Course Design as an Act of Care – Faculty Focus

Faculty reflections contributed by: Annette Miles, PhD, Helen Krauthamer, PhD, and Uzma Amir

Designing a learning experience is too often treated as a workflow task rather than a relational practice. It becomes about moving content online, checking accessibility boxes, or aligning outcomes to rubrics. In the process, design can become transactional. 

But course design is, at its core, an act of care. Care is the everyday practice of meeting people where they are and responding with compassion and support. It is the intentional work of helping others thrive. Designing with care means anticipating needs, reducing barriers, and creating environments where both faculty and students feel seen and supported. When care is centered, design becomes relational: designers partner with faculty, and faculty design with students’ humanity in mind. 

This article examines how care shapes the designer–faculty relationship and how that care extends into faculty and student experiences.  

Care Embedded in the Designer-Faculty Relationship

At the Center for the Advancement of Learning at the University of the District of Columbia, our team of 3.5 designers serves as both builders and coaches to support more than 200 faculty. Central to this work is care. For us, care is not abstract; it is an intentional practice that shapes how we design, collaborate, and support. 

Faculty lead busy lives, and course design can feel overwhelming. In this context, care means reducing workload and stress. We use templates for courses, modules, syllabi, and course maps to streamline the process and help refine content as it develops. As courses near completion, we assist with formatting, making PDFs and videos accessible, and filling in gaps; in other words, we help push the course over the finish line. Care becomes a practical commitment to easing the design process and supporting faculty well-being. 

We also offer flexible weekly or biweekly sessions as reflective, non-judgmental spaces. These meetings give instructors time to pause and think about their teaching beyond daily pressures. Faculty use this space to work through design challenges, explore engagement strategies, and rethink assessment. Together, we refine assignments, integrate pedagogical best practices, and introduce tools that support interactive and inclusive learning. These sessions become spaces for collaboration, creativity, and care, resulting in stronger courses and more confident faculty. 

Care extends beyond course design. Our meetings often include check-ins about life outside the university. We learn about milestones and responsibilities that may affect timelines. These moments matter to faculty, so they matter to us. Empathy means adjusting expectations and timelines when needed. Focusing only on outputs can be counterproductive. Faculty who feel overstretched and unsupported can quickly become demotivated. For this reason, we care about faculty first and course design second. We encourage, support, and celebrate faculty progress, whether completing an assessment or meeting certification standards. 

We also recognize that faculty care about course design because they care about their students. As partners, we design for diverse learners, including nontraditional, multilingual, first-generation, dual enrollment, and traditional students. This perspective shapes every design decision. We provide step-by-step guides to support varying levels of technological fluency, create consistent course structures to reduce cognitive load, and encourage flexibility in assignments and deadlines. We also help refine discussion prompts, revisit submission guidelines, and integrate student voice and choice. By anticipating barriers, we help faculty center care and support students as whole people.  

Care Embedded in the Faculty Experience

When care is extended to faculty, it reshapes not only the course but also how instructors approach teaching. Design becomes less of a checklist and more of a reflective, evolving practice grounded in student success. Prof. Uzma Amir describes this shift: 

“The constructive and formative nature of feedback… emphasized student learning, accessibility, and clarity rather than procedural compliance… reinforcing the understanding that high-quality course design is a continuous and collaborative process centered on student success.” 

This reframing encourages faculty to approach alignment, structure, and accessibility with greater intentionality, particularly for learners with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of preparedness. 

Care is also experienced through collaboration. Work that can feel isolating becomes shared. Dr. Helene Krauthamer reflects: 

“These sessions were invaluable… The parts of the course that would take me hours… would often be done when we met… this experience has reinforced my belief that even in the academy, teamwork is essential.” 

Dr. Annette Miles highlights how care is distributed across a team: 

“Each member of the CAL team has different expertise and is always open to faculty expertise… Their support has taken me, a former Online phobic person, to someone who has three Quality Matters-certified courses and is preparing to submit two more for review.” 

Across these experiences, care is enacted through collaboration, respect, and sustained support, strengthening faculty capacity to design with clarity, confidence, and purpose.  

How Care Manifests in Student Experience

As faculty design from a place of care, students experience that care in ways that shape both confidence and engagement. Thoughtful structure, clear guidance, and built-in supports reduce barriers and allow students to focus more fully on learning. Prof. Amir shares: 

“Students commented that the clear, consistent module structure… and built-in supports… reduced their stress and made the course feel manageable… fostering a strong sense of belonging.” 

These experiences illustrate how care, when embedded in design, can create learning environments where students feel both capable and seen. 

Care also extends beyond the boundaries of the course, shaping how students engage with their work and with others. Dr. Krauthamer observed that students carried their learning forward in meaningful ways: 

“Several students approached me about continuing their ‘special projects’ after the course concluded… From a class of 10 students, 40% cared enough about their projects to be committed to them beyond the scope of the course, and the projects themselves reflect how the students transmit that care to others.”  

Dr. Miles connects these outcomes to students’ future pathways, emphasizing the broader impact of instructional choices: 

“My instructional choices can make a difference in whether students stand out in the job for their skills to meet current job demands or are just another applicant.”  

At the same time, care remains iterative. Faculty continue to identify areas for refinement, recognizing that supporting students is an ongoing process. In this way, care is not only something students feel in the moment, but something that evolves with them, influencing both their academic experience and their future trajectories. 

Tips for Embedding Care in Course Design

Designing with care does not require a full redesign. It begins with small, intentional choices that reduce barriers and support both faculty and students. The following strategies can be implemented immediately: 

Start with people, not tasks. Begin meetings or courses with intentional check-ins. Ask what faculty or students need, what’s working, and what challenges they’re facing. Use this information to guide design decisions, not just workflow.  Design in partnership, not in isolation. Treat course design as a collaborative process. Create space for dialogue, reflection, and shared problem-solving so faculty feel supported and ownership remains central.  Use structure to reduce stress, not constrain learning. Adopt consistent templates and navigation to lower cognitive load, but remain flexible in how students engage with content and demonstrate learning.  Build flexibility with intention. Incorporate options such as revised deadlines, varied assignment formats, or opportunities for revision. Clearly communicate these choices so students understand support is built into the course.  Make expectations transparent and supportive. Provide step-by-step instructions, examples, and checklists. Frame these not as compliance tools, but as scaffolds that help students succeed with confidence.  Create space for reflection and iteration. Set aside time for faculty (and students) to reflect on what is working and what needs adjustment. Treat course design as an evolving practice shaped by feedback and experience. 

When these practices are in place, care becomes visible in the day-to-day experience of a course. Faculty feel more supported in their design process, and students are better able to engage, persist, and succeed. Care, in this sense, is not an add-on. It is the structure that makes meaningful learning possible.

Julian King, MEd, serves as the Quality Matters Manager and a Learning Experience Designer at the Center for the Advancement of Learning (CAL) at the University of the District of Columbia, where he supports faculty in designing high-quality, accessible, and evidence-based online courses. He leads the Quality Matters certification process for distance learning courses and provides coaching on learning science, course design, and data-informed instructional practices. With a background in secondary mathematics education and instructional coaching across DC, Maryland and Virginia schools, he brings over a decade of experience supporting educators and fostering inclusive, student-centered learning environments. He holds an MEd in Instructional Technology from the University of Maryland Global Campus and a BA in Mathematics: Secondary Education from Virginia Union University. 

Catherine “Kit” Patterson serves as a Learning Experience Designer at CAL, where she partners with UDC faculty to design engaging, accessible, and evidence-based courses that support student success. With a background in teaching multilingual and adult learners across institutions including Northeastern University, Bunker Hill Community College, and Bellevue College, she brings a strong foundation in learning science and inclusive pedagogy. She holds an EdM in Learning and Teaching from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is committed to helping instructors create meaningful learning experiences that promote engagement, retention, and mastery.