Process Documents & Resources
01) Distance Course Development Grant Application
The new application will be an online form with automation rules to work through the signature and approval process. At each step of the approval process confirmation notifications will be sent to the applicant and other parties as appropriate.
02) Sample Distance Course Development Welcome and Completion Emails to Faculty
Once your application is approved, the Faculty Development Center is notified and an LXD is assigned to support the development and review process. The LXD will review the application and send an email to faculty to kick off the process. The goal is to meet within the first week or two of the application's approval.
Upon completion of the course development and review process, the LXD will send an email to the Provosts office, the appropriate dean, and cc the faculty member.
03) UMA Distance Course Development Process
This process will take 14 weeks (or longer), with meetings with UMA’s Learning Experience Designers and other UMA support teams that can support and enhance the course experience for your learners. The course review must be completed before the start of the semester that the faculty intends to teach it to meet. The process categories below include:
Approval of initial application
Initial check in with LXD
Course development & meetings with LXD
Self-reflection via rubric
Course review
04) UbD Template
When we ask ourselves what our students should learn in our course, or what they should be able to do by time it ends, our answers reflect our learning objectives for the course. These might go something like, "Students will frame problems using multiple mathematical and statistical representations of relevant structures and relationships and solve using standard techniques," or "Write clearly and with purpose on issues of international and domestic politics and public policy." With these sorts of a skills-based objectives in place, though, backward design prompts us further to consider the conditions under which students are most likely to meet these goals: How will students demonstrate their learning? How will we know that they know? The course charter is a sources of course level objectives.
05) UDL Checklist
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.
The UDL principles are based on the three-network model of learning that takes into account the variability of all learners—including learners who were formerly relegated to “the margins” of our educational systems but now are recognized as part of the predictable spectrum of variation. These principles guide design of learning environments with a deep understanding and appreciation for individual variability.
The UDL Guidelines (2012), whose foundation includes over 800 peer reviewed research articles, provide benchmarks that guide educators in the development and implementation of UDL curriculum. These Guidelines serve as a tool with which to critique and minimize barriers inherent in curriculum as educators aim to increase opportunities to learn.
UDL ON CAMPUS - Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education
06) UMA Distance Course Development Checklist
The purpose of this checklist is to provide a consistent, structured distance course development process that facilitates a diverse flow of ideas and valuable feedback between faculty and learning experience designers and others who are partnering to develop a distance course.
In addition to the goals stated in the checklist, through this application process, the checklist is intended to help UMA meet its strategic goals to support faculty in adopting high impact teaching practices, design courses to meet current best practices and ensure ADA compliance, and leverage learning experience design resources through the Faculty Development Center.
See 2021-2025 Strategic Plan. Student Centered Education for A Divers and Digital Future.