Backward Design & Universal Design for Learning
Every summer, friends ask me, "School's out. So you're on vacation, right?" Well, not exactly. Every good teacher I know spends more time preparing to teach than time spent actually teaching. This issue is especially true when it comes to course design and THE SYLLABUS. Before a course begins, I spend scores of hours thinking and re-thinking my course design. I keep up on latest the developments and research in instructional strategies and my subject area. I take advantage of professional development in topics such as "Working with Students with Disabilities," "Diversity," "Instructional Strategies for Reaching the iGeneration," "Issues in Adult Education," "Teaching in the Community College," "Universal Design for Learning," "How Learners Learn," and more. With the best practices in androgogy at the forefront, I lay out the semester's weeks, assignments, tone, approach, activities, textbooks, and lesson plans. I start from the end of the course. What is our final destination? How are we going to get there? How can I make sure that everyone makes the journey successfully? How can I be the best guide along the way? I align assignments, lessons, assessment, and activities with institutional, general, program, and course learning outcomes. I mull. I stroke my chin. I let ideas coalesce and settle in my mind. And then I write. Developing a course syllabus is my own voyage of discovery, my own way of writing to learn, my own way of joining the conversation in the friendly neighborhood of writing.
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I invite you to take a look at two sample syllabi that I wrote this past spring. They are my promise to my students, my love letter to them, if you will.