Course Development Working Group

This program is not currently being offered.

Note to past participants: If you found this guided process helpful in preparing your fall course, feel free to register again!

This practical, step-by-step course development series will walk you through the process of setting up a course in Canvas that will be adaptable for an online, face-to-face, or hybrid class environment.

Facilitators

  • Liesl Wuest, Associate Director of Learning Design and Technology, CFDE
  • Sarah Morris, Head Librarian for Instruction & Engagement, Subject Librarian for English
  • Alicia Lane, Graduate Assistant, CFDE

This series is designed to support instructors as they move through the process of preparing their upcoming courses in a timely and efficient manner.

The process and topics are based on the Flexible Course Structure self-paced tutorial found on the Emory Flexible Teaching Toolkit webpage on the CFDE website.

  • Please register for the working group to be added to the Canvas site, where the series will be facilitated.
    • Once you are added to the site, you are welcome to move through the material at your own pace—no content will be locked.
    • Anyone who is preparing to teach or supporting teaching is welcome to register (faculty, guest instructors, graduate students, TAs).
  • For the duration of the working group, the CFDE will host a webinar every Tuesday morning at 10 am reviewing that week’s topic, answering questions, and facilitating group discussion.
    • The webinar is supplementary and is attendance is not required.
    • There is a peer-partnering option (see details below), and if you sign-up for the peer-partnering option, please plan to attend the weekly Zoom sessions so that you and your partner can participate in the discussion.

By the end of this series, you should be able to

  • Set up a Canvas course site set up with weekly/lesson overviews
  • Find, create and link basic course content (readings, video, library materials etc.)
  • Develop active learning activities suitable to a variety of learning environments
  • Track learning activities and provide on-going feedback
  • Track student learning outcomes using Canvas
  • Consider a variety of assessment options suitable for your course and students

Come to the first webinar to be paired up

  • Consider attending with a colleague or friend!

Add each other as a teacher to your site.

  • We provide guided questions to help you review your partner's tasks for each week
  • This is a great way to get feedback, see another course site for ideas, and keep you on track!
Reviews can take place asynchronously or synchronously – it’s up to you.

Week 1: Planning your course and setting up your Canvas site
  • Course outline
  • Break content down into week/unit/lesson
  • Set up your canvas template
  • Write weekly/topic overviews – behavioral learning objectives if you can
Task
  • Import the Canvas template
  • Fill in the weekly/lesson outline
Week 2: Finding and Making Content
  • Where can you find content
    • Text book, journals, Open Educational Resources (OERs), library, media (audio/video/images)
  • How do you make content
    • Page in Canvas (outline w/ media links), PPT/Keynote, Studio, iPad
  • How do you add content to Canvas/your outline

Task

  • Add some content that you’ve found to Canvas
  • Make a piece of content and add it to Canvas
  • Fill in the weekly content areas in the Canvas template as you are able 
Week 3: Developing Learning Activities
  • Active learning and student engagement
  • OL discussions
    • Synchronous and asynchronous
    • How to use them
  • Group Work
  • Research projects
  • Scaffolded projects

Task

  • Add one online discussion/prompt to your course site, include posting guidelines
  • Design one other learning activity with guidelines/grading policy and set it up in Canvas
  • Fill in the activities in your Canvas template as you are able
Week 4: Assessment
  • Ongoing quizzes
  • Assignments/speedgrader
  • Rubrics
  • Active projects
  • Authentic assessment

Task

  • Create one “low-stakes” (formative) assessment and link it in your course
  • Create on “high-stakes” (summative) assessment and link it in your course
  • Fill in your assessments in your Canvas template as you are able