📝 How do you design and plan your course(s)??
📣 Calling all Instructional Designers/Course Designers and educators who want a better way to course plan. We think visual collaboration can have a major impact and help level up your designing and planning. We want to learn about the frameworks you use for designing and planning your courses. We want to know your current methodologies and understand where the pain points are. Let us know in the comments so we can get to work and make sure we have the templates that make you say "wow"!
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Before MURAL, we used a lot of GSuite - Docs & Sheets for course planning. There was a lot of pain. :(
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At my university we use MS Teams. Now that Mural is a big part of the mix, a typical structure looks like this: 10 minute warm up, 20 minutes PPT lecture, leading to Mural application. What works really well are Murals based on articles or activities that have multiple sections that are nondependent; 10 Things...kind of list-oriented readings which they can be split up into groups for, with each one getting a part of the Mural where they can use verbal and visual language to focus on clarifying one point for the others and doing something creative with it. After c. 20 min. for that, they present their parts to the others, so that each person really feels ownership for a small part of a greater whole. It takes a long time to prepare these activities before class but it is so worth it. Every student is involved and much more engaged as they know they will have their moments in the spotlight, and I sense that the nervousness about presenting helps the knowledge stick too!
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@Christina - Good stuff. Do you prepare this class structure solo or with a teaching team? What technology do you use to prepare the story arc -I really like the student-centered experience that you are creating (and appreciate how much work you put into it).
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@Ward: This semester I have been given carte blanche to redesign the undergrad courses I teach, plus a Masters course in the making structure-wise to make them more effective online, and then train my colleagues across our different campus locations based on what I have learned. This involves adapting or designing about one Mural per course, per meeting, so the library is growing quickly. Since I am just in the caveman stages of using Mural, I know some will work better than others; the goal is to try out as many different template formats as possible and then build on the home runs. I will be sharing everything with colleagues, since what did not work for me might still be a hit in another kind of subject. You are right - the "red thread" (in German "der rote Faden") Mural allows and fosters so well in all of them is the paradigm shift from (teacher-centered) Taking to (student-centered) Making, as I call it.
The former structure: Lecture in Teams with PPT, discussion and videos + exercise-based structure in Excel, Word, PPT where they answer questions collaboratively within Teams based on the material + Microsoft Forms Quizzes & Surveys, Kahoot, Quizlet and Mysimpleshow activities. First they do or watch the ones I made, then they learn to create their own for each other, i.e. after their group presentations to check their classmate's understanding of the topic they covered.
Now, with Mural, there is a new layer that is increasing engagement significantly already and that I believe will enhance long-term learning outcomes way after the semester is finished: In addition to the above there is a new aspect of co-creation. Every meeting ends with the completion of a Mural I encourage them to make so aesthetically appealing that they are proud of it. Each member "owns" one part where they develop specialized knowledge within the big picture topic. They design their area using visual and verbal language to best elucidate the topic to others, with a lot of freedom on how, and present it to everyone. They are now talking, and listening to each other, a LOT more than before, as well as evaluating each other's work. The end result, with each of their pieces forming a whole, is an artifact they can see, and it has to be on the standard size Mural, so they can easily print it out and post it physically on their walls if they wish. Mural is also providing new warm-up and AAR (After Action Review) segments. That means every day is a kind of terrifying but exciting new experiment, and so far, they are loving it. We are at around the 6th meeting of 16 right now, each 215 minutes.
I hope that answers your question 😅!
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@Christina - amazing share out. This is GOLD. Can we work with you to visualize this to show the "before" and "after" experience (maybe in MURAL)?
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@Ward : I would love to - my learning curve right now is extremely steep so I don't know how much useful stuff is there from the first iterations, but like I said, my students are responding with so much enthusiasm that they can't be that bad! Reach out any time to discuss details - I was wondering myself about the best way to share all that I am learning right now from student feedback; they are being really effusive:
This is a recent note from one student that really got the waterworks going. Roughly:
"I'm absolutely really happy about the work with Mural. We can be creative and reflect our personality in the completed tasks. Because we work in different groups, we get to know our classmates better and at the moment this is one of the few situations, in which such a close collaboration is at all possible."
You can imagine how that makes me feel!!! Thank you, Mural.
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@Christina - I will direct message you so we can package this before & after. Can't wait to catch up.
Feedback like this is a true treat - thank you for the gift of including us in your positive halo!
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I would like to add that when we design courses, we are always keeping several things in mind. We try to design a class specifically around learning objectives and to think about what students need to know prior to the lesson and to reflect on ways to collect formative data assessing whether they have that knowledge.
A huge focus on student-centeredness and intentional choices for class activities and frequent formative check-ins. And, of course, autonomy for teachers to design lessons which they are passionate about and which play on their strengths but also push them to improve into new spaces.
And constant reminders of our underlying belief that all students are capable of achieving our highest expectations.
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