During a most unusual and challenging year, instructors have had to adapt to ever changing circumstances for teaching and learning. Digital learning materials and assessment adaptations require more time and careful planning, that is, they require careful course architecture. In this webinar, CourseTune CEO Dr. Maria Andersen will describe strategies for careful planning and up-front investment in the course architecture and explain how a system of instructional design created specifically for stakeholder buy-in acts as a feedback loop for fine-tuning courses over time—all toward improving student learning.

1. Course Planning is the Key to
Success in Every Digital Modality
Dr. Maria Andersen, CEO, Coursetune
Core Adjunct Faculty, Westminster College
@busynessgirl, maria@coursetune.com

2. Why is it that teaching an
online course requires more
planning and care than
planning for a F2F course?
(honest answers please)
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the chat box but
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until I say 3-2-1-GO!

3. 1. Control over the environment

4. 2. You’re not wasting other people’s
time when you “wing it” without a
plan (but this is wrong of course)

5. 3. Creating online resources is
time-intensive and detail-intensive

6. 4. What happens in a F2F classroom doesn’t
feel as “permanent”

7. F2F courses should have been designed with
the same care as the others. We’ve just let
them get away without proper pedagogy and
planning for a looooooong time.

8. What do online, remote,
hybrid, and F2F courses
have in common?
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until I say 3-2-1-GO!

9. nucleus (noun):
controls and
regulates the
activities of the cell
and carries the
genes, structures
that contain the
hereditary
information.
Nucleoli are small
bodies often seen
within the nucleus.

10. course nucleus:
controls and dictates
what skills should be
accomplished through
the course, providing
the hereditary
information
(competencies or CLOs)
for all sections of the
course regardless of
modality or instructor.
Learning objectives are
small learning
statements often seen
within the course
nucleus.

11. What should absolutely be
different between
modalities like online,
remote, hybrid, and F2F?
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the chat box but
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until I say 3-2-1-GO!

12. Around the cell
nucleus
In particular, the ER is a
transport network for
molecules going to specific
places. Its general function
is to produce proteins for
the rest of the cell to
function and is studded
with ribosomes (which
make those proteins).

13. Around the
course nucleus
In particular, the activities
layer tells us how to deliver
and assess the learning
objectives, which allow
different sections and
modalities to express
themselves in different
ways. The general function
of these activities is to turn
curriculum design
information into a practical
experience for learning.

14. To design good courses (of any
modality), you must know what
is in the course nucleus of each
course in your curriculum.

15. You just cheated on an
assessment in your
remote or online course.
Why did you do it?
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the chat box but
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until I say 3-2-1-GO!

16. Factors that
lead to
Academic
Dishonesty
Peer pressure
Performance anxiety
Excuse making
Inability to manage the demands of student life
Situations that encourage academic dishonesty
Self-justification habits
Unfamiliarity with what constitutes academic dishonesty
Lack of understanding about consequences
https://www.niu.edu/academic-
integrity/students/causes/index.shtml

17. Which of these
become more
pronounced when
you can’t control
the environment
where learning or
assessment take
place?
1. Peer pressure
2. Performance anxiety
3. Excuse making
4. Inability to manage the demands of student life
5. Situations that encourage academic dishonesty
6. Self-justification habits
7. Unfamiliarity with what constitutes academic dishonesty
8. Lack of understanding about consequences

18. Most assessment is inauthentic

19. Actual Workplaces do not require
you to work by yourself with no
computer and no resources.

20. We can impact and lower
every one of these academic
integrity factors through our
own learning and assessment
practices.

21. These are the
factors we
control in
assessment.
Alignment
Transparency
Authenticity
Agency
Creativity
Variety

22. Courses
need solid
internal
alignment of
learning and
assessment
to learning
objectives.

23. Courses need
solid alignment of
organization of
delivery to course
objectives.

24. When designing
assessments and
learning
activities,
instructors and
IDs need to
remember what
should be in the
activities so that
the alignment is
correct.

25. Students need
transparency
about what they
will learn, how
they will learn it,
and how they will
be assessed.

26. To move away
from ”one size
fits all”
assessment
and towards a
variety of
assessment,
the designer
has to see how
it all fits
together easily.

27. Good planning and design
can improve the outcomes of
all the modalities.

28. What stops faculty from
modernizing curriculum
and incorporating new
topics and innovations?
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the chat box but
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until I say 3-2-1-GO!

29. Curriculum
Drift
New skills and fields emerge that
need to be learned for a discipline.

30. Curriculum
Bloat
New knowledge, research, and
desires from other schools bloat the
curriculum from within.

31. Curriculum
Reality
Most curriculum contains both drift
and bloat.

32. Curriculum
needs
continual
tuning
If there is no space to do
innovative things,
innovative things don’t
happen.

33. Declutter. Ask
yourself “Is this
learning objective
relevant to the
objectives of this
course?

34. The bookshelves of
your curriculum
need to have
empty space on
them.

35. Some ”housecleaning” is
necessary to make space for
curriculum to grow and
flourish.

36. Questions?
Dr. Maria Andersen, CEO, Coursetune
Core Adjunct Faculty, Westminster College
@busynessgirl, maria@coursetune.com