Program Redesign

On this page you are provided with more details regarding how you may want to think through the redesign a preexisting program. Each of these elements carries a degree of importance to the overall development, implementation, and success of your program. In the case of redesigning programs, we encourage units to take the time to explore each of these elements in their context to look for what changes may be needed and envision what those changes may be. Programmatic changes may be called for due to any number of reasons from content or courses falling out of date to exterior forces requiring them. Whichever the case, you can take the time to consider each of these elements as a group, or the Reinert Center would be happy to provide structured workshops that would lead you through thinking about each of them. Whatever the method you choose, we believe the time afforded this process will benefit learning for your students.

Knowing your students

Consider what characteristics you are seeking for the students  in the program now and if or how they may need to change. Are there skills and knowledge that need to remain unique to your school or program? Are there skills and knowledge that need to be added or updated?

Knowing your program

Consider creating a curriculum map of the program as it is currently written to help everyone who teaches in the program to understand everything that is happening and when. Defining for yourselves what is introduced and when, when it is practiced or enhanced, and when it is achieved can be very important - especially for long established programs with enduring institutional history.

Thinking through unique and overlapping course topics and content via the curriculum map may help identify places in the curriculum where the same topic may be introduced in multiple courses. 

Finally, determine what courses must be taught in-person and what courses could be taught asynchronously online, why those assertions are true, and how each mode would best serve your students' learning. 

Getting to know your current program this well may help you determine what needs to be revised, to what degree, and what may need to stay as it is.

Visioning and Goal setting

When setting out to revise an established program, we recommend reviewing the program goals that are currently in place to determine what has changed. Does anything need to be updated or revised based on the work you've done previously? Thinking about how the program goals are serving the current program and how they may need to change is foundational work for deliberating what courses may need to be replaced or revised and how.

The same is true for program objectives. If there are changes in the program goals, this may necessitate changes in what students need to know and be able to do to be successful in the program and after graduation. 

Changes in the goals and objectives would probably lead to a change to the program assessment(s) and the new or updated course content. We recommend you consider what that might look like.

Keeping in mind any changes may cause a cascade of revisions thereafter, and it may be worth evaluating everything up to this point for alignment.

Meeting goals and objectives

Using your previous work as a foundation, what course topics need to be revised, added or removed to meet our goals, the goals of the program, the expectations of outside accreditors and those of the profession?  Consider identifying courses for significant revision and new development.

Developing Courses

We recommend the same kind of backward design for course redesign and development as you might use for program development. Consider the following process. Identify situational factors. Develop course level goals and accompanying objectives. Design assessments and assignments leading to the meeting of the goals and objectives. Consider creating and documenting the course structure and format and the grading system. Finally, performing a course integration assessment to ensure everything from the situational factors to the grading system is fully aligned with the program goals, objectives and external requirements.