By now you should have a clear idea on how your course will flow, but it’s a good idea to write it down and present it in a way that your students will be able to understand, and know what is to come throughout your course. This is called “Course Section Information” or CSI (not to be confused with my favourite show).
The CSI provides guidance on measurable Weekly or Module Learning Objectives, and aligning them with weekly assessments, activities and resources.
The CSI complements the Course Outline you previously created by providing the following:
Section Information
This section indicates the instructor contact information, room number, class day(s) and time(s), etc; these details would be provided to you by the educational institution approximately 2–3 weeks before the course delivery. Those parts of the template can be left blank until then.
Example:
Evaluation Breakdown
This section indicates individual assessments (ex: assignments) by name, their relative value towards the overall course grade, and what the Course Learning Requirements (CLRs) they validate (whereas the Course Outline only gives broad assessment categories such as what all the assignments together are worth and what learning outcomes they collectively validate) See Phase 1 for CLR information if you missed it.
I like having multiple types of assessments, and giving my students many opportunities to achieve throughout the course without overloading their plate. Here I’ve decided to cerate a total of 3 assignments, 5 online assessment quizzes that will test their knowledge after each section of the course, a presentation, a written report, and other ungraded activities that will be listed in the Learning Schedule that will help my students prep for the exams and assignments.
Along with each assignment, I will be creating a marking rubric that will be shared with the students so they are aware of the expectations; this will give them what I call an opportunity to exceed.
Learning Schedule
This section gives a weekly breakdown of topics (lesson titles) and outcomes or subtopics, learning activities, assessment due (by name, number, and percentage weight — all adding up to 100%), resources (ex: textbook readings, links, articles, etc), and CLRs informed by each lesson.
This section I strongly urge you to take the time to ensure a proper flow is created which will reflect on how the students will be exposed to new concepts, and have the opportunities to implement them.
For example: Week 1 of my course learning schedule.
The students will expect to be given a Self-check quiz which has no grade weight as its just a simple quiz for me to review and calculate the class’ median knowledge in Digital Forensics. They will also expect to go over the the weekly themes, learning outcomes, and be presented with their first assessment; all resources being provided to them will be available for their access at any time on the College’s resource platform specific to the course.
I advise to take it one week at a time, and to be aware of the required length for the course, as well as time for midterms and finals (also educational breaks) — review the schedule over and over until it flows and makes sense, rearrange items until it reads like a book, and then proceed.
Other Important Information
This section includes course policies and student responsibilities specific to the section (ex: late submissions, extension requests, attendance, etc) — some of this will be defined by the institute, but this is your course, and so you can dictate how to apply these policies.
The Next Phase
The next step is the best part — its content creation! I’m excited to be sharing this next phase with you all; I believe in the importance of sharing and building the community up together. I always say, “Experts are never created out of thin air”, and I am devoted to building everyone into a Digital Forensic expert.
So let’s get started!
