Course Design Institute: August 5th – August 16th

Event Description

Redesigning a course this summer? Tackling a new-to-you course or a brand new course in the fall? New to WashU and/or new to designing your own course? The CTL’s Course Design Institute (CDI) is for you!

This intensive course design institute, spread out over 2 weeks, will guide participants in planning and preparing to teach a course that is supported by the latest research in teaching and learning. During the CDI, facilitators will model and discuss a range of tools and strategies that can enhance your instruction, increase student engagement, ensure alignment between course goals and assessments, and establish an inclusive learning environment for your students.

Participants who fully engage in the program will leave with a significant portion of their course planning finished, including clearly delineated learning goals, an assessment/assignment plan, strategies for student engagement and Canvas use, a draft of the syllabus and course policies, and a detailed plan for the first day of class.

The CDI will be conducted through a combination of daily self-paced learning modules in Canvas and three, hour-long synchronous Zoom meetings. Overall time commitment for participating includes 4 hours of live engagement, plus an average of 1-2 hours each day for asynchronous work in Canvas (reading, watching videos, working on drafting aspects of your course).

The content for the two-week August CDI is the same as our previous one-week versions, but we have spread it out over two weeks based on participant feedback to allow for deeper engagement with the material.

Live sessions will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:00pm to 1:00pm via Zoom (Tuesday, August 6th, Thursday, August 8th, Tuesday, August 13th, and Thursday, 15th). To participate, faculty must commit to attending three of the four live sessions.

Program Learning Objectives:

Participants will:

• Learn about and employ backwards design to develop a course plan;
• Design, develop, and build materials for their course including learning goals, assessment plan, syllabus, and more;
• Discover strategies for helping students thrive, including ways to promote meaningful interaction and support equitable learning; and
• Experience Canvas from the perspective of a student in a course.

Please contact the CTL with questions about the program.

Note that this course design institute is primarily open to faculty teaching this Fall at WashU. If you are a graduate student who will be an instructor of record in an upcoming semester and would like to participate, please contact the CTL for next steps. A limited number of spots will be available for graduate students who are getting ready to teach independently.

Registration