PREPARING TO TEACH
Section 4
Planning Your Course The process of planning a course is not always linear, but typically involves five stages: determining the relationship of your course to the curriculum, identifying your course objectives, dividing the course into logical units or segments, identifying learning experiences and methods appropriate to help students achieve the course goals, and determining how to best evaluate student performance. This course planning model addresses content mastery and the intellectual skills students should have when they finish the course. It shifts the responsibility for learning back to the students because you make your planning decisions on the basis of activities students must perform. It also makes it easier for you to select material to cover, since your course goals dictate the content to include. Moreover, students tend to remember factual details longer if the facts are associated with higher-order thinking processes, such as problem solving, analysis, and critical thinking. This model can be applied to the design of any kind of instruction, from single lectures to entire curricula.
Getting the Big Picture: How Does Your Course Fit? When you are preparing to teach a course for the first time, you need to think about how the course fits into the curriculum of your college and department. Even if you have been teaching the course for a number of years, it’s a good idea to reflect on its relationship to your students’ broader academic development. Ask yourself if your course is: √ approved as a part of CORE 2.0 (i.e., a general education course) (see the table on the next page) √ required for the major √ the first course in a sequence √ an advanced course with prerequisites √ usually taken as an elective. As you design your plans for teaching, the way your course fits in the curriculum will influence the following: • • • •
course objectives and content assignments and other class activities preparation, motivation, and expectations of students the amount of freedom you may have in selecting content, materials, and techniques
The CORE 2.0 Curriculum As a land-grant university, MSU-Bozeman is charged, through the Morrill Act of 1862, with providing "liberal and practical education...in the several pursuits and professions of life." In addition, as a member of the Montana University System, MSU is charged with providing programs which "stimulate critical analysis, clear and effective communication, and the creative process." Students should also "broaden their cultural horizons by contact with the creative arts, sciences and the humanities, and achieve an understanding of the political, social, economic and ethical problems of the contemporary world and the relation of their studies to these problems.”