Course Outlines

A course outline is an essential document and serves multiple functions:

1. It’s a con­tract between stu­dents and their instruc­tor 
2. It’s a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool — it pro­vides key infor­ma­tion (e.g., what stu­dents will learn, how they will be assessed, and impor­tant dates and dead­lines)
3. It helps stu­dents deter­mine whether this course is suit­able for them (e.g., Do the learn­ing objec­tives align with their desired focus?)
4. It’s our first meet­ing with the stu­dents — the course out­line offers a first impres­sion of who we are as instruc­tors
   

All course out­lines at NIC MUST:

1. Fol­low the Autho­rized Course Descrip­tion (ACD). These are avail­able on the NIC SharePoint_ACD page (NIC login required when off cam­pus). The ACD is a doc­u­ment defin­ing the edu­ca­tion­al com­po­nents of a course, which have been approved by the Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil (EdCo). All sec­tions of the course must adhere to the com­po­nents as list­ed in the ACD for that course. ACDs align NIC’s cours­es with trans­fer require­ments or cur­ric­u­la man­dat­ed by exter­nal bod­ies. The edu­ca­tion­al com­po­nents in an ACD include:
   • course code, title, for­mat, cred­it val­ue, lev­el, & pre­req­ui­sites/­co-req­ui­sites
   • course descrip­tion, con­tent, & learn­ing out­comes
   • eval­u­a­tion meth­ods
   • min­i­mum instruc­tor qual­i­fi­ca­tions
2. Fol­low NIC’s #3–35 Course Out­line Pol­i­cy and include:
   • the NIC mast­head
   • the instruc­tor’s name and con­tact infor­ma­tion, includ­ing office hours
   • a ter­ri­to­r­i­al acknowl­edge­ment
   • a timetable or com­pre­hen­sive sched­ule of days indi­cat­ing, as near­ly as pos­si­ble, dates for read­ings, assign­ments, and exam­i­na­tions
   • a brief descrip­tion of the means by which stu­dent per­for­mance will be eval­u­at­ed
3. Include inks to Stu­dent Sup­ports & Ser­vices and key edu­ca­tion­al poli­cies
4. Fol­low key poli­cies at NIC relat­ed to align­ing course out­lines with ACDs. See also Pol­i­cy #3–33 Eval­u­a­tion of Stu­dent Per­for­mance, includ­ing: 
   • Prin­ci­ple #3: Eval­u­a­tion of stu­dent per­for­mance will be aligned with course learn­ing out­comes and is inclu­sive of diverse learn­ing needs
   • Pro­ce­dure #1: The student’s final grade for a course must be com­prised of a min­i­mum of three eval­u­a­tive com­po­nents with no sin­gle eval­u­a­tion worth more than 40%
   • Pro­ce­dure #2: Eval­u­a­tions should be var­ied to ensure stu­dents can meet the course learn­ing out­comes
   • Prin­ci­ple #4: Stu­dents must receive ade­quate feed­back (nor­mal­ly a min­i­mum of 20% of the total grade) in advance of the aca­d­e­m­ic with­draw­al date for their pro­gram.
   • Prin­ci­ple #6: NIC sup­ports stu­dent suc­cess by not per­mit­ting eval­u­a­tions worth more than 10% of their final grade to be assigned in the last week of class­es

Top Tips for the NIC Course Out­line

• Con­sid­er using this tem­plate as a start­ing point: Course-Out­line-Tem­plate_2023SP
• Check with your depart­ment to ensure you have includ­ed all the infor­ma­tion spe­cif­ic to your area
• Con­sid­er ways of includ­ing for­ma­tive assess­ment activ­i­ties 
• Con­sid­er adding a chart out­lin­ing each learn­ing out­come and the aligned assess­ment and learn­ing activ­i­ties to show stu­dents con­nec­tions and mean­ing for their work
• For more ideas, check out:
  • Prin­ci­ples of Assess­ment and Exam­ples
  • 20 Fair, Clear, and Sim­ple Ideas for Assess­ing Learn­ing
  • Eval­u­at­ing Learn­ers: How Much is Enough?
  • Class­room Assess­ment Tech­niques (CATs)
• Refer to NIC’s impor­tant Edu­ca­tion­al Poli­cies (Sec­tion 3) 
• Note on amend­ing course out­lines: Once issued, a course out­line may not nor­mal­ly be amend­ed dur­ing the term of instruc­tion

Crafting an Inclusive Course Outline

An inclu­sive course out­line typ­i­cal­ly begins with a mind­set of cre­at­ing a learn­er-cen­tered approach that pri­or­i­tizes the needs of stu­dents. An inclu­sive course out­line:

• makes all stu­dents feel wel­come
• com­mu­ni­cates to stu­dents that they are active par­tic­i­pants with val­ued per­spec­tives in the class
• reflects how a course is designed with inclu­siv­i­ty in mind

Nine Tips for Cre­at­ing an Inclu­sive Course Out­line

1. Make it visu­al­ly appeal­ing — include white space and avoid too much text
2. Use inclu­sive and affirm­ing lan­guage: explain any jar­gon or acronyms; use plain lan­guage; use a wel­com­ing tone; use gen­der-neu­tral lan­guage; address stu­dents as ‘you’ rather than ‘stu­dents will;’ use ‘invi­ta­tion­al’ rather than com­pli­ance-based lan­guage (e.g., ‘you are invit­ed to’ ver­sus ‘you should’)
3. Include a posi­tion state­ment that acknowl­edges your world­view and expe­ri­ences, and a human­iz­ing intro­duc­tion so stu­dents get a sense of who you are
4. Include your teach­ing phi­los­o­phy and com­mit­ments towards equi­ty, diver­si­ty, and inclu­sion. High­light the ways diver­si­ty and inclu­sion are reflect­ed in the course descrip­tion and learn­ing out­comes
5. Pro­vide a ratio­nale for course learn­ing out­comes, activ­i­ties, and assess­ments. See Align­ing Assess­ment
6. Decol­o­nize the out­line: include a ter­ri­to­r­i­al acknowl­edge­ment; acknowl­edge dif­fer­ent hol­i­days and pro­vide flex­i­bil­i­ty around dead­lines for oth­er hol­i­days
7. Design with acces­si­bil­i­ty in mind: con­sid­er offer­ing mul­ti­ple ways of pre­sent­ing the out­line (video, info­graph­ic); use acces­si­bil­i­ty for­mat­ting that screen read­ers can read
8. Include flex­i­ble and sup­port­ive course poli­cies and highlight sup­port avail­able for stu­dents
9. Let stu­dents know how they can com­mu­ni­cate with you 
10. Align

For more ideas, check out: Cre­at­ing Inclu­sive Course Out­lines