Course Design Form

Situational Factors of Course:

Students: Graduate level public health students

~20 students max
Frequency of Meetings: Once/week for ~3 hours
Setting: Live classroom, preferably with move-able desks
Learning expectations placed on this course or curriculum by:
University: Expects that students are willing and wanting to take the course and
that it works toward the curriculum of a degree/department
Department: Expects students learn and are given every opportunity to apply their
learning and expand their portfolio or work toward their dissertation.
Profession: Frameworks are usually a second thought when designing a public
health intervention or study. This course aims to work toward changing this
thought so that the framework comes first and the intervention/study is developed
based on the framework to give it a more robust and stronger design.
Society: American society does not hold philosophy or theoretical frameworks
based on philosophical ideas to a high level. This course hopes to combat this
stigma by showing the usefulness and versatility of these frameworks when
designing your questions.
Theoretical or practical: The class will be set up to learn about the theories and practice
at applying those theories and ideas to situations that they might come into.
Convergent or divergent: Both ways of thinking will be utilized as students will need to
determine all the ways the framework can be used or all the frameworks that could be
used, while convergent thinking will be used to determine which framework is the best fit
for the situation at hand.
Life Situations of Learners: How clear the students can see their career path before them
is probably the most important life situation to take note of. This will help them to
understand what their project should be and to see the applicability of the course.
Prior knowledge, experience, initial feelings of students on this subject: Most students
will not have any prior knowledge of these frameworks unless they came from a liberal arts
major (i.e. English, writing, philosophy, etc.). The students should all be pretty open-
minded to the topic as this will most likely be an elective and not a requirement, but if it
does become a requirement, some students might not understand the need or importance
of this topic so it will have to be stressed the importance and shown throughout how it can
lead to a more robust design.
Beliefs and values that I have about teaching and learning: See teaching philosophy
My attitude toward subject: I stumbled on this topic through my qualitative research.
When I started to learn more about the frameworks and using them toward my research, I
noticed that my research felt stronger and my questions felt more natural. I believe that
this topic needs to be taught so that others do not have to stumble their way until they find
it but can be armed with the resources from the start to make the best designs possible.
Level of knowledge or familiarity with this subject: Since this subject is a wide range of
different theories, my familiarity with the subject varies from very well to cursory. The
areas that I do not know as well, I will be studying up on to gain closer to in depth. This is
also why the students will be researching further the framework that they want to use so
that they can become masters of the framework.
My strengths in teaching: My strengths as an instructor are to giving a full understanding
of the material. I believe that I am very good at moving a discussion along by getting the
students to do most of the talking and explain their thoughts, and playing devil’s advocate
to get them to see a different perspective or to defend their stance further.
What key information (e.g., facts, terms, formulae, concepts, principles, relationships, etc.)
and ideas are important for students to understand and remember in the future? In other
words, what are the big ideas and enduring understandings from the course?

Philosophy does not solely belong to the liberal arts.

Philosophy can inform the questions that we ask as researchers and the way we go about
finding solutions to those questions

Philosophical frameworks can be broken down to use pieces from them and/or can be
added to other frameworks to make a stronger methodology.

What important skills do students need to be able to perform at the end of the course?

Describe the basic constructs of the philosophical frameworks discussed in the class.

Demonstrate an understanding of which frameworks naturally work together and which

naturally repel each other.

Describe and demonstrate how the constructs can be used to inform research.
Provide a visual representation of an Outcomes Map for your course. You may want to
create this in another application, save as an image, and insert into this document.
Alternatively, you can draw it by hand, scan, and insert into this document.

Describe the basic constructs

of the philosophical
frameworks discussed in the
class.

Demonstrate an understanding Describe how the constructs can

of which frameworks naturally be used to inform research
work together and which
naturally repel each other.

Demonstrate how the constructs

can be used to inform research

What connections should students recognize and be able to make among ideas within this
course, between ideas in this course and other courses, and between material in this course
and the students’ own personal, social, and/or work life?

Students should be about to connect the concepts of this class with concepts from social
and behavioral theory, and public health research methods. The students should be able to
connect ideas from this course to their own outlook on life and view of the world. The
students should be able to connect the creation of ideas and challenging of ideas through
the history of the philosophical ideas. The student should ultimately be able to connect
these ideas to their research that they are currently working with faculty on, or their own.
 Learning Assessment Teaching Resources
Outcomes/Objectives Method for the Strategies/Learning
Objective Activities

Describe the basic Quiz Discussion/Article Book reading

constructs of the Critique
philosophical Articles
frameworks discussed Activities relevant
in the class. to specific
framework

Demonstrate an Quiz Discussion/Article Book reading

understanding of Critique
which frameworks Articles
naturally work
together and which
naturally repel each
other.

Describe and Project Discussion/Article Articles

demonstrate how the Critique
constructs can be
used to inform Project
research.
Rationale for Course Design & Syllabus Design (provide a one-page rationale for your
course design AND syllabus decisions based on the concepts from the course (include
citations and references to the course materials)):

“Theoretical Questioning for Public Health Research” was designed to fill a gap in the

curriculum. Currently there is a course that teaches the major theoretical frameworks that

we, in Public Health, use to develop interventions, however, there is no course designed to

show theoretical frameworks for how we construct knowledge as researchers. This course

would be primarily for students who are interested in conducting research either in the

field or at a university; therefore, the level of the course would be a graduate level and

would most likely be attended by primarily PhD students.

The course heavily utilizes discussions to drives the lessons. These discussions are

designed around the article readings for the week, and around the activities from lesson

plan. Getting students to be actively engaged in the lesson is a key concept for learning and

retention (Nilson, 2016). The activities are designed around the specific framework for the

week to showcase how the framework is used and to give the students a chance to practice

using the framework. Discussion even goes through to the final project. Students are asked

to present their framework to the class, to teach the class of the framework and to utilize

the framework in design a research inquiry. The students have an open Q&A discussion

after each project presentation. This allows the students to answer any questions that the

other’s might have about the rationale for the design, as well as allowing the students to

critically think on whether they believe it is the right fit.