9 HyFlex Course Map and Templates

Creating Course Map

Creating a course map is often a new experience for instructors. Although most instructors have created a syllabus, a course map feels different for those instructors who did not design their own courses. A course map is a short document that makes the alignment of a course more transparent to the instructional designer, the instructor, and the students.

Beyond serving as a great guide to the development of the course, the course map can be modified to create a course schedule that is a very relevant resource for students during teaching. A course map represents the learning pathway that you’ve designed for your students.

Steps to Create a Course Map

In consultation with your instructional designer, first, create a draft of a timeline that includes either an 8- or 16-week schedule for the course delivery. Then, complete the course map using the following steps.

1. Identify course-level objectives and any aligned upper-level outcomes

Review your course-level learning outcomes and consider what resonates the most with you. What is most important to you of all the things students could learn in your course? What skills, perspectives, or modes of analysis do you want students to be able to develop? What are the big ideas that drive this learning pathway you’re creating together? Thinking through the course-level learning outcomes in detail with your instructional designer can help anchor your personal investment in what students learn and what you want to create for them.

2. Identify module-level objectives

After filling in the information at the top of the course map, including the course-level learning outcomes determined by your institution, fill in the learning objectives for each week or unit. These learning objectives support the course-level learning outcomes and break down these larger goals into parts or pieces that are more measurable. This process takes time, but it will help your instructional designer and future educators to understand how each part of your design fits together. Some instructors haven’t worked with unit-level or weekly learning objectives before. Lean on your instructional designer! They are here to help you make learning objectives authentic, clear, and aligned with course-level learning outcomes.

3. Assessments and Rubrics

After creating the learning objectives, sketch out major assessments in your map. How can students express their achievement of course learning outcomes? What projects, portfolios, performances, or creative partnerships would allow you to measure what they’ve accomplished? What skills do students need to develop over time? Working backwards from the end of the term, what benchmarks or checkpoints make the most sense for submitting final work? How could you scaffold peer review or feedback before the final is submitted? Your instructional designer can help you to review existing assignments and make suggestions for increased transparency, including adding purpose, tasks, and criteria for success to each assignment (TILT it!). After they are mapped, you can set a timeline for completing the assignment prompts and rubrics with your instructional designer.

4. Content, Activities, and Engagements

Once the rest of the map is complete, the final step is to add planned activities and assigned content. Given your learning objectives and assessment planning, what activities would help students practice skills, learn from one another, and share their lived experiences? What is the best sequence for major themes and content? Where does it makes sense to build in catch-up weeks where students are completing bench-marks or preparing for a major assessment? A great strategy for planning activities is to consider multiple means of engagement. Rather than repeat the same discussion board activity each week, consider giving students options to teach one another about concepts relating to that week’s theme or to submit personal reflections directly to you for feedback. Allowing multiple opportunities for student choice can help increase motivation and belonging.

5. Create the blueprint of the course map based on templates

Creating a course map is an iterative process. This means you can return to it again as you build out the course and later, after the term is over before you share it with other educators. The goal is to make alignment legible for yourself and your instructional designer before you design your course shell.

Flower Darby^[1] suggests that educators embrace a roundabout design model for course mapping. This means expecting to take different exits for assignment development or activity planning or student engagement and return again and again to the main map to check for alignment. Rather than assume a linear design process, where each element marches along in perfect order, expect to get each column of your course map to a “good for now” state and plan to revisit each one later as you’re building your course site and assignment prompts.

Once you have your course weeks mapped and content planned, you are ready to build out module content in your institutional learning management system (D2L) and draft your assignment prompts and rubrics in your shared Google workspace.

References

Licenses and Attributions

“Course Mapping Template” by Veronica Vold for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed CC BY-NC-SA  and is adapted from “The Online Course Mapping Guide” by the Digital Learning Hub in the Teaching + Learning Commons at UC San Diego licensed CC BY-NC-SA