JAYME JACOBSON
The Course Design Program is the centerpiece of our work here at the Center for Digital Learning. Since 2013, more than 250 faculty have been through the 10-week program. Many of those faculty say that they originally came in to learn about teaching online but going through the program fundamentally changed the way they think about teaching so that now they have begun to redesign their face-to-face courses using the same approach. We often hear them say half way through the program, "Wait, this isn't just about teaching online. This is about teaching."
The Course
Here is an public version of CDLI's Course Design course. Groups of faculty meet for weekly workshops but the materials and online activities are housed in the University's Learning Management System, Canvas. Below is the course homepage and by clicking on the plus signs you can see an overview of each week and before jumping into the materials. (If you want to go directly into the Canvas course, there is a button at the bottom that will take you there.)
The Card Game
The card game is a faculty favorite. The original idea for the card game was just to loosen everyone up while thinking about the kinds of activities and assignments that could be designed for students. However, almost immediately faculty started coming up with such great ideas for each other that people started saying, "Actually, that's a great idea. I'm going to use it" or, "I'm going to use all of these ideas in combination." We've had people take this game all over the world and have had frequent requests for people making their own cards so we set up a website with instructions.
The Blended Flow Map
Designing Hybrid/Blended courses is tricky. Finding the right balance between what happens during the online sessions versus the face-to-face sessions and making sure that the activities flow smoothly is a challenge. When we asked our Faculty Interest Group to identify ways CDLI could support them, one of the first things they asked for was help designing Hybrid/Blended courses. In response, we created the Blended Flow Map and the Blended Flow Planner, two tools to help faculty decide how activities could be achieved in both online and face-to-face modalities along with the pros and cons of each modality along with a list of tools they could use. (This work was recognized by Educause was published as an Educause Learning Initiative Brief)