Creating your Course Map

Creating your Course Map

Teaching and learning for the Fall 2020 semester will need to change to address the social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many will choose to shift elements of their course to the online setting, while other instructors will need to reconsider in-class practices to accommodate the wearing of masks and the required physical distancing of 6 feet between students.

The purpose of this application option is to help you plan the conversion of a teaching-learning arrangement for a particular course learning objective. You will be making and describing choices to help students achieve the course learning objective while learning in the new format selected for your course (e.g., "distance-other", "hybrid-distance", "hybrid-traditional", and "face-to-face"). The benefits of doing so are also long-term, however: converting your course for a new format develops the skill needed to disaggregate course elements and make apparent their rationales for student learning, a skill and way of thinking that will benefit you and your students in future course designs.

Creating your course map 

You will download a planning table. The table will help you articulate the conversion of instructional materials, learning activities, and assessments needed to help students achieve a single and significant learning objective ... while learning in the new format selected for your course (e.g., "distance-other", "hybrid-distance", "hybrid-traditional", and "face-to-face"). 

After downloading the table, your task is to replace the existing text with your own text. The existing text in the table will serve as a model. Specifically, you will

1. identify both (a) a course you will teach and (b) its new format.

2. in highlighted text and within a single row of the table provided, select a course learning objective from your course and describe the (pre-COVID-19) instructional materials--learning activities--assessments that together constituted the learning process within which students learned (again, before the COVID-19 pandemic).

3. in the row immediately below, but *not* in highlighted text, describe the new arrangements of assessments, learning activities, and instructional materials--and describe their delivery--for the new course format selected.

4. finally, using the bottom row of the table, you will reflect on the effectiveness of each of the new course elements (comparing the new elements with the old), and address specifically (a) student learning and (b) instructor delivery, and (c) *why* it is better (or worse, or comparable) for the newly chosen element.

**For those who have selected format #3 (Hybrid-Traditional), please also explain how the new learning process described would accommodate a sudden shift to a completely online environment (or what changes are needed to accommodate a sudden shift to completely online instruction).

**For those who have selected format #4 (face-to-face), please be sure to consider how each of the new elements address the practice of wearing masks in the classroom, and the required in-class physical separation of 6 feet between students.

Self-assess your course map

Review your course map to ensure it includes the following elements and utilizes the format, tone, and structure recommended below: 

• all elements--learning objectives, assessments (formative and summative), learning activities, and instructional materials--are present for both the existing/preliminary course and for the planned course in the new format.

• delivery is described for each of elements in the new course format.

• the elements are appropriate for the format selected.

• reflections (comparisons) explain why a change either improves student learning, makes it comparable, or makes it worse. The reflection also addresses changes to your practice as an instructor.