to shape these into a format that is meaningful for design purposes. Both you and your students need to know these learning objectives as they provide a roadmap for you to follow in each module of your course. Your course design pattern will also be a very helpful reference as you proceed to build your entire course design map with basic plans for each module.
