The Online Course Mapping Guide is an ongoing project that aims to provide faculty and instructors with a resource for online course development, beginning with a curriculum analysis and resulting in a course map that displays the alignment of all components of a course.
Creating a course map is essential to online course development because course maps demonstrate alignment and a path for your course. The process of mapping a course provides a complete view of the course with the learner in mind. The Online Course Mapping Guide suggests working backwards, beginning with identifying the desired learning outcomes first. This often means taking a much bigger step back to evaluate the overall vision and purpose of the course in the context of its program, field of study, and professional outlook. Having a vision and defining student learning outcomes for the course is the first step in backward design before planning activities and instruction.
Why Map your course?
- Create manageable units of learning.
- Determine effective assessments that align with learning outcomes.
- Ensure learning builds and scaffolds appropriately.
- Determine appropriate learning activities and learning materials.
- Provide clear expectations for your learners.
- Design a roadmap for your course.
- Evaluate the bridge between courses.
This discovery session will demonstrate the Online Course Mapping Guide website, a project that stemmed from faculty’s request for teaching resources and a recognized gap in online teaching experience. This discovery session will visualize the journey of course-mapping from building a vision to reaching the final destination of alignment. The guided exercises on this site will help instructors identify course competencies and create learning outcomes that provide a foundation for their course. Then, journey onto mapping a course using a backward perspective, fleshing out assessments and interactivity before laying out the course learning material. Along the way, faculty and instructional designers will pick up key concepts and visualize the path for their course with a more manageable, digestible, and clear direction.
The audience will pack their bags with guided exercises, downloadable takeaways that will keep them on the right path, and sample course maps to draw inspiration from. This discovery session will also allow for conversation with peer instructional designers and faculty who teach online to discuss common roadblocks typically faced in course design and how a well aligned course map may help prevent pitfalls faced by those who are new and experienced in online education.