Tips on Getting Started:

• Stay Connected: Meet with your facilitator and begin to establish a working relationship early in the process. Stay in touch via email or schedule frequent face-to-face meetings.
• Use a Template: Get the most current course /program development templates from your facilitator or from this site. Also, ask your facilitator for copies of supplementary materials, previous versions, or exemplary documents.
• Consider Your Audience: Write your document with multiple and diverse audiences in mind:  e.g., colleagues, Department Head, the Deans and Vice-President for Academic and Student Success, future instructors, outside consultants, certification grantors, transfer institutions, state accrediting agencies, etc.
• Think about Outcomes: Think about what you want students taking the course or in the program to be able to do and know when they leave. This will help in generating activities and assignments for the course.
• Make a Plan: Settle on a time frame for your project. Plan to write in stages, if possible, at regular intervals.

Tips on Writing:

• Don’t Delay:  Try to get some words on paper as soon as possible to begin the process. You need not write the sections in order; in fact, many course developers find it best to start writing they feel most excited / certain about.
• Avoid Jargon: Use language for an intelligent but uninformed lay audience; later, read the draft you have written from the point of view of a non-expert outsider. For technical terms and acronyms, either provide brief parenthetical definitions or append a glossary to your document.
• Expect Rewrites: Feedback and revision is a normal part of the writing process.
• Be Consistent with External Influences: Check for consistency with relevant audits or curriculum documents, guidelines from accreditation groups, the College's Mission Statement, catalog, and documents for subsequent courses.
• Document External Sources: If you use material from a textbook, manual, or online source, please document it properly.
• Strive for Internal Cohesion: Check to see that the sections of the document are consistent with one another (e.g., catalog description, student learning outcomes, methods of assessment, sequence of topics, learning activities, etc.)

Process Tips:

• Be Transparent: Keep your Department Head involved in the process; share an early draft.
• Share Ideas: If appropriate, talk with instructors or writers of prerequisite and subsequent courses to ensure curricular coherence.
• Keep Notes from each meeting with your facilitator.
• Stay Organized: To avoid possible confusion, label each revised draft with the correct date and your initials.
• Choose a Lead Writer: If a team is developing the course, name someone as the lead writer. That person can collate and edit team contributions into a single draft and share them with the team as the project progresses.
• Think about Texts: What criteria should a future instructor use to select a text for the course? What supplementary materials (online and in print) will be useful?
• Think about Technology: Study technology needs and opportunities for the course. Will students perform better in a computer classroom? How will you use online materials most effectively?

Style Tips:

• Write in active voice as often as possible.
• Please make capitalization, terminology, etc., consistent throughout the document.
• Italicize the titles of books.
• Refer to Community College of Philadelphia as “the College” (not “CCP”) in your document.