Course Planning Timeline

By course planning, we refer to what you do to prepare for an upcoming course, tasks during the course, and responsibilities at the conclusion of a course. If you are seeking information about the design of a new course, please explore our instructional design and resources for further reference. 

Months before your course 

Though you're likely busy thinking about midterms and exams for the course(s) you may be teaching now, it's also important to start thinking about upcoming courses. You may want to consider:  

• Finalizing the selection of course materials and reserves.
  
• Beginning your lesson plans for the semester. 
  
• Reviewing your notes or feedback learners offered if you previously taught this course.  
  
• Requesting a consultation if you'd like to discuss enhancement and continued success in your teaching.  
  
• Reviewing your contract and/or academic calendar to note course start and end dates, holidays, and other planned closures. 
  
  

While learners are buying books and reviewing class schedules, you will be wrapping up your course preparations. This involves tasks such as: 

• Preparing/updating a teaching syllabus specific to each course section with an accurate schedule/outline. 
  
• Ensuring that course activities and materials are up-to-date and accessible, adhering to the principles of universal design for learning. 
  
• Making your Blackboard teaching shell available to learners, along with updating information within that shell such as contact information, configuring due dates and graded activities, etc. 
  
• Considering early ways to build community in your course. 
  
• Getting familiar with your teaching space/equipment. If there are any changes or points of assistance needed, bring these to your department, to CIS, or to the Help Desk. 
  
  

Your course will need to be maintained throughout the duration. Though this may include different aspects or approaches when teaching in different formats, locations, or modalities, in most courses you’ll need to:  

• Ensure that you have regular learner-educator, learner-learner, and learner-content interactions. 
  
• Promptly grade and provide feedback (via grade center or box view) on learner work to foster future success.   
  
• Progress Tracking in Blackboard may be helpful to track students’ interactions with online content and activities and help support students' unspoken needs.
  
• Submit significant concerns about a learner's health, well-being, safety, and/or academic success to the CMU Care Team. 
  
• Request a CIS course observation or learner survey to gain in-progress feedback on your course design and teaching methodology.  
  
  

These are tasks that will likely need to be completed at the end of a course or after a course closes: 

• Grading and submitting grades to the Registrar's Office before the due date. 
  
• Downloading the Blackboard grade center, or otherwise archiving grade records for yourself. You may also want to export/archive course content from Blackboard because content is purged.  
  
• Encouraging learners to complete an End-of-Course Survey to find areas that could be improved and/or repeated in future iterations of the course. 
  
• Documenting changes that may need to be made to improve the course for a future semester, or anything that worked exceptionally well. 
  
• Requesting a consultation if you'd like to discuss methods for enhancement and continued success in your teaching.