How do you transform your course into into an organized and engaging experience for online learners? The best way to start online course design is to start with the end in mind.
L. Dee Fink, a renowned educator and professional consultant in higher education, has detailed a course design method specifically for adult learners that will help you organize your content in a meaningful and effective way. In his work, Creating Significant Learning Experiences, Fink outlines the Backwards Course Design process. The reason Backwards Course Design is the go-to process for adult learners is simple; Fink’s process gets at the heart of what adult learners want to know, which is, “Why is this material so important in my life?”
By starting with the question, “What do I want my students to remember about this course five years from now?” the professor is already thinking about how their subject matter can impact the lives of their adult learners. The answer to this question will help you to define the course goals. For example, if you are teaching a writing course, an answer to this question might be, “I want my students to identify reliable sources when conducting research.” With this goal in mind, you can start thinking about the next steps. (Remember: When writing your course goals, be sure to use Bloom’s Taxonomy keywords. Or try using Fink’s taxonomy, which was created specifically for adult learners.)
Once your course goals are established, think about how you will know that your students have achieved the course goals. For some courses, a final project or paper might be the most effective way to determine this while, with other courses, a comprehensive multiple-choice exam might work best. As the subject matter expert and course developer, this decision is yours. For our example above, an effective final assessment might be a research paper or annotated bibliography that requires that students use scholarly resources.
You’ve determined the course goals and the final assessment, so the next step is to think about what your students will need to do to complete this final assessment. What are the learning outcomes that they will need to meet? In what order should they complete these learning outcomes? Think of these outcomes as module objectives, or, if your course is structured by week, these would be your weekly objectives.
The next step of Backwards Course Design is to determine how you will provide your students with the material to prepare them to meet these weekly objectives. Using our example, it would be important to provide your students with some foundational information about scholarly resources. For example, if a learning outcome asks students to “retrieve scholarly sources from a database,” some of your course materials should provide instructions for using database searches.
Try following these steps as you begin thinking about designing your online course, and you’ll be sure to have meaningful course goals and course content that is impactful for your students.
References:
Campbell, S. (2016). 9 Things to consider when starting to work with adult learners. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.cael.org/alert-blog/9-things-to-consider-when-starting-to-work-with-adult-learners
Jshabutu. (2018). Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Write Effective Learning Objectives [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://tips.uark.edu/using-blooms-taxonomy/
Fallahi, C. (2011). Using Fink’s Taxonomy in Course Design. Retrieved from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/using-finks-taxonomy-in-course-design
