Show Your Course Some Love: How to Make Improvements with Course Design Rubrics

Course design rubrics offer structured, evidence-based ways to evaluate and improve the quality of face-to-face, online and blended courses. These rubrics are often introduced as comprehensive checklists, which can feel overwhelming and impractical for busy faculty. This workshop reframes rubrics as flexible yet strategic tools that can be used to address specific course design challenges. We will explore course design rubrics from Quality Matters, the Online Learning Consortium and the Online Learning Initiative and brainstorm how they can be used to help improve course alignment, course organization, and student engagement.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain the value of course design rubrics for making course improvements
• Identify key similarities and differences among the Quality Matters (QM), Online Learning Consortium (OLC), and the Online Education Initiative (OEI) course design rubrics.
• Identify individual rubric domains that can be used improve components of a course.