Part 2: DESIGN

Designing a course is a non-linear process. Before you can begin putting anything online, it helps to have a few of your ducks in a row. This section aims to help you think about drafting a plan for your course.

Backwards Design

Reverse-engineering the learning experience, starting with outcomes supported by activities and assessment based on measurable evidence of understanding, provides the foundation for the rest of the development process.

Big Ideas: Design With the Expert in Mind
Faculty expertise is still valuable and should There are 鈥渂ig ideas鈥 at the heart of every course that motivate, engage and resonate with teachers and learners alike. Learn how to identify and discover (or rediscover) those ideas and then use them as the basis for creating rich, engaging learning experiences.
Enduring Understandings
Enduring Understandings are the insights that a learner gains by doing the work of understanding, i.e. making connections in their learning that help them make sense of and integrate new knowledge into existing understandings. 
Essential Questions
There鈥檚 a strange world you passed through on your way to becoming an expert in your field. You鈥檙e already familiar with the Big Questions of your discipline鈥ut how do you get your students to create measurable evidence of what they鈥檝e learned and still lead them to the Big Questions? Is there a connection between these two seemingly disparate intellectual stages?
Calendars and Schedules
Time management at the micro- and macro-level is critical for online teaching and learning: each course requires planning to work within the limits of the term and to accommodate the ebb and flow of the activities and assessments鈥揳nd grading!鈥 that go into top-notch courses.
Effective Syllabi
An effective syllabus should be more than just required reading about course policies. It is both a contract with learners and an important representation of an instructor鈥檚 priorities that can be significantly more creative than you might think!
Facilitating Critical Thinking
There are as many definitions of critical thinking as there are teachers  pondering the idea鈥ut all agree that supporting critical engagement is at the heart of the  educational endeavor.
Learner Reflection
What is a personal learning environment? What does it have to do with Information Fluency? Though the PLE may seem like and arbitrary exercise, it鈥檚 important for everyone to understand where and how learning happens in a giant messy web that eludes neat and tidy graphics.
Learning Taxonomies

Learning taxonomies are helpful tools for creating, organizing and assessing learning objectives and activities to ensure they are of an appropriate type and complexity for a particular class.

Presentation and Participation
One of the most potentially productive, and bewildering, areas of teaching with technology is the vast array of tools, apps and services supporting participation, presentation and collaboration online and off.
The Logistics of Teaching
While tackling the content & concept side of your course may be the fun part, it鈥檚 just as important to have a good handle on the logistics of managing a classroom. Without that strong framework to build on and refer to, the content & concept will suffer.