Now that you have some clear ideas of your course purposes, your big ideas and enduring understandings, and you have some ideas how your courses fit into the overall degree program, it is time to map your course ideas out.
Course mapping makes visible how your course concepts connect, helping you organize your course more intentionally. You may choose to map your course ideas visually so you can see how concepts connect and group together, helping you organize your course more intentionally.
This matters because it helps you focus on what truly belongs in the course, see how ideas build and relate, and organize content into meaningful clusters or modules. It also helps you spot gaps or unnecessary repetition and strengthen alignment across outcomes, assessments, and activities, making your course more coherent and easier for students to navigate.
Start Fresh with Sticky Notes
Create a fresh visual map that captures the flow and connections of learning in your course. There’s no “right” way to do this—make it work for you!
What you will need:
- Sticky notes (paper or digital)
- Large sheet of paper or digital workspace
- Colored pens or markers
Instructions:
- Write down the knowledge, skills, and attitudes you want students to achieve by the end of the course
- Include any ideas you have for assessments and classroom activities
- Write each idea on a separate sticky note
- Move the sticky notes around to explore relationships
- Draw links between connected ideas
- Create clusters of related concepts
- Build a visual representation that makes sense to you
Starting with Existing Course Materials
If you are re-design an existing course, you have a good idea about what’s in your course, or you know a good textbook you would like to adapt.
If you are designing a new course, you should have a copy of the curriculum proposal form with a syllabus template.
What you’ll need:
- Your current/sample syllabus
- Existing course timeline
- Colored pens or markers
- Extra copies pf your materials (it’s okay to make a mess!)
Instructions:
- Take out your syllabus and timeline
- Start drawing lines and arrows linking similar ideas
- Circle related concepts and create clusters
- Add arrows to show connections and sequences
Questions to consider as you map:
- How do the readings early in the term support activities later?
- How can existing assignments measure students’ learning?
- Are concepts introduced in the proper sequence?
- What’s too much? What’s not enough?
Reflecting on and Refining Your Course Map
In this deeper dive, you’ll move beyond creating your course map to critically reflecting on and refining it. The goal is to step back and examine how well your course assessments and activities align with the learning outcomes from a student’s perspective.
Using your map, focus on:
- Connections: How do your topics and activities relate? Where could links be made more explicit?
- Sequence: Does the order of learning make sense? Are students prepared for what comes next?
- Balance: Are some areas overloaded while others are underdeveloped?
- Alignment: Do your activities and assessments clearly support your learning goals?
- Flow: Does the course feel coherent and manageable from a student perspective?
As we indicated earlier, this stage matters because it helps you focus on what truly belongs in the course, see how ideas build and relate, and organize content into meaningful clusters or modules. It also helps you spot gaps or unnecessary repetition and strengthen alignment across outcomes, assessments, and activities, making your course more coherent and easier for students to navigate.
Want to join a course design cohort?
The Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology (CTLT) hosts annual course design programming.
Consider joining the Journey into Course Design (a two-day workshop where you will explore the four stages of course design: reflecting on situational factors, writing learning outcomes, considering assessment options, and exploring instructional strategies to support learners), or the Course Design Intensive for faculty (a multiday course design program where you will will work in an a supportive atmosphere, both individually and collaboratively, to design or redesign a UBC credit course that you teach or are planning to teach.)
