This was a wonderfully informative presentation by the team from Buffalo State College. Buffalo State College has developed common learning objectives that can be used across a discipline, e.g., the arts (art, dancing, etc). From those learning objectives, they built a Blackboard template that can be used as a starting point for course development. 

Buffalo State College created this system to try to solve a number of issues as shown in this slide:

BuffaloState College created a common Blackboard template based on learning outcomes that could be used across a common discipline. Here is an example that could be used for art, dance, and other art like disciplines:

From this point, they created a Blackboard template. The Blackboard template is aligned with the goals.

Goals are added to Blackboard for course alignment. We could tie to SUNY GED goals and JCC goals.

Buffalo also shared a number of findings from the changed process:

I personally am excited by this approach for a number of reasons:

• The course is designed around student outcomes rather than a textbook.
• This approach works well with OER adoption.

Lots of great ideas in this presentation; thanks, Buffalo State College.

Additional Reading

• #WNYBUG2016 – The Joys (and a Few Challenges) of Using a Template for Course Design

Photo by Jasmine Waheed on Unsplash

Stan Skrabut, Ed.D.

Stan is Director of Technology-Enhanced Instruction. He has over 20 years experience working as an instructional technologist and trainer. He has a master’s degree in computing technology in education and a doctorate in education specializing in instructional technology.