Re/Design Your Course With CTSI: Join us for our Course Design/Redesign Institute This May

by Erin Macnab, Programs Coordinator, CTSI

As the semester wraps up, it’s time to look forward to the summer and start preparing for the fall semester. On May 20th and 21st, faculty members can get a head start on planning their courses when we host CTSI’s 5th annual Course Design/Redesign Institute (CDI). We invite faculty members looking to create a new course or redesign a course that they have already taught to join us for this valuable learning experience.

Dee Fink’s 2003 book, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses provides the structure of the CDI. Participants will learn about the five phases of course design: situational factors, learning goals, feedback and assessment, and instruction and lesson planning, and focus on aligning and integrating these elements into their own courses.

The Institute emphasizes a backwards design model, encouraging participants to engage with student learning outcomes to develop the basis for their courses. The cross-disciplinary nature of this 2-day workshop, which invites faculty members from all career stages to join, allows for the sharing of pedagogical ideas and strategies among colleagues, and exposes participants to a wide variety of techniques and practices.

Led by an expert facilitation team (with members from CTSI, U of T Libraries, Online Learning Strategies, and ITS), participants will work collaboratively and individually on their own course, and will leave the Institute with a framework that includes a course outline, a sample lesson plan, and an assessment scheme. Individuals and teams are both welcome.

You can read more about Course Design on our website and access resources there, including further information about past Institutes, but for now I’ll leave you with a few remarks from our past participants across campuses, which highlight how the Institute helps faculty members rethink course design strategies while providing the tools to work within unique academic environments:

“I really appreciated the opportunity (fuelled by the workshop agenda) to think and work together with our group on course design and overall program design.  The exercises and tools got me thinking more creatively (making some of my work easier) and at the same time clarified our next steps (still a daunting task).”
Elaine Aimone, Medicine

“The CTSI Course Design Institute was a valuable experience for me…. I particularly appreciated that the Institute allowed participants to work through the ideas while designing one of their courses. I left the institute with a new plan for an upcoming fourth-year seminar course in Theatre Theory at UTSC, and I know that the course will be much stronger for having emerged from this experience.”
Barry Freeman, Theatre and Performance Studies (UTSC)

“One of the strengths of the CDI that I really enjoyed was that I came up with a specific, relevant road-map to design a course that will be a great learning experience for my students. There are so many elements of the CDI that I refer to again and again.”
Tanya Kirsch, Management (UTM)

“The course design institute has attuned me to the importance of ensuring skills and habits taught/practiced in lecture and tutorials are the same I ask students to demonstrate on exams and major projects.”
Jayson Parker, Biology

To join us on Wednesday, May 20th and Thursday, May 21st for two full days of intensive focus on creating or revamping your course, faculty members should register online before April 20th.