Map It All Out Before You Begin
Once you have determined your activities and major assignments, it is useful to create a map of your course. During CDLI Course Design we do this with large sheets of paper and vast quantities of colored stickies. (Unfortunately, it's not possible to share those with you during social distancing ☹︎. ) However, it works just as well with smaller sheets of paper and whatever stickies you have on hand. It can be easy to underestimate the power of mapping on paper. Over and over we see that instructors who map out their courses on paper gain much more clarity about their goals and how the course will work. Translating their map into Canvas then becomes more of a mechanical exercise and their courses come together much more quickly.
Below is a classic example of a partially-finished map in which the instructor first decides where the major assignments and activities will fall throughout the quarter and then uses those to determine what content (readings, lectures, tutorials, relevant videos, websites, etc.) the students will need to absorb before tackling the activities and applying what they have learned.
| MAP IT OUT WITH STICKIES |
| VIEWING YOUR MAP THROUGH MULTIPLE LENSES |
Once your map starts shaping up you can begin to look at your course design through various "lenses." If you are building a paper map you can tag the bigger stickies with small color-coded stickers so you can quickly determine if there are gaps or redundancies in your course. (If you are using the Flow Planner you may want to print it out and mark it up.) For example, what kinds of interactions show up when you color code each opportunity for interaction? Are the interactions mostly student-to-instructor or student-to-class? If so, you may decide to incorporate more student-to-student or group activities. Below are some ideas for lenses to evaluate your course design.
Interactions |
Feedback |
Location & Time |
Ignatian Framework
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| CONTINUE MAPPING IN CANVAS |
Once you have your paper map in decent shape, you can begin to move the information into Canvas using the Modules to set up a "skeleton" of the course. A skeleton is primarily made up of placeholders which indicate where you will later write descriptions, give assignment directions, add discussion prompts, embed relevant videos, etc.
Since Canvas modules are easy to drag and drop and rearrange the Module list becomes a kind of map or outline. When the course is finished your Modules list will function as the table of contents for your course.