2.1 Why create a course map?
A course map is a short document that makes the alignment of your course more transparent to you, to your instructional designer, and to future educators.
It is a key tool in course development. In the H5P interaction below, select a hot spot to learn more about the purpose of this part of the course map.
A course map represents the learning pathway that you’ve designed for your students. It captures the course-level learning outcomes for your institution or program as well as the unit-level learning objectives you’ve developed across a term. The course map locates assessments, feedback, activities, and content in a weekly sequence so that the alignment between these course elements and the unit-level learning objectives is bright and clear. As Oregon institutions use 10 or 11 week terms, our course map template is divided into 10 weeks and a finals week.
Creating a course map is often a new experience for instructors. Although most instructors have created a syllabus, a course map is a different animal. Whereas a syllabus orients students to course policies, a grading rationale, major assignments, and a tentative work schedule, a course map leaps backwards to the very goals of the course itself.
How to Create a Course Map
In your initial consultation, your instructional designer will work with you to create a course development timeline that works for your schedule and goals. This timeline includes benchmarks for completing each column of the course map, drafting a sample module in your course shell, and drafting assignment prompts and rubrics. The first goal is to complete the course map!
Step Zero: Course-Level Learning 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 to anchor your personal investment in what students learn and what you want to create for them.
Step 1: Weekly Learning 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 ou