The Foundations of Course Design pedagogical experience is guided by instructional designers from the Office of Teaching and Learning at UVU. It gives faculty a foundation in established course design principles and is particularly suited for those who have never developed a flexible course or have developed only informally.

Ideally, faculty should have a course they have been assigned to develop. However, the experience can still be completed without an assigned course. Faculty might select a course in their department for which they have some expertise, even if not assigned to teach it. They can also choose an outside topic for which they have knowledge and expertise (e.g., skiing, stamp collecting, fly fishing, etc.). If the faculty knows enough about a topic to explain observable behavior and create assessments and activities, the experience will be just as productive.

The experience is divided into five modules, which faculty will complete with help from an instructional design consultant from the Office of Teaching and Learning. Faculty will sign up to participate and be paired with a consultant who will schedule 4–5 meetings with the faculty. During these meetings, the consultant will discuss the principles of course design and guide faculty in practice activities.

Faculty who complete the experience will be able to do the following:

• Explain the Backward Design process
• Describe how using Backward Design helps to achieve their course vision
• Write measurable objectives
• Create summative and formative assessments that allow students to demonstrate mastery
• Demonstrate instructional alignment among course objectives, module objectives, and assessments
• Create a complete Course Design Plan using principles of Backward Design

Faculty may choose to download a copy of the Course Design Plan (the summative assessment for this experience) and fill it out as they go OR complete it at the end. Links to the instructions for filling out the different sections of the plan are included at the bottom of applicable pages.