Anne Marchant Course Design and Syllabus Construction

1. Course Design and Syllabus Construction
Dr. Anne Marchant, Director
Center for Teaching and Learning

2. Learning Objectives for this Module
Students completing this lesson will be
able to:
• Articulate the qualities of a well
designed course
• Create a well balanced syllabus
consistent with best practices
• Plan lessons from a student centered
perspective.

3. Warm-up Exercise
Think about courses you have taken.
 What was the best course you ever
had?
 What was the worst course you ever
took?
 What made those experiences really good or bad?

4. Warm-up Exercise
As you go through this
presentation, imagine topic you’d like to
teach.
Think about how it might be broken
down into modules.
This will help you to internalize the concepts presented
here.

5. Content
Learning Outcomes
Scaffolding
Delivery
Mode (e.g.
flipped, hybrid)
Technology and Media
Pedagogy/Andragogy
Learning Activities
(e.g. individual or
collaborative, passive
or experiential)
Assessment
Considerations for Syllabus Construction
Course design must be considered at different levels to create the
richest possible learning environment.

6. Curriculum oversight
occurs at different levels
Departmental Chair
and Curriculum
Committee
University Curriculum
Committee and Deans
Provost/Office of
Academic Affairs
Institution
Degree
Programs
Course
Non-Degree
Programs
Course

7. Course Goals and Learning Objectives
Begin planning your course by writing your course goals
and learning objectives.
• Goals are usually more generalized. (e.g. Students will
become experienced practitioners.)
• Learning objectives are more specific and should be
measureable. (e.g. Students will be able to identify
different classes of medications.)
Note that you don’t need to specify an objective for
everything you teach. Just include enough objectives so
that you can measure student achievement as well as
assess the effectiveness of your teaching.

8. One way to do this is in a chart format
Objective Measure(s) Direct/indirect Target
Articulate
fundamental
concepts
Midterm
Final
Direct 75%
Write about current
policy issues using
peer reviewed
sources
Paper Direct 75%
Display ability to
analyze cases
critically
Class Discussion Indirect 80%
Present effectively iMovie Direct 75%

9. Teaching Mode
What teaching mode will best serve your
students?
 Think of some considerations.
Should your class be face to face or
distance? Should it be flipped or hybrid?
 What kinds of classes are best done in
each mode? Jot down a few ideas.

10. Flipping
Classes are said to be “flipped” when the instructor spends more
time as coach and mentor and less time lecturing.
Watch Harvard Professor Eric Mazur give a physics lesson (8
minutes).
 What makes him a master teacher?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4XmRbHSnQc

11. Media and Technology
What is the best way to deliver content?
Mobile device? Video? Prezi? Google?
 Think about the ways you like to get content.

12. Content: Scaffolding of Knowledge

13. Content: Be Prepared to Pivot!
Students may not learn in the way you planned.
While testing is one way to discover this, a polling
tool, like Socrative or PollEveryWhere, can help you
discover this before a test.
So it’s wise to include optional activities in a syllabus
to give you some extra time if needed.

14. Learning Activities
Consider what learning is best done individually and what is best done
collaboratively.
 What are the advantages of collaborative learning?
 Consider what type of learning is best done through each of the
following:
• A passive activity such as reading or reviewing content
• An experiential activity (such as lab or demonstration)
• A composition activity (such as a paper, website, or presentation)
• A reflective activity (such as a blog or journal)
• A creative activity (such as creating a model, diagram, or video)

15. Learning Community
Creating an environment in which
students have opportunities to teach
each other as well as learn from each
other, rather than compete, results in
the best learning.
 What are some ways you have
experienced a learning community in
your classes?
 How can instructors/preceptors help
to build a learning community
environment?

16. New Ways to Assess Student Learning
• Concept Maps
Example: https://www.text2mindmap.com/
• Competency
• e-Portfolio
Reeves, Alternative Assessment Approaches for Online Learning.
Journal Education Computing Research, 2000.

18. Syllabus Construction
The syllabus is a tool to communicate to
students what you will expect of them, but it
also lets them know what they can expect of
you.
What are some strategies you might employ
to make your syllabus seem welcoming and
pleasant to read?

19. Syllabus Construction
• Have a look at the checklist that accompanies
today’s lesson, entitled “Is Your Class High
Class?” This checklist, modeled after the
“Quality Matters” rubric, is a way to check to
see that your syllabus contains everything it
should.

20. Contact Hours
• A 3 credit course should have the equivalent of 3
hours of instruction per week for 15 weeks (45
hours total). "Carnegie unit:" 1 credit=15 hours
of instruction.
• A 3 credit course should require 6 hours of
outside activity (sometimes called "proxy hours")
per week in a 15 week term
(reading, papers, projects, etc.)

21. Content+Activity=Learning
As you lay out a schedule for the
course material, think about what
activity will best support the
learning at each stage. What
learning activities are best done at
the beginning of a course?
Does it make sense to assign
most of the reading at the
beginning of a course? Why?

22. Academic Integrity
The more isolated a student feels, the more likely
cheating is to occur.
Using more, lower stakes assignments, open book
tests, and group work will discourage cheating.
Giving students access to practice tests will help
alleviate test anxiety and build confidence.
Having a frank discussion about cheating may help
too.
For discussion: Did you know that in non-credit
MOOCS, cheating still occurs. Why is that?
What do you think about that?

23. Selected Resources
Flipped Classroom Network
http://flippedclassroom.org/
Hybrid teaching
http://hybridpedagogy.com
Distance Education
http://merlot.org

24. Practice
Take a few minutes and draft your own syllabus for the course or
topic you plan to teach.
This will help you to remember the concepts we have talked
about today and identify any questions you might have.

25. Questions?
• Feel free to email me at amarchan@su.edu