Quality Course Design

Have you completed each of the following components?  If not, enter Phase 4 - REVISE.  If so, continue to the phase 1 checklist above to return to the design phase to make your improvements.

• A course that has been designed and developed incorporating the Quality Course Framework

REVISE Phase Objectives:

In the Revise phase you will:

• review current design and consider any operational problem that you could identify and plan a solution
• approach assessment from a holistic view of the course, including a variety of approaches to evaluating student learning, as well as several other sources of assessment data
• utilize assessment data to make adjustments to the course environment in order to improve student learning

Rationale: 

In addition to designing, building and teaching the course, instructors should have an assessment plan in place that will help them evaluate the overall learning environment. The assessment of learning outcomes will be measured through the actual assignments designed in the course by the instructor and completed by the students. However, there are many other potential sources of information that can aid in evaluating the overall quality and effectiveness of the course. It is recommended that instructors gather information from several different sources in order to increase the validity of the assessment results and to ensure that decisions about revisions to the course are evidence-based.

Designing a course is very challenging due to many factors such as situational, technological, administrative, among others. Not only do these challenges govern the process of course design, but they impact the final outcomes as well. If you have developed courses in the past, you have most likely worked with initial drafts, revised drafts and the like.  It is important to consider your own instructional efforts through carefully developing and revising course materials in order to help you avoid anticipated problems. 

As you engage in the revision, you should ask the following questions about each of your course components:

• Will the students find the materials relevant to their needs and interests?
• Will the students be motivated and confident as they work through the course materials?
• Can the course activities be managed effectively?
• Will the learners be satisfied with the learning outcomes?

These and other questions will help you to develop the most effective course materials and circumvent problems that might have occurred due to the limited effectiveness of teaching materials that have not been carefully and strategically revised.

Spend some time thinking about potential setbacks within your course design.  What problems do you envision might arise with this course you have designed?  What might you do to solve these problems?

Please use Worksheet 10:  Anticipating Possible Problems to do this work.

There are many strategies instructors can use to evaluate the effectiveness of their course design and teaching strategies. You can acquire information about the progress of the course either through formative or summative assessment.  The diagram below identifies sources you can use to evaluate your course and your teaching.

Use Worksheet 11:  Evaluating the Course and Your Teaching to determine what questions you are trying to answer with the evaluation and what sources you will use to evaluate the course and your teaching.