Course Design: Planning a Class

Goals

What are your objectives for the class? Perhaps you want to introduce or review specific content. One way to narrow your goals is to focus on concepts that are particularly important, complex, or difficult to understand. Alternatively, you may want the students to acquire new skills, for example, in solving certain problems. If you are clear about your goals for the session, it is easier to make planning decisions about what teaching and learning activities will be useful and how much class time should be allocated to each activity.

Other questions to consider when planning a class include:

• How will I link the information and learning from one class to the next?

• How does this class link across course units?

• How does it bridge with other courses?

Teaching and learning activities

Once you know what you would like the students to learn, you can select activities that will help them acquire the desired knowledge and skills. Activities can include lecturing, discussions, question and answer sessions, brainstorming, quizzes, etc. Activities can take place face to face or online; ideally online activities should be well integrated into the face-to-face aspects of the course and vice-versa.

For more information on activities and strategies for use in the classroom, see our related teaching tips:

• Lecturing Effectively in the University Classroom

• Varying Your Teaching Activities: Nine Alternatives to Lecturing

• Activities for Large Classes

• Active Learning Activities

• Implementing Group Work in the Classroom

• Question Strategies

• Facilitating Effective Discussions

Time management

Time management is one of the most challenging aspects of class planning because it requires that instructors keep track of both in-class and out-of-class time requirements to reach an approximate student workload of 10 hours per week for each course.

When planning use of class time, it is important that the goals are addressed within the available time in a manner that promotes student engagement. In-class activities and topic transitions are excellent ways to provide a change of pace in a lecture. However, it can be difficult to estimate the amount of time required for certain activities. Many of us think we can do a lot more than we can within the time we have, and if you’re going to do any type of in-class group work or discussions, they will often take about 50% more time than your initial estimate. Also consider that the more time you spend on a topic area, the more important the students perceive it to be, and the more they will cover it in preparation for a test or exam.

One way to improve your time management skills is to keep careful track of your in-class timing the first few times you teach a course so that you can make informed adjustments from term to term. Also, consider asking a cross-section of your students about the time needed to complete out-of-class work.

Templates

Class planning templates allow you to quickly make note of your goals, ideas for activities, and time requirements associated with these plans. As a result, they are often a helpful way to organize your thoughts. Furthermore, these written class plans are an easy way to document lectures and tutorial plans for review when planning assignments and examinations and for future revision and reuse.

When planning your own teaching events, feel free to come up with your own template. There’s no one right way to do this. Some people require more information than others. Some like charts, some like paragraphs. The only essential aspect is that the template allows you to quickly jot down enough information that will be useful to you when assessing your teaching, planning assignments, tests and examinations, or designing a future lecture on the same subject.

Sample template

Use the template below to describe pre-class, in-class, post-class, and online student work. Indicate the time estimated for each activity, the topics or concepts being covered, activities for students to learn these concepts (e.g. course readings, brainstorming, lectures, small group discussions, assignments, tests, etc.), resources needed (e.g. audio-visual equipment, handouts, etc.), and the ungraded feedback and graded assessment methods that you will use to evaluate students’ grasp of the key concepts (e.g., questions in class, future test questions, etc.).

Course learning goals related to this class: ________________________

Class date(s): _________________________

TimeTopics/key conceptsTeaching and learning activitiesResourcesFeedback and assessment

Other templates

• Lesson plan template A [PDF] 

• Lesson plan template B [PDF], (OISE, University of Toronto)

• Lesson plan template C [PDF], (Georgian College, Centre for Teaching and Learning)

• Lesson plan template D [PDF], (Education Development Centre, Carleton University)

Resources

CTE teaching tips

• Course Design Heuristic

• Course Design: Questions to Consider

• Course Design: Planning a Flipped Class

Other resources

• Prégent, R. (1994). Charting Your Course: How to Prepare to Teach More Effectively. Madison: Magna Publications, Inc.

• Newble, D. and Cannon, R. (1995). A Handbook for Teachers in Universities and Colleges, third edition. London: Kogan Page Limited.

• Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Ascd.