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The Course Design Institute Creates Community for Instructors across Penn

Professors engaged in small discussion groups in front of white boards

April 15, 2025 by Erin Bartnett

Course Design Creates Bridges between Instructors

In spring 2023, Kecia Fong of the Weitzman School of Design was working on a new course, Contemporary Asia and the Historic Built Environment. It was the first time she would build a course from scratch, and she was looking for a framework for course design, a way to start thinking through the process.  

That same semester, Jen Round of CETLI launched the Course Design Institute (CDI), a three-day intensive for instructors who want to redesign or iterate on current courses as well as design new courses from scratch. With discussion sessions facilitated by Jen Round and Cathy Turner in the morning and independent work time in the afternoon, CDI would give instructors the opportunity to work both collaboratively and independently on course elements.  

Fong was already familiar with CETLI’s work through her participation in the Senior Lecturer’s seminar group. When she heard about the Course Design Institute, she signed up. During the institute, she says, she was exposed to so much valuable information. And while she did learn about the elements of course design, what she found most impactful was the opportunity to work in collaboration with others. “One of the greatest benefits of working together as a cohort on our individual projects was the sharing and exchange of ideas and experiences. Doing things in community is powerful. 

As CETLI prepares for the third year of CDI, we reached out to the first cohort to learn how the CDI community impacted their teaching.  

"I knew that [CDI] would give me the opportunity to talk to a lot of other instructors at the school. And I thought, you know, if I can get some input from Jen Round, if I can talk to all my colleagues in a structured setting, these will be big wins on their own, so I'll give it a try."
Harry Smith
Computer Science

Good Creative Energy 

During those three May days in the collaborative classroom in Van Pelt Library, instructors from departments across the university sat at large round tables and discussed the foundations of course design. Lisa Ann Britton of Francophone, Italian & Germanic Studies recalls the positive spirit in the room. “I felt like there was so much good creative energy in the group. We really connected with each other, and that helps a lot.”  

Britton, who came to CDI to do the groundwork for a new Penn Global Seminar on the Chemin des Dames, recalls, “I had the skeleton, as it were, of what I wanted to do. But I didn't know how to get there in terms of the specific goals.” Through those workshops and conversations with her peers, she was able to clarify her vision for the course. “I left the Course Design Institute with my learning goals ready. I had the assessments mapped out in my head, and I had a general idea of how I was going to describe the course. I was light years from the first day to the last day. I really felt like [the course] had taken shape in a very satisfying way.” Indeed, the course that began as a skeleton in May 2023 was approved and is scheduled to run in Spring of 2026. 

Harry Smith of Engineering signed up for CDI because he was planning a redesign of his Introduction to Computer Programming course, and wanted to hear how others were thinking through their design. “I knew that [CDI] would give me the opportunity to talk to a lot of other instructors at the school. And I thought, you know, if I can get some input from Jen Round, if I can talk to all my colleagues in a structured setting, these will be big wins on their own, so I'll give it a try.”  

Professors engaged in small discussion groups in front of white boards

2023 CDI Cohort members including, from left to right: Ricardo O. Howell (Academic Affairs), Corine Labridy (FIGS), and Lisa Ann Britton (FIGS) in conversation.

Talking to Students about Course Design  

While CDI offered instructors the opportunity to talk to one another about their design choices, it also helped them develop strategies for talking to their students about the purpose of these choices for their learning.   

For example, when Smith learned about a variety of teaching modalities, including Structured Active In-Class Learning, he decided to spend the next twelve months redesigning his course to include less lecture time and more in-class learning opportunities. The change has been effective, in part, Smith says, because CDI helped him develop a vocabulary for his design choices. “It helps me talk to students about why we do things.” The feedback from students on the new design, he says, is notable for what they aren’t saying—students don’t question the purpose of the work they do.   

Talking to students about the design of the course has also given instructors the opportunity to build community with students, too.  

Rashida Ng of the Weitzman School of Design was preparing to teach her first-year seminar on race and climate justice. One of her goals for the course was “to build a strong and supportive academic community where students feel vulnerable in their learning, but also supported.” While she had been teaching for more than two decades, this would be the first time she was teaching first year students. How would she build community for first year students in particular? One way would be through class discussion. Her courses were usually more project-driven, so she was looking for new techniques to foster and facilitate conversation in class. 

Ng recalls that some of the most valuable things she learned at CDI centered on different facilitation techniques she could use. For example, she learned about the Gallery Walk, an activity that allows students to work in small groups, and then walk around the room observing each other’s work. Since CDI, the Gallery Walk has become a staple for her course. Ng has now taught her first-year seminar twice. At the end of the first offering, Ng told her students the course was new and gathered input on the course design. Students were shocked to learn the course was new, and said what she had helped them build in class time together. “A lot of students shared how important the community space [of the class] has been for them.” 

Fong also spoke about how valuable it was to talk to her students about the course design. At CDI, she learned that that she didn’t have to wait until the end of the semester to ask her students to weigh in on the course; in fact, polling students earlier demonstrated to her students that she cared about their input.  

This was vital information when Fong was teaching her new course for the first time. Midway through the semester, she felt a lull. She had some ideas for how to proceed, but she decided to take some class time to ask students for ideas. The students suggested a weekly project that would build on research they had done earlier in the term. Fong incorporated the assignment immediately, and the energy rolled back into the classroom. At the end of the semester, Fong was curious what students thought about the change and conducted exit interviews with students. They said they felt a personal connection to what they were learning. One student told her, “Kecia, you make us feel like we have something valuable to say.’”

"[CDI] set the tone to think about all these different ways that we can connect and be relational."
Lisa Ann Britton
FIGS

Course Design Creates Bridges between the Classroom and Penn Community 

In spring 2024, Fong was revising her course, and wanted to hear what the community of CDI would have to say. She is glad she came back, and would consider attending again. “Returning to CDI is a valuable opportunity to refine one’s course in a supportive environment. As your perspective shifts, you discover new ideas each time.” 

For Lisa Ann Britton, CDI continues to help her refine the courses she is teaching. “[CDI] set the tone to think about all these different ways that we can connect and be relational. Not just with our students and the material, but also with each other and with the university at large.”  

This semester, Britton took her students on a field trip to the Kislak Center, where students worked on translations of Benjamin Franklin’s letters. The students, she said, loved the project. It gave them an opportunity to discover new language skills, connect to their Penn heritage, and see their learning in a broader context. Britton attributes the success of this assignment to her time at CDI, where she was able to experience how collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking can expand learning—both her students learning and her own. “For me, the course design institute helped me think about the influence from my peers in different parts of the university, and how you can harness their skills to bring about a successful class.” 

The Spring 2025 Course Design Institute will run from May 20 to May 22. Whether you are designing a new course, redesigning an existing course, returning to refine, or simply curious about how you might collaborate with peers, registration for this year’s cohort is now open.