Backward design flips the typical course planning approach. Instead of starting with content, you start with the end: what should students be able to do by the last day of class? From that goal, you work backward — first designing assessments that would prove students got there, then planning the learning experiences that build toward those assessments.

Most courses are built forward. Backward design asks you to start at the end.

What It Is

Backward design is a course planning framework that flips the typical approach. Traditional course design starts with content ("what will I teach?") and figures out assessment at the end. Backward design starts with the end goal and works backward from there.

Traditional vs. Backward Design What It Looks Like in Practice

A professor teaching introductory economics wants students to analyze real-world market behavior using economic theory. Working backward, she determines the best evidence would be a case study analysis — not a multiple choice exam. From there, she designs readings, discussions, and low-stakes practice activities that build toward that analysis. The content she teaches is shaped by what students need to succeed at the final task — not the other way around.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Start with a single question: if students could only do one thing after leaving this course, what should it be? Let that answer determine every subsequent decision — content, assessments, activities. Do not begin with a reading list or a schedule.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Audit the existing materials before the first day. Does the final assessment actually ask students to demonstrate the thing you identified as most important? Redesign at least one assessment to be a clearer demonstration of that goal.
• Existing course you have taught before Look at student work from past semesters. Where did most students struggle? Where did the course design — not the students — set them up to struggle? Use that experience as your backward design data — the gap between what students practiced and what the assessment required is usually where the problem lives.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) Your format shapes what is possible. Identify the essential end goal and work backward from what students can actually achieve in your specific context. Do not try to replicate an in-person course — redesign for the format.

Learning outcomes describe what students will be able to do — not what you will teach. Strong outcomes are observable, student-centered, and use action verbs from Bloom's Taxonomy to signal the appropriate depth of thinking.

The verb you choose signals the depth of thinking you are actually asking for — not just what students will know, but what they will be able to do with it.

Bloom's Taxonomy has six levels, from foundational to complex. Each level has associated action verbs — choose verbs that match the actual cognitive demand of your course.

Level	What Students Do	Action Verbs
Remember	Recall facts and basic concepts	define, list, identify, name, cite, recall
Understand	Explain ideas in their own words	summarize, describe, explain, classify, interpret
Apply	Use information in new situations	use, demonstrate, solve, execute, implement
Analyze	Draw connections, break apart	differentiate, organize, relate, compare, deconstruct
Evaluate	Justify a decision or course of action	judge, defend, critique, assess, prioritize
Create	Produce new or original work	design, assemble, construct, develop, formulate

What It Is

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a six-level framework that categorizes the depth of thinking we ask students to do. It moves from lower-order thinking skills — like recalling facts — to higher-order thinking skills — like creating something original. For course design, it is most useful as a verb tool: each level has associated action verbs that help you write learning outcomes that are specific, observable, and appropriately challenging.

Three Domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy:

• Classification of learning at different cognitive levels
• All levels are important and serve different purposes
• Action verbs help you to create observable learning outcomes

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

All three domains describe real and valuable learning — but the cognitive domain is the primary focus for most course-level learning outcomes. It is where the work of academic learning most visibly happens, and where action verbs most reliably help you write observable, measurable goals. The affective and psychomotor domains matter too, and tend to be especially relevant in disciplines centered on values, professional identity, or physical skill — if your course has meaningful goals in those areas, the frameworks below can help you name them explicitly.

The Six Levels, from foundational to complex

Level	What Students Do	Action Verbs
Remember	Recall facts and basic concepts	define, list, identify, name, cite, recall
Understand	Explain ideas in their own words	summarize, describe, explain, classify, interpret
Apply	Use information in new situations	use, demonstrate, solve, execute, implement
Analyze	Draw connections, break apart	differentiate, organize, relate, compare, deconstruct
Evaluate	Justify a decision or course of action	judge, defend, critique, assess, prioritize
Create	Produce new or original work	design, assemble, construct, develop, formulate

Psychomotor Domain: Doing

Adapting	— Develop your own style and improve your effectiveness — Anticipate, adapt, improve, change, control, diversify, modify, regulate
Practicing	— Make specific, appropriate movements in a situation — Apply, coordinate, demonstrate, employ, execute, imitate, undertake, reproduce, utilize
Perceiving	— Recognize the actions and steps to take in a situation — Find, identify, discern, observe, recognize, target, define, agree, distinguish

Affective Domain: Emotions & Values

Adopting	— Embody values and behaviors that reflect a personal commitment related to a problem — Change, modify, direct, practice, facilitate, accompany, transform
Valuing	— Promote social values and attitudes related to a problem — Choose, debate, approve, argue, challenge, advise, discuss, demonstrate, encourage, influence, defend
Receiving	— Pay attention to and become aware of ideas and problems associated with a specific topic — Accept, associate, define, differentiate, identify, questions, recognize, specify, reflect

What It Looks Like in Practice

A history professor teaching a course on 20th century U.S. foreign policy could write outcomes at multiple levels: students might identify key Cold War events (Remember), explain the political context behind policy decisions (Understand), analyze how domestic politics shaped foreign policy choices (Analyze), and argue for or against a specific policy decision using primary sources (Evaluate). Each outcome is distinct, observable, and signals a different kind of intellectual work — which in turn points toward a different kind of assessment.

A Note on Levels

Higher is not always better. The right level depends on the course, the students, and the purpose. An introductory course may appropriately focus on Remember and Understand. A graduate seminar might be living at Evaluate and Create. The goal is intentionality — knowing why you are asking students to think at a particular level.

Well-Written Learning Outcomes

A strong outcome is: Observable — you can actually see or measure a student doing it. Student-centered — it describes what they do, not what you teach. Appropriately scoped — achievable within one course.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Decide what level of thinking you want students to reach by the end of the course — that is your cognitive ceiling. Then work backward through Bloom’s levels to identify what foundational thinking needs to happen first to get them there. A course that ends with Create needs to build through Apply and Analyze along the way. Write three to five outcomes before writing any content or choosing any readings — let the outcomes determine what belongs in the course, not the other way around.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Look at the existing outcomes or assignment prompts and audit the verbs. Are they mostly at the Remember and Understand level, or do they push into higher-order thinking? If an outcome says “analyze” but the exam asks for recall, that is the misalignment to fix first. Revise the verb — or the assessment.
• Existing course you have taught before Think about where students have historically struggled. Often frustration lives at the Apply or Analyze level — students can recall and explain material but freeze when asked to use it in a new context. If that pattern is familiar, look at whether your outcomes and assessments are actually scaffolding students up through the levels, or jumping to higher-order expectations without building the foundation first. Redesign for the gap — do not just add more content.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) Bloom’s Taxonomy works just as well outside a traditional course. Ask: by the end of this, what do I want participants to be able to do with what they have learned — not just what do I want them to know? That distinction will push you out of Remember and Understand and toward Apply and above. Also consider which outcomes depend on synchronous discussion or in-person practice — and what alternative scaffolding you will put in place to support them in your specific format.

Course alignment means your learning outcomes, assessments, and learning activities all point in the same direction. If students spend the semester doing grammar drills but are assessed on argument structure, the course is misaligned — and students pay the price.

When a course is misaligned, students can work hard all semester in the wrong direction — and often do not find out until the assessment arrives.

A simple way to check alignment is to ask three questions for every major component of your course:

What It Is

Course alignment means that your learning outcomes, assessments, and learning activities all point in the same direction. Each element should connect: activities build the skill, assessments measure it, and outcomes name it.

What Misalignment Looks Like

A writing professor has an outcome that students will construct well-supported arguments. Her assessment is a research essay. But students spend most of the semester doing grammar drills. The activities do not build toward the assessment — that is misalignment.

A simple way to check alignment is to ask three questions for every major component of your course:

What It Looks Like in Practice

A writing professor has a learning outcome that states students will be able to construct a well-supported argument using credible sources. Her major assessment is a research essay. And throughout the semester, students practice evaluating sources, writing thesis statements, and peer-reviewing each other’s argument structure. Each element connects — the activities build the skill, the assessment measures it, and the outcome names it. If instead her students spent most of the semester doing grammar drills and then were assessed on argument structure, the course would be misaligned — the activities would not be building toward what the assessment requires.

Aligned Course

How to Use the Grid

For each outcome, identify: What assessment would tell you a student has achieved it? What activities would prepare them to do it? If an outcome has no assessment, something is missing. If an activity does not connect to any outcome, consider whether it belongs.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Use the alignment grid as your primary design tool — not just a check at the end. Start with outcomes, then ask what evidence would prove a student achieved each one, then ask which experiences would prepare them to produce that evidence. Build the course in that order and alignment is built in from the beginning.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Look at the final assessment or major project and trace it backward — which skills or knowledge does it require? Now look at the rest of the course: are those skills being taught and practiced? Fill in the grid and look for empty cells. Any gap between what the assessment demands and what the course provides is your alignment problem to close before the first day of class.
• Existing course you have taught before Look at student performance patterns with fresh eyes. Where did students consistently underperform? Often that is not a student learning problem — it is a design and alignment problem. The assessment was asking for something the course did not adequately prepare them for. Use the grid to map what you have, then find those gaps.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) Alignment matters even more when contact time is limited — map only what is essential and ensure everything earns its place. It is also easy for non-traditional formats to drift toward activities that feel engaging but do not connect to the stated outcome. The grid keeps that drift visible.

AI tools are already part of your students’ learning environment — whether or not you have addressed them in your syllabus. The question for course design is not whether AI is present, but how you will design with that reality in mind. AI can play four distinct roles in a course — and understanding those roles is the first step toward making intentional choices.

An intentional AI policy — even a simple one — is better than silence. Students already know what the rules are when you say nothing.

What It Is

AI tools are increasingly present in higher education — in how faculty design courses, how students complete work, and how institutions think about academic integrity and the nature of learning itself.

This section is not about whether AI belongs in your course. That is a decision only you can make, based on your discipline, your students, your learning outcomes, and your own values as an educator. What this section offers is a framework for thinking it through — so that if and when you decide to integrate AI, you are doing it intentionally rather than reactively.

If AI integration does not serve your learning outcomes, it is not worth adding. The backward design logic applies here too. Start with what you want students to be able to do — and let that drive any decision about whether and how AI fits in.

The Four Roles AI Can Play in a Course

AI as a tool for faculty — AI can support the course design and teaching process itself, behind the scenes. This is perhaps the most immediately accessible entry point for faculty who are curious but not yet ready to integrate AI into student-facing work.
Think: drafting assignment prompts, generating rubric language, creating discussion questions, building study guides, giving feedback on syllabus clarity, brainstorming diverse examples and perspectives.

AI as a learning scaffold for students — AI supports students in building understanding — as a tutor, an explainer, or a practice partner. The key distinction here is between AI that deepens comprehension and AI that bypasses it. When used as a scaffold, AI helps students prepare to do the thinking, not skip it.
Think: asking AI to explain a concept multiple ways, having students use it to generate practice problems or quiz themselves, using it to check their understanding before class discussion.

AI as course content — AI becomes the subject of study itself. This role is more discipline-specific — it will feel natural in some courses and forced in others.
Think: courses that examine AI’s social, ethical, or technical dimensions; assignments that ask students to critically evaluate AI outputs; media literacy work around AI-generated content; exploring AI’s implications within a specific field or profession.

AI as a collaborator in student work — AI is embedded in the student’s production process — drafting, revising, generating options — with the expectation that students document their choices and make their own judgment visible. The design challenge here is structuring that workflow so AI amplifies student thinking rather than replacing it.
Think: students use AI to draft, revise, or generate options — then document what they kept, what they changed, and why — so their judgment is visible in the final product.

Academic Integrity and AI Policy

Familiarize yourself with AU’s official AI Policy:

With the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools — such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, and other applications known as large language models (LLM) or generative AI applications — into university activities and existing platforms, it is essential to use these technologies responsibly. The following guidance outlines acceptable practices for utilizing AI tools while safeguarding institutional, personal, and proprietary information. This guidance will be updated over time to reflect changes in the regulatory environment, industry standards, and technology.

What It Looks Like in Practice

A writing professor decides that AI is appropriate for brainstorming and outlining but not for drafting prose. She builds a structured workflow into her assignments: students use AI to generate an initial idea map, annotate it with their own thinking, then write a first draft without AI assistance. The assignment asks students to submit both the AI output and a short reflection on how their thinking diverged from it. The AI becomes part of the learning process — not a shortcut around it — and the reflection makes the intellectual work visible.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course You have the opportunity to design your relationship with AI into the course from the start. Sit with two questions: what do I want students to be able to do by the end of this course, and is there a role for AI in helping them get there — or in demonstrating that they have? Let your outcomes drive the answer, not the other way around. Then build in process-oriented elements that AI cannot complete — reflection, iteration documentation, oral defense components, or locally situated content that requires the student’s own experience and judgment.
• Existing course you have not yet taught The course likely has no AI policy, or one that was not written with current tools in mind. Look at the major assignments and ask: where are students most likely to reach for AI, and what would that mean for the learning you are hoping they do? Audit your existing assessments for AI vulnerability — identify one or two that could be redesigned to leverage AI productively, or to assess skills that go beyond what AI can do. You do not need to redesign everything at once.
• Existing course you have taught before You may already be seeing AI in your students’ work — invited or not. Use that experience as data. Where did it produce more interesting thinking? Where did it short-circuit the learning you were hoping for? Ask students directly how they used AI in your course. Those observations are the best starting point for writing a policy grounded in what actually happens in your course — and for redesigning assignments to be more transparent, more process-oriented, or more authentically disciplinary.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) AI is just as relevant to workshops, professional development, and community-based experiences as it is to credit-bearing courses. Think about whether AI tools could enhance participant engagement or preparation — and whether the experience itself should address AI as a topic, a tool, or both. For online and hybrid formats, consider that students may have fewer proctored moments — build in more formative, reflective work that documents their own thinking throughout the process, not just at the end.

Formative assessments happen during learning — ongoing checkpoints that help you and your students understand where they are. Summative assessments happen at the end of a unit or course — they measure what students have achieved. Authentic assessments ask students to apply knowledge in real or realistic contexts, rather than just recalling and reproducing it.

Most courses are heavy on summative and light on formative — students arrive at the high-stakes moments without enough practice runs to prepare them.

What It Is

Assessments are how you gather evidence that learning has happened.

Formative vs. Summative

There are two broad categories worth understanding.

Formative assessments happen during the learning process. They are building blocks, ongoing checks that help both you and your students understand where they are and what needs attention before it is too late to adjust.
Think: exit tickets, drafts, in-class discussions, low-stakes quizzes, peer review.

Summative assessments happen at the end of a unit, module, or course. They measure what students have ultimately achieved against the learning outcomes.
Think: final papers, projects, presentations, exams, portfolios.

A well-designed course has both — formative assessments that build toward and prepare students for summative ones, not a series of high-stakes moments with no scaffolding in between.

A third concept worth knowing is authentic assessment — assessments that ask students to apply knowledge in real or realistic contexts, rather than just recalling or reproducing it. Authentic assessments tend to be more meaningful to students and more revealing of actual learning.
Think: case studies, community-based projects, simulations, professional-style deliverables.

Assessment Types

Transparent Assignment Design

Clarify expectations and help students understand how and why they are learning course content in particular ways. Transparent Assignment Design includes:

Assessments benefit students when you:

• Use a variety of assessment types
• Provide student choice in topic and/or modality
• Scaffold assessments to support student learning
• Provide support on the skills required to complete the assignment
• Create transparent assignments with a purpose, task(s), and criteria
• Use rubrics to clarify expectations for performance and evaluation

What It Looks Like in Practice

A communications professor has a summative final assessment: a professional pitch presentation. Throughout the semester, she builds in formative checkpoints — a one-paragraph pitch draft in week three, a peer feedback round in week six, a recorded practice run in week ten. Each formative moment prepares students for the final summative assessment, and students arrive at the presentation having already wrestled with the work multiple times. The final assessment is authentic — it mirrors something they might do in a professional context — and the formative scaffolding means it is measuring real learning, not just who performs best under pressure.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Start by identifying one or two major summative assessments — the moments where students will demonstrate they have achieved the course outcomes. Then ask: what formative checkpoints would prepare them to succeed at those moments? Build backward from your summative assessments to design a scaffolded sequence. Every summative assessment should have at least one formative predecessor — a moment where students practice the core skill before it is graded at high stakes. Do not add assessments for the sake of grading — every assessment should serve a purpose in the learning arc.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Look at the full assessment picture: how many assessments are there, and what type are they? Is the course heavy on high-stakes summative assessments with little formative scaffolding? Is everything a quiz or exam when the outcomes call for application and analysis? Count the ratio of formative to summative opportunities and map what exists before trying to change anything — you need to see the full picture first.
• Existing course you have taught before Think about the assessments that have felt least revealing — where student performance did not actually tell you much about their learning. Often those are assessments that were not well-aligned to outcomes, or that measured recall when the outcome called for something higher-order. Take one of those as your redesign target: add a formative checkpoint that gives students practice on exactly the skill the summative assessment requires — not just general preparation.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) For workshops, trainings, or community-based experiences, formative assessment often looks like structured reflection, discussion, or a brief application activity mid-session. You may not think of these moments as assessments — but any time you are checking whether learning happened, that is assessment. Name it intentionally. For online and asynchronous formats, build in regular touchpoints so students do not go weeks without feedback or a chance to practice before high-stakes moments arrive.

Effective feedback has four qualities: it arrives when students can still use it (timely), it names specifically what is strong or needs work (specific), it tells students what to do next (actionable), and it points toward future work — not just the piece in front of them (feed-forward).

Feedback that arrives after the final grade is posted is usually too late to matter. The goal is to build in feedback loops — not just end-points.

Feedback Principles

What It Is

Feedback is only useful if students can do something with it.

Research on effective feedback consistently points to three qualities that make the difference between feedback that gets filed away and feedback that actually changes how students work:

Timely — Feedback delivered too long after the work was done loses its impact. Students have moved on mentally, and the window to apply it has often closed. The closer feedback is to the moment of learning, the more useful it is.

Specific — Vague feedback (“good work” or “needs improvement”) does not give students a foothold for growth. Specific feedback names what is working and what is not — with enough precision that a student knows exactly what to revisit or change.

Actionable — Feedback should point forward, not just evaluate the past. Rather than simply noting what went wrong, effective feedback gives students a clear direction: what to do next, what to try differently, what to look at again. This applies to positive feedback too — telling a student their argument is strong is only useful if they know why it is strong and can replicate it. If a student reads your feedback and does not know what to do with it, it has not served its purpose.

A fourth principle worth keeping in mind is feed forward — the practice of giving feedback on in-progress work that students will actually revise and resubmit, rather than only on finished products. When feedback comes after the final submission, it evaluates. When it comes during the process, it teaches.

You can have different modalities of feedback before the final grading. But when it comes to grading, it is important to remember its purpose.

There are multiple roles that grades can serve:

• A means of evaluating student work against clearly defined criteria
• A way of communicating to students, graduate schools, professional schools, and future employers about a student’s performance
• A source of feedback to students and instructors on learning and course design
• A way of motivating students to engage with and complete important course work

Rubrics are guidelines/criteria/expectations to assess student performance and provide feedback.

What It Looks Like in Practice

A sociology professor returns a draft essay with comments that read: “Your argument in paragraph three is not connecting to your thesis — try re-reading both and asking yourself what the logical link is. The evidence you have chosen is strong; the analysis sentence after each quote needs to do more work explaining why it matters.” This feedback is timely (on a draft, before the final is due), specific (paragraph three, the analysis sentences), and actionable (a concrete next step for revision). The student knows exactly where to look and what to do.

Feedback Principles

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Build feedback moments into the course design from the start — not as an afterthought. For each major summative assessment, ask: is there at least one formative moment before it where students receive feedback they can act on? If not, add one. Even a brief peer review round or a low-stakes draft submission builds that feedback loop. And if there is no next submission after a feedback moment, consider whether that feedback is actually serving any purpose at that point in the arc.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Look at when feedback currently appears in the course. Is it mostly at the end of major assignments — after students have already been graded and moved on? If so, map out a more distributed feedback schedule and identify at least one place where you could introduce feedback earlier in the process, before the stakes are high. A small shift in timing can significantly change how students engage with feedback.
• Existing course you have taught before Think honestly about the feedback you have given in the past — was it sustainable for you? Did students actually use it? Often faculty find themselves writing extensive comments that students never read, or giving feedback so late in the semester it no longer matters. Ask students where they most needed feedback and did not get it. Use that data alongside your own experience to redesign your feedback timing and format — and consider whether peer feedback and self-assessment tools could expand what students receive without adding unsustainably to your workload.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) In workshops, trainings, and community-based experiences, feedback often happens in real time — through discussion, facilitation, and group reflection. Think about whether that feedback is structured enough to be useful: is it specific? Does it point participants toward something they can do differently? A debrief question that asks “what would you do differently next time?” is a simple way to make informal feedback more actionable. For high-enrollment or asynchronous formats, design structured peer review into the course from the start — with explicit criteria and sentence-level guidance, not just “give your partner some feedback.”

Instructional strategies are the methods you use to create active learning experiences — how students engage with content, with each other, and with you. The most effective strategies match the cognitive demand of your outcomes: if you want students to analyze, give them something to analyze — not just listen to an analysis.

Choosing a strategy is not about variety for its own sake — it is about matching the method to the outcome you are trying to achieve.

Three categories worth knowing:

Active learning — Students engage with content through activities that require them to think, respond, or apply rather than just listen or read. The goal is to move students from passive reception to active processing.
Think: think-pair-share, problem-solving in class, case analysis, in-class writing, polling.

Discussion-based learning — Students construct understanding through structured dialogue with each other and with ideas. Works especially well for complex, contested, or interpretive content where there is not one right answer.
Think: Socratic seminar, structured academic controversy, fishbowl discussion, debate.

Experiential learning — Students learn through doing, then reflecting on and connecting that experience to theory. Tends to produce durable learning because it is grounded in something students have actually lived.
Think: community-based projects, internships, simulations, service learning, field work, role play.

What It Is

Instructional strategies are the deliberate methods you use to help students engage with, process, and retain course content.

The research on learning consistently shows that students learn more deeply when they are actively doing something with content — not just receiving it passively. Choosing a strategy is not about variety for its own sake; it is about matching the method to the outcome you are trying to achieve.

Three categories worth knowing:

Active learning — Students engage with content through activities that require them to think, respond, or apply rather than just listen or read. The goal is to move students from passive reception to active processing.
Think: think-pair-share, problem-solving in class, case analysis, in-class writing, polling.

Discussion-based learning — Students construct understanding through structured dialogue with each other and with ideas. Works especially well for complex, contested, or interpretive content where there is not one right answer.
Think: Socratic seminar, structured academic controversy, fishbowl discussion, debate.

Experiential learning — Students learn through doing, then reflecting on and connecting that experience to theory. Tends to produce durable learning because it is grounded in something students have actually lived.
Think: community-based projects, internships, simulations, service learning, field work, role play.

Active Learning Strategies

Strategy	Description
3-2-1 Reflection / What?, So What?, Now What?	Learners respond to three questions: “What?”, “So What?”, and “Now What?” — “What?” tasks them to describe three things they learned; “So What?” tasks them to describe why those are important; and “Now What?” tasks them to decide what they will do now that they have this information. There are many variations of this type of reflection, which prompts students to summarize and set actionable next steps.
Activating Prior Knowledge	Get learners to share their current ideas based on personal experience or prior schooling. Allows the teacher to gauge where learners are, and students can be reminded of what they already know so they can build off that.
Case Studies	Case studies allow learners to apply course concepts to real-life situations or scenarios. They encourage active learning by presenting learners with authentic and open-ended problems or challenges to analyze, discuss, and solve.
Choice	Giving learners personal choice supports motivation. Allowing individuals or groups to choose a topic to explore can increase connection to content, and therefore increase engagement and retention of material. Offering choices also supports the UDL strategy of providing multiple means of action & expression.
Connect-Extend- Challenge	After engaging with a text, video, or other source material, learners reflect on three prompts — Connect: How are the ideas and information presented connected to what you already knew or believed? Extend: What new ideas did you get that extended or broadened your thinking in new directions? Challenge: What challenges or puzzles have come up in your mind from the ideas and information presented? This is one of many “Thinking Routines” that help to reveal learners’ thinking to the teacher and help learners develop these critical thinking skills to apply in other contexts.
Exit Ticket	Learners summarize, synthesize, apply, and/or ask questions at the end of class. This individual reflection is a formative assessment that benefits learner and teacher. Learners retain the information by actively processing at the end of a learning experience. Teachers have a better sense of where learners are, what questions they have, and if there is anything to revisit.
Free Write	Instructors pose a question or prompt, and learners briefly and quickly write their thoughts about the prompt. This can be used as a warm-up to prepare learners for the class session; a jumping-off point for discussions so learners can consider ideas before sharing in a group; a reflective pause for learners to synthesize information; or any other moment when a pause would be helpful.
Interactive Lecture	Lecture/direct instruction can be helpful and necessary if learners are prompted to actively engage with the material as it is being presented. It is important to present information in small chunks, ask prompting questions, and integrate active learning reflections and activities throughout any lecture portion.
Jigsaw	Learners become “experts” on a specific text or concept and deepen their understanding through collaboration and teaching their peers. Jigsaw typically has learners form small expert groups, then these groups disband and reform as “home” groups and share what they learned in their expert groups. This exercise can be an effective strategy for reviewing course readings or helping learners digest a large amount of course content.
Metacognitive Reflection	Through metacognition, learners reflect on the learning process and how they are (or are not) progressing or meeting course learning outcomes. Many who employ ungrading practices heavily use metacognitive self-reflection to support student learning. You may also see these referred to as “thinking about thinking.”
Mindfulness / Contemplative Pedagogy	Through refined attention techniques — such as breathing exercises, guided meditation, noticing, drawing, journaling, and guided imagery — learners can offset distractions, focus on the present, and prevent stress and burnout (e.g., reduce test anxiety).
Pause & Reflect / Apply	Simply pausing for a few minutes can allow learners to synthesize and incorporate material that was just covered in class. It slows the pace of the course and allows learners a chance to digest what was just discussed.
Peer Review	Learners review work from fellow learners. This activity gives learners an opportunity to see what their peers are writing or thinking about, which can help inform their own work. Peer reviews also help alleviate some of the feedback responsibility of instructors, if scaffolded correctly.
Quizzes	For the instructor, quizzes are a quick and efficient way to check for learners’ understanding. For learners, quizzes provide an opportunity to check in on their progress as well as receive personalized feedback. Practicing and applying material also supports long-term knowledge retention.
Warm Up	Setting aside intentional time to “warm up” to the topic at the start of a class or session establishes context and connects to learners’ prior knowledge and experiences. An interactive warm up also sets the expectation that the session will be collaborative and interactive. You can engage learners at the start by capturing their attention and curiosity with a “hook,” helping them make connections to prior experiences (academic or personal), or asking them to share beliefs and expectations about a topic.
Think-Pair-Share	Students first consider a prompt independently, then discuss their thinking with a partner before sharing with the larger group. This three-step structure lowers the stakes of participation — students have time to form their own ideas before being asked to contribute in front of the class. It is one of the lowest-barrier active learning strategies available and works well at any point in a session to quickly surface student thinking and check for understanding.
Concept Mapping	Students create visual diagrams that map relationships between ideas, concepts, or terms — showing not just what they know, but how they understand things to connect. Concept mapping is a metacognitive tool as well as a comprehension check: the act of building the map surfaces misconceptions and forces students to articulate connections they might otherwise leave implicit. Works well at the beginning of a unit to activate prior knowledge or at the end to consolidate learning.

Discussion-Based Strategies

Strategy	Description
Chalk Talk (a.k.a. Silent Discussion)	Learners add ideas silently to posters or collaborative digital documents in response to prompts. Because it is done in silence, it gives students a change of pace, encourages thinking, and allows for more equity in participation by including those who might be shy or need more time to process their thoughts. In person, this can be done using whiteboards or large sheets of paper. Online or in person, it can be done digitally using interactive tools such as Google Slides, Google Docs, or Padlet.
Collaborative Norm Generation	Developing collaborative norms allows learners and instructors to set the stage for an equitable and inclusive classroom by generating guidelines for classroom interaction. Learners may be more likely to follow the guidelines if they had some say in developing them. You can also reference them throughout the semester and check in to see if anything needs to change. They can also be used for accountability if someone in the classroom violates the norms.
Jigsaw	Learners become “experts” on a specific text or concept and deepen their understanding through collaboration and teaching their peers. Jigsaw typically has learners form small expert groups, then these groups disband and reform as “home” groups and share what they learned in their expert groups. This exercise can be an effective strategy for reviewing course readings or helping learners digest a large amount of course content.
Peer Review	Learners review work from fellow learners. This activity gives learners an opportunity to see what their peers are writing or thinking about, which can help inform their own work. Peer reviews also help alleviate some of the feedback responsibility of instructors, if scaffolded correctly.
Small-Group Discussion	Learners discuss open-ended questions in groups of 3–5 to dig deeper into a concept, which could be related to pre-class readings or homework. It is helpful to establish discussion norms prior to the activity to ensure an inclusive and equitable experience. Depending on the purpose of the activity, learners might be grouped randomly or purposefully (e.g., those who share interest in a specific topic).
Socratic Seminar	Students lead a structured discussion organized around a central text, question, or idea, while the instructor facilitates without taking positions or directing the conversation. The goal is for students to build understanding collaboratively — questioning, challenging, and refining each other’s thinking. Works especially well for close reading and interpretive content where there is no single right answer and where the process of reasoning matters as much as the conclusion.
Structured Academic Controversy	Students are assigned a position on a contested issue — regardless of their personal views — and build the strongest possible case for that position. Midway through, they switch sides and argue the opposing view, then work toward a synthesized position that takes multiple perspectives seriously. By requiring students to argue positions they may not hold, the strategy builds empathy, intellectual flexibility, and the ability to engage seriously with views different from their own.
Fishbowl	A small inner circle of students engages in active discussion while an outer circle observes, taking notes on content, reasoning, or the dynamics of the conversation. After a set amount of time, the circles switch. The fishbowl structure creates accountability for listening — not just speaking — and gives students a model of what substantive academic discussion looks and sounds like before they participate themselves.
Philosophy Chair / Forced Choice	Students physically position themselves along a spectrum from strongly agree to strongly disagree in response to a statement or question, then must articulate and defend why they chose their position. Because the activity is embodied and visible, it surfaces the full range of views in the room and makes disagreement a productive feature of the learning environment rather than something to avoid. Works well for surfacing nuance on complex questions and for showing students that reasonable people can hold different positions.

Experiential Strategies

Strategy	Description
Community-Based Learning	Students apply course concepts by engaging directly with a community organization, partner, or issue outside the classroom. This grounds abstract content in real-world context and creates reciprocal value between the course and the community.
Reflective Practicum	Students engage in a hands-on task, field observation, or applied activity and then reflect on what they did, what they noticed, and how it connects to course concepts. The reflection is as essential as the doing — it is what transforms experience into learning.
Role Play / Simulation	Students take on roles or participate in a structured scenario that mirrors a real-world situation relevant to the course. This allows students to practice skills, decision-making, and perspective-taking in a low-stakes environment before encountering similar situations professionally or personally.
Studio / Lab / Workshop Practice	Students learn by making, building, or experimenting — iterating through drafts, prototypes, or experiments with feedback woven into the process. Common in design, science, and arts disciplines, but applicable anywhere students benefit from learning through production.
Problem-Based Learning	Students work through an open-ended, real-world problem that has no single correct answer — often drawn directly from disciplinary practice or from a genuine challenge in the field. Rather than applying a formula, students must identify what they know, determine what they need to find out, and work collaboratively toward a reasoned solution. Problem-based learning builds disciplinary thinking habits and develops students’ tolerance for ambiguity — the capacity to keep working when the answer is not clear.
Research-in-Practice	Students conduct original inquiry as part of the course — designing questions and gathering data through interviews, observations, or other fieldwork. Rather than only consuming existing knowledge, students are positioned as producers of it, working through the actual processes of their discipline rather than learning about those processes abstractly. Especially powerful for courses where students may go on to conduct research professionally or academically.

What It Looks Like in Practice

A public health professor has a learning outcome that asks students to analyze how social determinants of health affect community outcomes. Rather than lecturing through a set of case studies, she uses a jigsaw activity: small groups each become “experts” on a different community — rural, urban, suburban, tribal — then regroup so each new group includes one expert from each community. Students teach each other, surface comparisons, and build toward a shared analysis. The strategy is active and discussion-based, and it mirrors the kind of cross-context thinking the outcome demands. The method serves the goal.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course For each major learning outcome, ask: what would students need to do in order to develop that skill or understanding? Let the outcome drive the strategy choice rather than defaulting to what is familiar. A course built around analysis and evaluation probably needs more discussion-based and experiential moments than a course built around foundational knowledge. Choose two or three strategies that fit your disciplinary context — do not try to use everything — and build them in explicitly, with enough structure that students know what to expect and why.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Look at a typical week in the course. How is class time currently being used? If the majority of it is lecture or content delivery, identify one moment where you could shift students from receiving to doing — even a small discussion prompt or a brief application activity can change the energy and depth of learning. Also ask: are the strategies you are using actually preparing students for what the assessments require? If students are listening but the assessment requires them to analyze, the activity is not doing its job.
• Existing course you have taught before You already know which activities generate energy and which ones fall flat — use that knowledge as data. Ask yourself: when students were most engaged, what were they doing? When they were least engaged, what were they doing? The pattern will tell you which strategies are working and which ones need rethinking. Identify one session to redesign — you do not need to overhaul the whole course.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) Instructional strategies apply just as much to workshops and trainings as to semester-long courses. Are participants passively receiving information, or actively doing something with it? Even a 60-minute professional development session can incorporate active learning — a short case analysis, a structured pair discussion, or a reflective application activity can shift participants from audience to learner. For online and hybrid formats, think about which strategies translate: Jigsaw works asynchronously with assigned readings and structured group posts; Think-Pair-Share can be adapted to discussion boards; simulations and role plays can run in synchronous video sessions or be designed for asynchronous participation with structured reflection.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) asks you to proactively reduce unnecessary barriers in your course. It works across three principles: Representation (how content is delivered), Action & Expression (how students demonstrate learning), and Engagement (how students are motivated to learn).

The goal is not to remove rigor — it is to remove obstacles that have nothing to do with the learning itself. A student juggling work, caregiving, or a learning difference should not struggle because of how the course is structured.

UDL Principles

What It Is

Universal Design for Learning is a framework for designing learning experiences that work for the full range of students from the start — not as an afterthought or accommodation.

The core idea is that variability is the norm, not the exception. Students differ in how they access information, how they demonstrate understanding, and what motivates them to engage. UDL asks us to anticipate that variability and build flexibility into the course by design.

The Three UDL Principles

Representation — Multiple Means of Engagement with Content: Provide content in more than one format. Not every student processes written text the same way. Consider: video alongside readings, visual diagrams, concept maps, glossaries for discipline-specific vocabulary, and audio versions of key materials. The goal is not to create more work — it is to make the same content accessible through different pathways.

Action & Expression — Multiple Means of Demonstrating Learning: Give students more than one way to show what they know. Not every student communicates best in the same format. Consider: choice of medium (written, oral, visual, creative), scaffolded assignments that build toward a final product, and opportunities to practice before high-stakes submission.

Engagement — Multiple Means of Motivating and Sustaining Learning: Provide multiple entry points for student motivation and sustained attention. Connect content explicitly to students’ lives, goals, and disciplines. Build in peer collaboration. Create low-stakes opportunities to take risks, make mistakes, and reflect. Give students some degree of choice or autonomy in how or what they explore.

An Important Clarification

UDL is not about lowering standards or giving everyone a different experience. It is about removing unnecessary barriers — the ones that have nothing to do with whether a student has mastered the content, and everything to do with how the course is structured.

A student who processes information better through audio than text is not less capable — they are differently wired. UDL says: design for them too, from the start.

What It Looks Like in Practice

A history professor teaching a unit on the Civil Rights Movement offers students a choice of primary sources to analyze — written documents, photographs, or audio recordings — all pointing toward the same analytical outcome. She posts the sources before class so students can engage at their own pace. In class, students discuss in small groups, then contribute to a shared annotation document the whole class can see. The final assessment offers two options: a written analysis or a recorded discussion. No single student’s experience looks identical — but all are working toward the same outcome, and none are disadvantaged by the format of the course itself.

UDL Principles

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Apply the UDL lens from the start rather than retrofitting it later. Use the checklist below before you finalize your course plan — identify at least one item in each UDL category to build in from the beginning. Ask yourself: am I assuming one way of doing this, or am I building in flexibility? Even small early choices — posting readings in advance, offering two ways to submit an assignment — add up to a significantly more accessible course. Small additions at the design stage cost far less than reactive accommodations later.
• Existing course you have not yet taught Work through the checklist for your existing course plan and flag any category with no items checked — that category is your first priority. Also look at the course materials through the lens of access: who might struggle to engage with this content — not because of the ideas, but because of how it is delivered? Students with disabilities, students who work full time, students who are first-generation, students who speak English as a second language — where might this course put up unnecessary barriers? Even one change in a flagged category meaningfully expands access.
• Existing course you have taught before Look at accommodation requests from past semesters — which ones come up repeatedly? Those are structural barriers to design out proactively rather than address student by student. Also think about the students who struggled most and ask: was it the content that was hard, or was it the format? Students who consistently underperform on written exams but excel in discussion, or who fall behind on readings but engage deeply in class, are often telling you something about a UDL gap. Use the checklist to find where those gaps live.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) UDL is just as relevant to workshops and professional development as it is to credit-bearing courses. Think about the full range of people likely to be in the room — different accessibility needs, learning preferences, and prior experience with the material. Who might this leave out, and what would it take to include them? For online and hybrid formats: ensure captions on all video content, structure module pages with clear headers and navigation, and build in peer connection points — asynchronous formats can inadvertently create isolation.

Civic discourse is the practice of engaging with contested ideas and different perspectives in a structured, respectful way. The key word is structured — community agreements, reflective prompts, and dialogue frameworks create the conditions for productive engagement. Without structure, discussion tends to reward the loudest voices and leave others behind.

Students rarely arrive ready to engage across difference. Structure is what makes that possible — and it has to be designed in, not hoped for.

What It Is

Civic discourse is the practice of engaging with complex, contested, or values-laden ideas in ways that are thoughtful, respectful, and intellectually rigorous.

It is not just about political topics — civic discourse shows up any time students are asked to engage across difference, grapple with competing perspectives, or work through ideas that do not have clean answers.

Civic discourse is not something you add on top of your curriculum. It is a design choice about how students engage with ideas and with each other. And it shows up across disciplines: a business ethics course working through competing stakeholder interests, a literature course grappling with a contested text, a science course discussing the policy implications of climate data, a communications course analyzing media representation. If your course asks students to think critically about the world — and most do — civic dialogue is already embedded there. The question is whether you are designing for it deliberately.

For productive civic dialogue to happen, it needs to be designed. Students rarely arrive in a classroom ready to engage across difference. They need structure: shared norms, clear expectations, facilitated entry points, and enough psychological safety to take intellectual risks.

Three Design Elements That Support Civic Dialogue

Structured discussion protocols — Formats that distribute voice, slow down reaction, and make space for listening. Think: think-pair-share before open discussion, structured academic controversy, philosophical chairs, written reflection before speaking.

Community agreements — Norms co-created with students that govern how the class will engage with difficult material and with each other. Not rules handed down, but agreements built together at the start of the semester — and revisited when needed.

Reflective prompts — Questions that ask students to examine their own thinking, not just argue a position. Think: “What would change your mind?” “What assumption is your argument resting on?” “What perspective have we not heard yet?”

A note on positionality: Civic dialogue does not happen in a vacuum — it happens in a room where the instructor also has an identity, a set of experiences, and a perspective. Being aware of how your own positionality shapes the space you create — what you emphasize, what you leave out, whose voices you amplify — is part of designing for equitable dialogue. This does not mean you need to be neutral or absent from the conversation. It means being intentional about the role you are playing and transparent about it when appropriate.

Humanizing the conversation: Civic discourse is also about seeing students as whole people — not just learners to be filled with content, but individuals who bring lived experience, cultural knowledge, and personal histories into the room. A humanizing approach to civic dialogue creates space for that — it invites students’ full selves into the intellectual work rather than asking them to check their identities at the door. When students feel seen and respected, they are more willing to take the intellectual risks that real dialogue requires.¹⁹

When things go sideways: Even well-designed discussions can get heated or break down. Having a plan before it happens makes all the difference. Some strategies worth having in your back pocket: naming what is happening in the room without assigning blame (“I want to pause — I am noticing some tension, and I want to make sure we are staying with our agreements”), returning to the community agreements the class built together, offering a moment of written reflection to slow things down, or simply acknowledging that some conversations are hard and that discomfort can be part of learning. You do not need to resolve every difficult moment neatly — sometimes the most honest thing you can say is “this is a hard conversation, and I want us to keep having it carefully.”

What It Looks Like in Practice

A political science professor teaching a unit on immigration policy uses a structured academic controversy protocol: students are assigned a position — regardless of their personal views — and must argue it using evidence. Then they switch sides. Then they work together to find a synthesis. The protocol forces intellectual engagement with perspectives students might otherwise dismiss, and the structure keeps the discussion from collapsing into debate. By the end, students are not just more informed — they are better at the practice of civic thinking.

Application Strategies — Look at the Approach That Fits Where You Are

• Brand new course Think about where in your course students will encounter contested ideas, multiple perspectives, or values-laden questions — even in disciplines where that might not be obvious. Build at least one structured dialogue moment into your course design from the start, and plan community agreements for Week 1 — before that moment arrives — so the norms are already in place when the conversation gets difficult. Also ask yourself: how does my own positionality show up in how I have designed this course, and is that something I want to name explicitly for students?
• Existing course you have not yet taught Review every discussion or dialogue moment in your course plan. Are they structured, or do they rely on unspoken norms that might leave students without a clear entry point? Add deliberate structure to the highest-stakes one — even one protocol change meaningfully shifts how the conversation goes. Also consider whether the course’s existing framing humanizes the range of students likely to be in the room — whose experiences are centered, and whose are absent?
• Existing course you have taught before Think about a discussion that went sideways — or one that stayed frustratingly surface-level. What was missing? Often it is one of three things: structure (students did not know how to engage), safety (students did not feel comfortable taking risks), or relevance (students did not see why it mattered). Diagnose the problem before reaching for a solution. Then redesign using one of the tools from this Spark — community agreements, reflective prompts, structured academic controversy, or a humanizing opening. You do not need to redesign everything. And think about what you would do differently the next time a conversation gets tense — having that plan before you need it changes everything.
• Non-traditional course (online, hybrid, accelerated, community-engaged) Civic discourse is not limited to courses. Workshops, community learning experiences, and professional development sessions all involve people engaging across difference. Think about the moments in your experience where participants might disagree or hold competing perspectives — and whether your design gives them a productive way to navigate that. Also consider: whose voices tend to dominate in your sessions, and what structures might redistribute participation more equitably? For asynchronous formats, use sentence stems, explicit discussion protocols, and clear response expectations — and build in enough time for genuine engagement before the response window closes.