Designing your Course Outline the Backward Way!

The course outline, or syllabus, is probably the single most important document you create for each of your classes. I have heard it described as a “contract” with your students that outlines both your and your students’ responsibilities in the course – and like a contract, either party can only change aspects of the course outline through negotiation and mutual agreement. ECU policy articulates what should be included in your course outline, but to make it easy the University provides a template you can use in both Word format and through our official Course Outline Manager system. We recommend that you draft your course outline in Word before inputting it into the (sometimes glitchy) Course Outline Manager. If you are new to ECU, more information about Course Outline Manager is available here.

When I first started teaching, I thought the most important part of the course outline was the weekly schedule: I spent hours planning the topics we would cover each week, carefully curating readings, videos and podcasts to support student learning, and sequencing the topics so that they built on one another. I felt like each course outline was a mini-Masters thesis when I was done, accurately covering all the most important thinkers and creators in the field: if I was being graded on my coverage, I wanted an A+!

What I rarely considered – or considered only very briefly – was what I expected students to learn from all of this content. I kind of assumed that if I provided all the important information like a smorgasbord, and then designed some assignments to encourage them to engage with it, students would absorb the critical ideas by osmosis. I have since learned that this approach to course planning is called “traditional design” and is not usually the most efficient or effective way to ensure student learning in your course.

Now, what most experts suggest is an approach called “backward design” where you start with the long-term skills and knowledge you want students to gain in your course and then plan how you will assess that learning. Only after you have figured out the learning outcomes and assessments do you then consider what content and learning activities you need to include. This approach is often described as “learner-centred” as compared to “content-centred” and you can see why it works: if a course has been designed starting from the big picture goals rather than weekly content, students (and instructors) are less likely to lose sight of those goals week to week. All learning activities and assignments help students ladder up to the main course goals.

If you are interested in the backward design approach, there are thousands of articles and guides about it. Here are a few accessible ones:

• This guide from the University of Illinois offers a simple and visual overview of the process: https://teaching.uic.edu/cate-teaching-guides/syllabus-course-design/backward-design/
• This short video summarizes the why and how of backward design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwlUhS_hxBY
• This blog post discusses backward design in the context of visual art teaching: https://theartofeducation.edu/2019/08/why-you-should-teach-your-lessons-in-reverse/

You can also attend Ki’s Curriulum Prep Drop-in on January 5th online or in-person: see below for details!