Zero to Launched: How to design your course Ͼ
This session counts toward a CIRTL Teaching Certificate
Location
Information Technology/Engineering : 238
Date & Time
February 18, 2026, 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Description
If you are interested in a teaching career, are a current SEA CIRTL fellow or are actively pursuing the nationally recognized CIRTL teaching certification, please attend this event.
Stop guessing and start designing. If you’ve never built a course before, the hardest part is knowing where to begin. In this 60-minute intensive, we will learn how to use the Backward Design framework to turn your ideas into a structured plan.
Instead of starting with "what to say," we start with "what they learn." You will:
- Define Clear Outcomes: Learn how to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to write learning objectives that actually mean something.
- Match Assessment to Action: Learn how to evaluate and choose the best methods to measure if your students are actually "getting it."
This session provides the roadmap for your course. Once your foundation is set, join us for our next event, where we’ll dive into day-to-day lesson development.
About our speaker:
Dr. Kerrie Kephart is the Interim Director of the Faculty Development Center. Prior to this role, she was the Associate Director for Pedagogical Innovation, Research, and Assessment in the FDC, supporting faculty to innovate in their teaching and investigate issues of teaching and learning in their classrooms and disciplines. Her interests in faculty development include the scholarship of teaching and learning, pedagogies of reflection such as journaling and portfolio development, active learning and inquiry-based pedagogies, writing across the curriculum/in the disciplines, and discourses of teaching and learning. She holds a doctorate in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a specialization in advanced academic literacy development. Prior to joining the FDC staff, she was Director of the Engineering Communication Program at the University of Washington, Seattle, and prior to that, she was Assistant Professor of ESL/Bilingual Education at the University of Texas at El Paso. In her previous positions, she conducted research studies in innovative teaching methods in the STEM fields and presented a workshop series in writing across the curriculum for faculty across all disciplines. She has also taught a variety of courses in language and literacy development, including academic writing for educators, writing the scientific article, technical communication, English as a second language pedagogy, principles of bilingual education, and discourse analysis.
If you plan to attend the session, please RSVP by clicking the green "Going in person" button below.
If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to gspd@umbc.edu
If you want to learn about CIRTL Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning please contact Dr. Jamie Gurganus at jgurganus@umbc.edu or join our information session on February 6!
This event will not be recorded.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
