Professional Certificate Design, Development, and Delivery

This is an all-around project that encompassed multiple stages of design, development, and then delivery as the main instructor.

This is a certificate program for graduate students to prepare them for college teaching. The name of the program was Certificate in University Teaching for Ph.D. Students.

Screenshot of the program’s LMS delivery page

The main goal was to prepare students, whose main background is science and engineering research, to become aware of current teaching and learning principles and have the opportunity to go through applying these concepts during the time of the program.

The program ran for a whole 15-week semester and is scheduled to be recommended for all graduate students.

Design and Development

During the initial phase data was collected and program goals were identified. Based on the program goals received from stakeholders, course learning outcomes were written, revised, and then approved.

The adopted design approach was the backward design where we start with designing assessments based on outcomes, then select content and design activities.

Course Learning Outcomes Mapped to Assessments

  1. Discuss contemporary debates and pedagogical approaches within Higher Education
  2. Demonstrate sound ability to plan and lead student-centered learning activities
  3. Produce constructive evaluations of students’ work with both effective feedback and consistent grading practices
  4. Reflect upon personal values and beliefs about teaching and learning
  5. Incorporate digital learning tools to support the effective adoption of hybrid and online modes of course delivery
AssessmentWeightCourse Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
Learning Principles Test5%CLO1
Teaching Observation25%CLO2 – CLO3
Reading Assignments10%CLO1 – CLO4
Discussion Questions10%CLO1 – CLO2 – CLO3 – CLO4 – CLO5
Journal Entries10%CLO4
Lesson Plan Assignment5%CLO2
Statement of Teaching Philosophy5%CLO4
Evaluation, Feedback, and Grading Test5%CLO3
LMS Capstone Project25%CLO2 – CLO3 – CLO5

Course Units & Schedule

Schedule showing units of instruction and detailed learning activities with assessment due datesDownload

Course Design Highlights

All course units had a section to introduce the unit, highlighting its learning objectives, assessments, and the average workload. Video summaries were used to increase the instructor’s presence and emphasize important parts of the unit
Peer review assessments were implemented to highlight the importance of teachers working together and value the scholarship of teaching and learning
Student help and support were embedded in many places in the design of the course. This example shows a utility by which students can book a consultation session and receive an invitation to a Zoom session in one click

Implementation (Teaching the Course)

Since the course was delivered totally online with 6 times of synchronous online sessions, it was crucial to make sure that students have a strong connection to the course environment with a high level of interaction embedded in the course assessments. It was recognized that the instructor should engage with the content as much as it was expected from students.

Anonymous conversations were allowed to remove barriers and encourage interaction with the instructor and among students

Managing Course Discussions

Discussions were required in every unit of the course and their questions dealt with points raised either in the readings or other assessments.

To highlight originality and variety of responses, posting first was required before reading other participants’ responses.

During the duration of the discussion forum, most of the time I went ahead and posted my contribution and an answer to the discussion question to encourage students to participate.

Students were encouraged to participate by increasing the presence of the instructor on the discussion forum making contributions at the same level or even more than expected from students

Managing Reading Assignments

IF you are teaching yourself, and like nearly all other teachers, you assign readings to your students. Many teachers that readings are rarely done and students will find a lot of alternatives to actually do the reading.

Even if they sat down and opened the book at the required chapter or section, they are passive readers. Conventional readings provide the least amount of interaction if not at all.

The social annotation tool Perusall provided a platform to make reading a social activity

Perusall, which is a somewhat free tool for instructors, can turn readings into a social activity where students can share and comment on their annotations.

A powerful feature of Perusall is that it has its own grading engine that uses AI to determine the quantity and quality of students’ contributions. Perusall will then grade students’ contributions at the end of the activity cycle and send grades back to the LMS if integrated.