The first step in creating/recreating your course is to establish or revisit the learning outcomes of the course.

Establish Learning Outcomes

Writing measurable learning outcomes for your course, module/unit, and individual assignment is essential in creating a robust and engaging course that will help your students understand what they are learning and why they are learning it. The principles of Backward Design can help you as you design your course with these outcomes in mind.  Use Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy to help you revise the verbiage in each of your outcomes/objectives.

Plan and Develop Assessments and Activities

The next important step in creating/recreating your course is to Plan and Develop Assessments and Activities that line up with your established learning outcomes and correspond with the Vanguard Credit Hour Policy. Vanguard defines a credit hour as approximately 37.5-45 hours of engaged learning time (including in class and out of class time – 40hrs per credit to make it simpler) over the course of a term. Therefore, the typical 3-unit course will have the equivalent of 112.5-135 clock hours of engaged time over the course of the term.

It is recommended that you design your course with your assignment/participation points matching your hours (ex: 40hrs/400pts for a 1 credit course, 80hrs/800pts for a 2 credit course, or 120hrs/1200pts for a 3 credit course). This approach will help you achieve the proper workload and credit hour for each course. These hours/points should include every thing you are asking students to participate in including: reading/watching/listening, studying, discussing, writing, tests/quizzes (including time to study and take cumulative exams), projects, and online or in person attendance participation.

Calculate Student Workload

It is recommended that you use the Course Workload Estimator 2.0 to help you calculate the engaged learning hours for both your in class and out of class activities/assessments.

Create Equivalent Asynchronous Online Activities

To provide needed engagement flexibility for your all your students (whether it be for health or personal related reasons) it is recommended that you create equivalent asynchronous online activities for all your in person class sessions. This would mean that for every hour of engaged learning in the classroom, there should also be an hour of asynchronous online work that meets the same learning objectives.  These objectives can be met using similar or different activities/assessments, just as long as they are met within approximately the same amount of engaged learning time. These equivalent activities/assessments can take the form of written or video discussions, essays, quizzes, etc… and could include reading and/or watching video content.

For some specific ideas about creating these asynchronous activities, check out the Asynchronous Cookbook put out by Middlebury College.