Course Redesign Institute, June 1-15

Are you looking to change the design of your existing course? Do you want to get ahead in planning your course for the fall semester? Are you looking to scaffold your assignments with deep, long-lasting student learning at the center?

Join Villanova colleagues in a virtual two-week Course Redesign Institute (CRI) with Dr. Phyllis Blumberg, educational consultant and author of Making Learning-Centered Teaching Work, (2019), and VITAL colleagues. We will facilitate an interactive, applied, hands-on institute that gets you started redesigning (or designing) your course. You will leave with a learning-centered course outline including goals, activities and assessments, a concrete process and materials to successfully complete your course development. VITAL colleagues will continue to support you.

Asynchronous, self-paced program with live sessions for collaboration, sharing of course revision, feedback, and peer review. Instructors will consult virtually with individual and/or teams of faculty. The institute is limited to 14 full-time faculty to support personalization and engagement.

Applications have been closed. Please contact VITAL for information.

Find out how faculty colleagues have revised their courses and see examples by clicking on Faculty Course Redesign Examples and Experiences (video)

Link to VITALITY faculty stories

List of CRI Faculty Alumni (PDF)

Goals:

Use backward course design principles to design course
Articulate clear learning goals for the course
Organize content to support learners' knowledge/experience levels
Scaffold assignments for feedback and ongoing, deep learning
Match assessments to course learning goals
Plan learning activities that aid deep student learning and success and support an inclusive learning environment
Participate in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary faculty community focused on reflection and constructive feedback

Institute Structure, Topics, Workload Expectations

Professional Instructional Development Support:
Faculty will receive $600 stipend; I.e., $300 upon CRI completion, $300 upon final syllabus review. Also, faculty will have access to an electronic copy of Making Learning-Centered Teaching Work by Phyllis Blumberg and resources to successfully complete the redesign of their course.

Faculty Testimonials

"The focused content, its flexible on-line delivery, the assignments, the Zoom conversations, and both the real-time & written feedback/encouragement from Phyllis, Andy, and Gabriele made this worth every second."
"The CRI forced me to be very intentional about my teaching and course design."
"Phyllis brought great enthusiasm and energy to the course, and did a great job relating the course material to our different disciplines."
"The discussion and review of other participants' assignments and the feedback were the most helpful in putting the reading in context."
"I found the personal feedback on assignments most beneficial."
"It was helpful to learn about what approach others use in different disciplines. I was impressed by several of our colleagues’ examples of creative ideas to improve student engagement."
"The virtual discussions helped clarify areas of confusion and gave me concrete examples to apply the concepts in the course."
"I learned more about what a "flipped class" looks like and got to experience it for myself for the first time. I have a better sense of the challenges students may face and the technology used to deliver a course this way."
"Creating rubrics! Always a challenge and a great group session where we looked at examples and talked about how to use a formative and a summative version of the same rubric. The idea of reducing the number of items and combining/compressing them was really helpful. I finally have a workable rubric."