Whether you're starting a course from scratch, teaching something completely new, or revamping a course you've taught before, successful course development depends on the planning process that precedes it. Selecting course content, preparing lectures, and choosing activities that promote learning take effort and are time-consuming. Following a systematic process can be helpful in structuring your course and reaching your desired instructional goals. This hands-on workshop will provide you with the opportunity to map your own course planning process from the initial design phase, including establishing learning outcomes, through assembling the course material, creating diverse assignments and assessment strategies, and finally, refining your syllabus. Join us for tips, tools, and advice on how to navigate the upcoming semester!

This afternoon session will begin with a series of five-minute vignettes focused on best practices in course design shared by our colleagues from across disciplines.

High-impact practices (HIPs) are becoming a priority in the Ontario higher education sector. In this workshop, participants will learn to distinguish between HIPs and other teaching strategies, locate HIPs they may already be using, recognize the challenges and benefits of using HIPs, and use high-impact teaching practices to facilitate high-impact learning. A handout of resources and advice will be provided to all participants.

Like Tuesday's afternoon workshop, this session will begin with a series of five-minute vignettes focused on incorporating high impact practices into your classes.

Courses don’t exist in isolation. For students, they are a checkpoint on a greater journey towards graduation. For faculty, they are part of a larger program designed to educate and graduate capable, engaged professionals and lifelong learners.

When designing your courses, it’s important to situate them into this bigger picture, ensuring they contribute to program-level learning outcomes in a useful, thoughtful way. In this session, we will take a step back from the courses that we will be teaching to evaluate what and how our courses contribute to program outcomes, using this information to help us review and revise our course designs, materials, assessments, teaching techniques, and more.