Course design

A well-designed course includes meaningful learning outcomes aligned with assessment, learning activities and content.

Quality Matters provides excellent guidelines and tips for the design of courses. See available resources.

Consider adding a resource section in your course with links to student support and wellness tips.

TLSS offers a webinar series to show you how to create your online course.

The transition from a traditionally classroom-based course to a distance/online format relies on a combination of instructional and technology-based actions. To help you make this transition, the following section provides a series of strategies and tools to facilitate the development of an online course.

At the University of Ottawa, a blended course is designed such that some in-class time is substituted by equally meaningful online activities. This means that the in-class and online portions of a course are complementary and have been thoughtfully combined to meet the needs of the learner and the goals of the course.

This approach is a combination of two distinct real-time synchronous teaching spaces. One physical space in a classroom on campus where a professor is there, and a second virtual space using a videoconferencing technology (Zoom or MS Teams) for students who choose to take the course remotely.

Use the Virtual Campus (Brightspace) to ensure a smooth process for submitting student assignments, implementing quizzes and providing feedback.

Diversity is the norm, not the exception. Therefore, we should design and deliver our courses with this in mind. But why do so, and how? And what does “inclusion” mean in terms of teaching?