Design Your Course

The first phase in creating a course is developing its major elements and ensuring alignment.

There are several steps to designing a course. We recommend following the order outlined below. As you go through the process of designing or redesigning your course, you can use the provided Course Design Template to ensure that the assessments and activities all contribute to achieving the course’s learning outcomes.

Pages in This Section

Course Design
3/5/24
Attention to design ensures the efficient development of an effective course.
Delivery Modes and Teaching Approaches
3/7/24
Understand how course delivery and instructional approaches will affect design choices.
Situational Factors
3/5/24
Making clear the context of your course allows its design to work with constraints and creates opportunities for learning.
Teaching and Learning Philosophy
9/5/24
Personal beliefs, values and understanding about effective teaching and learning influence how a course is designed.
Learning Outcomes
3/5/24
Understanding and setting goals for students.
Designing Assessments
3/5/24
Determining how and when students have reached course learning outcomes.

Writing Course Descriptions
3/5/24
A course description outlines to prospective students what the course is about, the topics that will be covered and why, and often provides details about how the learning will occur.
Teaching Methods
7/17/24
Choosing optimal methods to support learning outcomes.
Designing Activities
3/5/24
Determining learning experiences for students to develop skills, actively construct knowledge and deepen understanding.
Equitable and Inclusive Teaching and Learning
3/5/24
Designing an equitable and inclusive learning environment for all students.
Content Accessibility
3/7/24
Ensuring accessible content for all students.
Instructional Tools
3/7/24
Learn about the digital tools that you can integrate to enhance your course design.

Course Design Template

The Course Design Template will be used throughout each of these steps.

Download the Course Design Template

Next Steps

Build Your Course