Course Design

Universal Design of Instruction (UDI): Definition, Principles, Guidelines, and Examples

Students are in school to learn and instructors share this goal. How can educators design instruction to maximize the learning of all students? The field of universal design (UD) can provide a starting point for developing a framework for instruction. You can apply this body of knowledge to create courses that ensure lectures, discussions, visual aids, videos, printed materials, labs, and fieldwork are accessible to all students.

Understanding by Design

Thousands of educators across the country use the Understanding by Design framework, created by the late Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, to get a handle on standards, align programs to assessments, and guide teachers in implementing a standards-based curriculum that leads to student understanding and achievement.

A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning

When we teach, we engage in two closely related, but distinct, activities. First, we design the course by gathering information and making a number of decisions about the way the course will be taught. Second, we engage in teacher-student interactions as we implement the course we have designed. The concept of Teacher-Student Interaction as used here is a broad one that includes lecturing, leading discussions, running labs, advising, communicating by email, etc. In order to teach well, one must be competent in both course design and teacher-student interactions. This Guide consists of introductory comments, worksheets, and action questions in each of the three major phases of Integrated Course Design.

Guiding Questions to Ask When Planning Your Course / Class Session
This document is adapted for educational purposes with permission of the publisher. Creating Significant Learning Experiences by L. Dee Fink. Copyright @2003 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Designing and Teaching a Course/Designing Courses

Given the amount of research showing that good course design is fundamental to teaching effectiveness, and considering the many well-received required courses and innovative electives across the schools, Stanford faculty clearly have found ways to plan and teach students at all levels, challenging them to active learning. The fact that faculty revise and tinker with even successful courses indicates that they reflect on the way the course worked, and often on the process by which they created it.