What can I expect as a course participant?

Cost, Prerequisites, and Required Purchases

  • Cost: This course is free.
  • Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for the course.
  • Required Resource Purchases: None.

Time Commitment

During this self-paced course, you will progress through the three course modules containing practice exercises, individual assignments, and group discussion to evaluate and redesign open educational resources (OER) for an important instructional need. To be successful in this course, you should plan to devote at least 24 hours of your time. Like most experiences in life, the worth of this course is related to the time and effort committed to it, and some past participants reported devoting over 40 hours to their projects.

Therefore, while lurkers are welcomed, the experience will be enhanced through active engagement in discussion and personal reflection. Your personal commitment to actively engage in the course will help to support a worthwhile experience for you and others.

Support

  • Course Facilitation: While this course is designed to be self-guided, a team of volunteer facilitators Links to an external site. is here to support your progress through your design project. Given the size of this course, the volunteer course facilitators will not review or grade your individual assignments, but they will be available to answer your questions in our Learner Support Forums (see below). Also, the facilitators will share their perspectives as moderators within the Discussion forums and participate in the optional live Designer Dialogues webcast series (see below).
  • Canvas.net: The Canvas.net platform is our virtual classroom where you will find all course materials, engage in whole-class discussion, and submit your individual assignments. If you have any questions about using the Canvas platform, please review the Canvas User Orientation. 
  • Learner Support Forums
    • Canvas Help Forum: If you have a question about how to use and navigate Canvas and you can't find an answer in the Canvas User Orientation, please post your question in the Canvas Help Forum. If your question regarding the use of Canvas is beyond the scope of our course facilitation team, we may ask that you email the Canvas Network support team for assistance at help@canvas.net.
    • Ask a Subject Matter Expert Forum: If you have a question about this course and/or your design project and want specific input from a member of our volunteer course facilitation team, please post your questions in the Ask a Subject Matter Expert forum.
    • While responses to posted questions in the Learner Support Forums won't be immediate, a volunteer course facilitator will be checking these forums at least once each day.

Course Activities

This course is structured within modules that organize the materials you will review and complete. Each course module includes material for your review and activities to complete related to the instructional design project you are completing. These activities include individual practice exercises and assignments, as well as conversation prompts to ponder within a whole class discussion forum. Given this is a project-based course, we request that you proceed through the course materials in numerical order starting with Module 0 and ending with Module 3. This course is designed to be self-guided, and you will work at your own pace reviewing each module’s materials and participating in the prompted discussions and individual assignments. Note that a link to the list of Modules appears in the left sidebar of each page.

(Optional) Designer Dialogues | Live Webcast Meetups

You have the opportunity to engage in optional live webcasts as part of Designers for Learning's free Designer Dialogues series scheduled on the second Thursday of each month. To register for the free webcasts and view the date/time schedule, head over to the Designers for Learning website Links to an external site.. 

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The purpose of these live informal webcast meetups is to share and compare design ideas with peers, course facilitators, and other subject matter experts. The live online meetups are held using the Zoom webinar platform and the recordings will be posted on the Designers for Learning website after each session Links to an external site.. To help manage the conversation, each live webcast is capped to the first 100 attendees. 

Announcements

The course facilitators will provide periodic announcements that will serve as progress checkpoints. These short announcements from the facilitators will include reminders and updates regarding course progression. Note that a link to the roster of Announcements appears in the left sidebar of each page.