SECTION ONE

“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”

—Albert Einstein

This part of the guide is meant to support you in designing or updating a course before the term begins. Whether you have a couple of summer months, several weeks, or only a few days between terms to work on your course, you’ll find varied ways to infuse inclusive elements into it. Course design may not seem like an obvious site for enhancing equity, yet it represents a powerful set of tools for increasing students’ level of engagement, their learning, and their overall success. It’s likely that some of your current courses are hand-me-downs of sorts, inherited from your department or a colleague, so you may not have yet had the chance to craft a course that is aligned with your values and expertise. Course design also provides an essential foundation for equity-focused day-to-day teaching, and intentional design is inextricable from inclusive online teaching.

At the same time, we know wholesale course design or redesign is not always possible or permitted—for example, in colleges or departments that rely on course templates. Faculty have told us that they nonetheless find the principles of design described in this section helpful because they are applicable in other parts of their teaching, whether when shaping class discussions or motivating students to complete an assignment. Plus, the research summaries in each unit have implications for teaching far beyond course design, and the “How Can I Get Started?” suggestions at the end of each unit do not require course design changes.

Given that students who choose online courses and programs often have particularly complex lives—for example, juggling part- or full-time work, childcare, and/or other responsibilities with their coursework—it is particularly important that your asynchronous course is fully developed before Day 1. That’s why this section also introduces evidence-based online course design frameworks, such as Universal Design for Learning, as well as online design rubrics and their supporting organizations, including the Quality Matters Rubric, the Online Learning Consortium Quality Scorecard, and the Peralta Equity Rubric.¹ These have been specifically designed to support holistic student success in asynchronous classes, and we hope that in these systematic tools you’ll also find inspiration to guide alignment and equity-focused strategies for in-person, synchronous, and hybrid course modes.

This section comprises units that each address one or more core elements of course design: learning goals, assessments, grading schemes, and course materials. Unit 1 spotlights relevance and rigor, demonstrating how to enhance your learning objectives accordingly. Unit 2 focuses on creating relevant, rigorous, and transparent assessments as well as an equitable grading scheme. Since many of the decisions we make about course design materialize in our course syllabi, Unit 3 describes how to create an inclusive syllabus that welcomes and engages students via an emphasis on their success, the illustration of the course’s relevance, and a careful selection of course materials. Unit 3 also provides extended guidance for online course design, since we generally plan and create the entire course before the start of the term.