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Course Design

Course Design

Course Design

Idiosyncratic and rooted in fields of study, professions, schools, and universities, syllabi serve a myriad of purposes while remaining a legible expression of what happens in a course. They are both aspiration and necessity; communicating mission-driven purposes and disciplinary aims alongside times, dates, and resources.

Based on Integrating Virtue Together, a signature program of Virtues & Vocations, this is a crash course in integrating a virtue into your class. We orient this work around the syllabus because it serves as a template onto which we cast our curricular aspirations.

Many syllabi include a short description of the course. Often, this is a restatement of the registrar’s description. Consider adding specific language around how you think about the course, why you are teaching it, or what you hope it accomplishes. This is a place on the syllabus where you might consider motivating virtue and character through a narrative about yourself and the course.

Questions to consider while drafting your description

  • Why is virtue ( ___) important for this specific course?
  • Sometimes, the clearest path to integrating character is through reflecting on your university’s mission statement. How does your course advance the university’s mission?
  • What about your course or discipline invites considerations of excellent character?
  • Why are you teaching this course in this way?
  • What is your origin story, and how does it relate to your perspective on this course?

A goal is aspirational for the Instructor. An outcome is an expectation about what a student will be able to do. One way of thinking about a learning goal is to imagine what you hope students will take with them as a result of your class. An outcome is typically more concrete, answering the question: what will a student be able to do?

Questions to Consider

  • Are the specific character excellences, virtues, clearly explicated in your goals and/or objectives?
  • What specific dispositional expectations do you have for students in your class? Where do you describe these for students? 
  • How might you draw inspiration from professional practice or your disciplinary field?
  • What are the aspirations for professionals in your field? What kind of people does your field need?

Though related, there is a difference between assessing the impact of your class on the formation of character in your students and grading student assignments. Assessment of the course involves the students’ growth, but also requires you to consider what the class did to effect change(s) in students. Grading is specific to an assignment and a set of skills the students are developing in completing the task.

Questions to consider

  • When building an assessment, ask yourself: what will reasonably change as a result of this course? Consider the length of the course, the amount of time you dedicate to cultivating new habits, and the other factors that will influence students over the course of the same period. 
  • Concerning grading, have you explained learning objectives in terms of virtues or character strengths that are essential and in development? Have you written the virtues into your rubrics or grading logics? 
  • For example, if curiosity is a virtue that you are hoping to cultivate, have you helped students understand when their thinking appears to be closed/rigid (lacking curiosity) and too open and unfocused (too much curiosity)?
  • How might you incentivize and encourage students to demonstrate both their understanding and their motivations?

Assignments and activities can be conducted in class or organized as homework. The explainer videos, virtue in action documentary shorts, and case studies are all designed to be integrated into your class as either an activity or an assignment. Some sound teaching strategies on which you might muse include: virtue literacy, situational awareness, habit cultivation, sustained reflection, and communal integration.

Questions to Consider

  • How can you weave conversations of character excellence into your existing course content with an invitation to dialogue?
  • Where are you building a shared language around the virtues you’ve integrated?
  • Is there space in your class for students to work together? Do you allow the time students need to form friendships?
  • Where in your course can you think about the virtues in action? Are there areas where you might go deeper with a case study or by viewing a documentary short together?
  • Are there cocurricular possibilities on which you can build?
  • How will you move students from literacy to understanding and embodiment?