Course Structure
This Canvas course site is organized into four modules; each module contains multiple pages with information, activities and resources. You can always view all module pages from the Modules link in the left navigation menu.
For each module, there are three main components:
A. Topic Introduction including:
- Learning outcomes
- What to expect in the module
- Introductory reflection
B. Content to Read / Watch / View including:
- Activities to help you digest and process the content
- Assignments to create course materials
C. Wrap-Up and Additional Resources including:
- A Wrap-Up page re-capping material and Assignments
- Suggestions for additional activities to expand and extend on the basic material here
- Links to additional information to go deeper
To the extent possible, course materials are provided as models of how you might create / structure similar materials for your own courses. For example, using a similar structure for each unit increases transparency, helping students to know what to expect and where to find things.
How much time will this require?
The amount of time you spend on this course will depend a lot on how seriously you take the activities and 'assignments'. Just reading / watching straight through the content should take about half an hour per module but to get the most out of the associated activities, reflections and assignments, you will want to allocate more like an hour or two for each module. Of course, as you will be reminded many times throughout the course, teaching is an iterative process so you will want to plan on working in small chunks and then returning to add more layers as your understanding deepens.
Course Activities
There are three icons you will see throughout the course:
In each module, there will be times when you will be asked to stop and think, to examine or engage with something and then reflect or act upon it. This course will be most useful for you if you are concrete about these prompts and write down your responses. The icon above will provide a visual indicator to do this, particularly when you will be asked to return to those responses in a subsequent section of the course and / or to use your responses to start building course materials.
The 'tools' icon represents something you should do or create directly for use in your course. These are re-capped on the Wrap-Up page in each module. Note that as you work through the modules, it will be most helpful for you to focus on one specific course for the activities; however, feel free to go through the modules multiple times and repeat the exercises for each course you want to re-design!
Finally, as the name suggests, this course focuses on the foundations of course design and the focus is on the baseline knowledge and activities that instructors need to get the basic outline of their course constructed. For those who have the time and inclination (either now or at a later date) to take things to 'the next level', the arrow icon indicates activities that build on the baseline. You may want to consider these as 'optional' as you work through this course the first time but keep them in mind as you continue refining your course.
To continue to the Introductory Module, click the "Next" at the bottom of the page...