Designing and Presenting a Student-Friendly Course

This chapter offers a step-by-step guide to developing a course of study capable of drawing students from all backgrounds into academic work, and supporting them to study and learn effectively. In other words, it takes on the principles explored in previous chapters and puts them into practice. When preparing a student-friendly course the most important strategy is to ensure that students have the time to study, to understand what they study in depth and to perform well. They simply cannot do so if our courses are ‘overloaded’ – the meaning of which will, we hope, become clear. A student-friendly course, then, is both accessible and doable – that is, the course can actually be studied in the time available and, furthermore, can be studied successfully. Clearly, students will need help to plan and manage their studies, as we shall see later. But primarily a teacher’s job is to think strategically about how students’ study time can best be used and to provide a framework for such study, along with clear expectations. So how can this be done?