After discovering a love of curriculum design while working on my theory of practice paper for MDDE 603, outlined in my third VIEW, MDDE 604 became the logical place for me to show off some of my design skills and demonstrate some of my theory of practice in action.

And so I was given the chance to design a sample course using the platform of my choice (provided it was approved by the instructor). Being a proponent of open-source software solutions, I jumped upon the chance to use Moodle for my design, and began familiarizing myself with its functions.

Furthermore, having the choice of content, I decided to continue on the topic of my writing classes. This gave my designed course a nice continuity from my theory of practice paper from MDDE 603, and also allowed me to continue in an area where I feel most comfortable teaching, and which is most relevant to the students I teach.

While this was not a group project, I feel I should mention that giving feedback to and receiving feedback from a classmate was a part of the design process, so the content I created was tweaked before being displayed on-line. The most challenging aspect of this feedback process was remaining tactful while still being honest. It proved challenging in formal writing, but my teammate and I managed to use synchronous chat to make the process less stressful. All in all, I was happy with the feedback I gave and received, and feel as though the finished design incorporated the suggested changes while still reflecting my personal theory of practice very well.

Specifically, I tried to create as many opportunities as possible for students to review each others' work and to discuss their writing process in small groups. I did this through the use of forums and team exercises, and feel the final result is exactly as I'd hoped. I also made sure to offer further resources for students who needed extra help or who might be curious about aspects of writing not covered in the design. Lastly, I included extra writing topics at the end of the design for students who might be interested in further practice to sharpen their skills.

Also of note: While it was not required that I create graphics for the design, I felt that, to make the finished product as appealing as possible to the intended students, tables and graphics should be used when beneficial, and a few added niceties (such as the Course Logo on the homepage) could be included to make the design eye-catching. I designed all the graphics using open-source solutions, namely the GIMP image editor and OpenOffice Presentation for the charts and graphs.

Going forward, I have recently convinced my current employer to deploy Moodle on the campus network, and have become the sole administrator (and user, for now) of the system. I am using it to design content for incoming foreign teachers, who have complained in the past of feeling lost when first arriving on campus from abroad. At the moment, the university does not allow courses to be delivered via Moodle, but I am also working on changing that policy.