Course Design Tips
- Begin with assessment. What do you most want students to learn? How will they demonstrate this to you? What do they need to practice to be successful in high-stakes performance assessments?
- Do your activities really reflect what the goals of your course are?
- Consider multiple modes of expression and multiple modes of delivering the content. Rather than lecturing for the entire class, engage your students visually and kinesthetically.
- Provide students options for demonstrating their mastery of the content whenever possible. As long as it meets your outcome goals of the exercise, give them the ability to choose the way they show how well they learned the content. For example, instead of only using multiple choice tests, consider alternative assessments like a presentation, report, small group activity, or video.
- Anticipate where students will need help and support. You know where students may struggle with the material, so be prepared to give them the help they need.
- Show students the relevance of the activity. Why are we doing it? How does it link to the course goals, their major, and/or future goals?