Why Course Design Camp?
Are you happy with your current online course? Are you thinking about moving your in-person course online? As instructors, you’ve all experienced online delivery of your course in some shape or form over the past two years; but moving a course online in a short time frame does not always allow you to create the ideal experience for yourself or your students. If you are looking to transform your current online course or create a transformational online course from your current in-person class, be sure to join us from July 11th to August 12th for the EHE Course Design Camp. (Asynchronous delivery with synchronous sessions will be held via Zoom on Tuesdays during the camp from 10 – 11:30 AM.) Using the Community of Inquiry model, instructional design best practices, and ed-tech tools, we will provide strategies and examples to help you create an online course that runs smoothly and provides your students with impactful learning experiences.
Pedagogy: Why Design is Important for Learning
Design is critical for building social, cognitive, and teaching presence in an online course, according to Flower Darby and James Lang in the book “Small Teaching Online” (2017). Activities that are second nature in the classroom require different tools in the online classroom and so they must be intentionally designed into the course. Walking through Backward Design and using the Community of Inquiry model by building Social, Cognitive, and Teaching presence can help your students be more successful in an online class by ensuring that:
- Goals and objectives are clear for the learners to help them synthesize information into practice
- Classroom activities, assignments, and assessments lead students to the appropriate goals and objectives
- Classroom activities are successful in getting students to interact with one another instead of only involving the instructor
By being intentional with your design, and tailoring your course for a specific group of students and their needs, you show them that you care about them and how they are going to do in your class. This creates psychological safety in your online classroom and encourages students to open up and share more readily resulting in a better experience for you and your students.
Putting Into Practice: Camp Topics
- Session 1: Philosophy and Mapping – Kicking off the camp, you will create a course alignment map using your personal teaching philosophy.
- Session 2: Cognitive Presence – The introduction to the Community of Inquiry model starts with cognitive presence. You will explore multiple methods to strengthen cognitive presence in your course.
- Session 3: Social Presence – Continuing with the Community of Inquiry model, you will explore ways to create a supportive environment that encourages students to participate in activities and identify with the community within the course.
- Session 4: Teaching Presence – In the final session on the Community of Inquiry model, you will review the 3 components of teaching presence and explore methods to improve it in your course.
- Session 5: Technologies, Reflections, and Next Steps – Wrap up Course Design Camp by building a practice CarmenCanvas course shell and reflecting on ways to incorporate the Community of Inquiry model in your own course.
