3. Course Design in Modern Higher Education: A New Approach
Table of Contents
The university teacher acts as a craftsperson
Designing an effective blended learning course requires more than selecting digital tools or mixing online and face‑to‑face activities. It is a deliberate, evidence‑informed design process in which the university teacher acts as a craftsperson: someone who prepares meaningful learning processes, creates coherent learning environments, and makes pedagogically sound design decisions based on student needs and disciplinary insights.
This website supports university teachers in (re)designing their course by offering a clear structure, practical guidance, and a set of design tools that help you make well‑founded choices. All content is based on Evidence‑based Blended and Online Learning. Course Design for University Teachers (Nedermeijer, 2023) and the website is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
A design task is only a design problem if it cannot be solved by applying standard approaches.
You should not initiate a challenging and intensive design process if you can deduce a solution from your problem description.
A design task should give enough freedom to formulate relevant solutions. The design task should not be too broad. The problem description should not be too small because this might limit your thinking about possible solutions. This means you can miss the best solution.
Meticulous planning of your course design and development process is crucial because…
- Course design tasks will be different.
- The teacher designers’ experience, necessary skills, insights, and attitudes will differ significantly.
The stages in the design process and available support should be adapted to these differences.
What is Course design?
The formal definition of ‘design’ is the plan, structure and strategy of instruction used and conceived to produce learning experiences that lead to pre-specified learning goals (…). Although it is sometimes necessary to do ad hoc design in teaching and research (in response to unanticipated needs and circumstances), a design is created in advance.
Much like the design of a shoe, a painting, a chair, or a spaghetti fork, the design of a course, lesson, or research project is abstract. Initially existing as a concept in the designer’s mind, it is later given tangible form
The design’s quality significantly influences the experiences it provides. It shapes and directs students’ learning experiences within a course or lesson, both overtly and subtly. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the design is measured by the quality of the experiences it facilitates.
They emphasised that design is a crucial element of professional educational practice, bridging theory and practice. The design learning process culminates in the creation of lesson plans, validation documents, and course handbooks.
The primary stages of design are identified as
- Investigation: What are my users, and what do they need? What principles and theories are relevant?
- Application: How should these principles be applied in this case?
- Representation or modelling: What solution will best meet the user’s needs? How can this be communicated to developers and or directly to users?
- Iteration: How does the design withstand the demands of development? How useful is it in practice? What changes are needed?
They describe the design for learning as follows:
‘the process by which teachers (and others involved in support of learning) arrive at a plan or structure or designed artefact for a learning situation or setting’. Possibilities are learning resources and materials, the learning environment, tools and equipment, learning activities and the learning programme or curriculum.
Course designers emphasise the role of design in course development strongly than before. To elaborate on the role of course design in more detail, I have analysed the typical design features in technical design, design thinking, problem-solving, creativity and existing course design models. I utilised these features to enhance the course design and development process, as outlined on this website.
The complete analysis is in Part 4 of my book. Nedermeijer, J. (2023). Evidence-based blended and online learning. Course Design for University Teachers.
The Delft Design Guide outlines state-of-the-art design principles, including perspectives, models, approaches, and methods. Many of the features described in this book are relevant to course and curriculum design.
‘A good design solution is hardly ever a lucky shot, but more likely the result of a thorough design process. Knowing the process gives you a foundation and structure to optimise the results. Following the steps alone is not enough; passion and full dedication are also required to find effective and balanced solutions, as well as create high-quality output.
‘Design is meant to create value!’
Van Boeijen et al. (2020) detail the Basic Design Cycle in the Delft Design Guide as a model that embodies the iterative design process. While the cycle primarily focuses on the design of tangible products, it also applies to various design processes, including course design and development.
The cycle outlines the different phases a designer experiences while addressing a design issue. In theory, a single cycle might suffice. Still, multiple iterations are common in practice—ideally, one would progress in a spiralling manner from a broad concept to a detailed course program.
The Delft Design Guide outlines various design models, methods, approaches and perspectives. These include the design process for product innovation, agile design and development, integrated creative problem-solving, user-centred design, co-design, co-creation and service design. In these frameworks, the phases of the fundamental design model are merged according to situational traits. Indeed, the Snake model is predicated on the basic design cycle. Consequently, I intend to employ this foundational design cycle to formulate my primary design and development strategy.
The practice of evidence-based medicine is a lifelong, self-directed learning process. Caring for our patients requires clinically important information about diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, and other clinical and healthcare issues.
In this process, you should:
- Convert this information into answerable questions.
- Track down the best evidence to answer them (whether from the clinical examination, the diagnostic laboratory, research evidence or other sources) with maximum efficiency;
- Critically appraise that evidence for its validity (closeness to the truth) and usefulness (clinical applicability);
- Integrate this appraisal with our clinical expertise and apply it in practice.
- Evaluate your performance.
Many interesting design features are found in descriptions of design and development activities in different disciplines, like technical design, design thinking, creativity and complex problem solving (Nedermeijer, 2023).
A number of these characteristics are needed in the design component of the course development. As expected, the Technical Design (Van Boeijen et al. , 2020) and Roozenkrans, J. ,2020) give a much deeper insight into the design approach. The formulated design features will be translated into the course design processes in this website.
The various existing course design processes provide a helpful overview of the activities required in the basic course design and development process (Nedermeijer, 2023 and Surf 2023b) Some design models offer visualisation opportunities. However, compared with technical design, the course design approach needs more explanations of the necessary and possible design activities.
- Design is goal-oriented and normative;
- Design is meant to create value;
- The design process is also a learning process for the designer;
- Searching for relevant (new) information is an important source for new ideas;
- There is no best or standard solution;
- Quality criteria are crucial;
- Obstacles are rigid thinking and no realistic targets;
- Reformulation and helpful structuring of the relevant information are necessary;
- Use of visualisation.
Combine three didactical elements in IT-education
In course design, Teacher designers prepare the right combination of F2F teaching and the pedagogical options available through E-learning and self-study activities.
The basic idea is that the teacher designer uses the powerful features of the three teaching and learning activity areas.
The expected results of the design task are
- The teachers have a course in which they can teach optimally.
- The students have a learning environment that enables them to study successfully.
- They utilise the provided learning and practice materials, achieve good test results, and value the course.
Translation of evidence-based design features into the course design context.
- Establishing Direction and Design Intent
- Define the overall structure and phases of the design and development process, acknowledging the complexity of the design challenge.
- Formulate and continuously refine quality criteria and design requirements for the course.
- Identify the core learning processes that should be central to the course experience.
- Formulate a clear and communicable design brief that can be discussed with the educational organisation and stakeholders.
2. Building Insight into the Learning Environment
- Conduct a systematic analysis of pedagogical options and relevant scientific evidence.
- Analyse, structure, and prioritise subject matter, learning outcomes, existing learning activities, and available learning materials.
- Examine organisational requirements and personal design wishes and their implications.
- Continuously update these analyses as new insights emerge during the design process.
- Designing, Testing, and Refining in Practice
- Avoid rigid thinking; prevent defining the design assignment too broadly or too narrowly.
- Reuse existing learning activities and materials where appropriate, identifying where new are required.
- Prototype key elements of the course, test them in practice, evaluate their effectiveness, and refine.
- Use accumulated insights and design outcomes to develop formal course documentation.
4. Communication, Visualisation, and Shared Understanding
- Describe the course design as understandable, attractive and meaningful for both students and colleagues.
- Engage in dialogue and co‑creation with colleagues and students to broaden perspectives and strengthen the design.
- Formulate and visualise design ideas and concepts using diagrams, models, and storytelling.
In a design process, you alternately think of divergence and convergence.
Divergence and convergence thinking are both essential aspects of course design. The divergent side creates possible new pedagogical options for your course design. At the same time, the convergence side makes choices about which ideas are most promising. Before finishing a design activity, always ask yourself: do my ideas fit my educational vision and learning objectives?
Creativity and intuition are vital elements of divergent thinking in a design process. In other words, without creativity and intuition, your DD process will end. Some tips on stimulating your creativity are given in Creativity and Intuition.
In convergent thinking, creativity is essential for adapting or combining promising ideas.
(Roozekrans, 2020) (Van Boeijen et al., 2020).
Emerging idea of your course
During the pDD process, a concept for your course materialises. Initially, you develop the route map, followed by the blueprint, and ultimately, the final program. Gradually, you construct your new course.
The primary inputs that drive this emergent process include pedagogical concepts for IT application, strategies for integrating IT into your course, a systematic portrayal of your course in the diamond diagram and the learning environment.
Different Versions of the Course Design and Development Process
You should adapt your course design process to the complexity of the design task, your experience, and your available time.
In the design situation that the teacher designer or the teacher’s team must design a completely new course, including new course content, didactics, requirements, etc., you can speak of an open problem which asks a lot of your creativity. You can speak of a wicked problem).
The teachers do not have concrete ideas about a possible learning process and environment. It’s a full-fledged design assignment.
The design situation that the teacher has several new ideas for crucial changes in the pedagogical approach for which (s)he redesigned the complete course.
The course content and learning objectives will only change slightly.
For example, implement the idea of ‘blended learning’, ‘active learning’ or AI pedagogical intelligence
The teacher-designers do not yet have clear ideas about the format of the changes. The main aspects of the program will change: there are no simple solutions. The design process is complex and requires a greater depth of knowledge and creativity. The teacher-designer should invest extra time in modifying the current course program.The teacher needs more information about the pedagogical possibilities the pedagogical concept offers.
It is advised to follow the stages of the 10-stage Design and Develmoment process
In design situation that the teacher already has specific ideas for using IT to improve the current course. The maximum of the selected changes is 4 – 7.
Learning objectives and the course content will not change very much.
For this design situation it is adviced to follow the steps of the 6-step Design and Development process.
