Opinion: Course Design in the Time of Coronavirus - Put on Your Designer's CAP

Oct 15, 2026

The COVID-19 pandemic forced instructors to shift from face-to-face to remote teaching, often requiring redesign of both content and assessment as well as the instructional approach. This opinion piece introduces the Content-Assessment-Pedagogy (CAP) triangle, a course design framework adapted from backward design and aligned with engineering design. CAP emphasizes endur ing outcomes at the center, ensuring content, assessment, and pedagogy are mutually aligned. It argues that assessment is best operationalized through feedback rather than grading and that practice is the key feature of pedagogy, guiding deliberate redesign choices.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Course design for remote instruction

CAP triangle framework

Content, assessment, pedagogy alignment

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | FALL 2020 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 4 Opinion: Course Design in the Time of Coronavirus: Put on your Designer’s CAP RUTH A. STREVELER KARL A. SMITH Purdue University West Lafayette, IN ABSTRACT The recent pandemic forced most faculty to move from face-to-face to remote instruction, sometimes necessitating a redesign of content and assessment, as well as the mode of instruction. This opinion piece presents the Content-Assessment-Pedagogy (CAP) triangle, a course design framework adapted from backward design, that parallels the engineering design process, and can guide deliberate course redesign decisions. The CAP triangle provides a guiding framework for making design decisions about what content must be emphasized and what might be omitted, what needs to be assessed, and how to design activities that maximize learning. The critical feature of the CAP framework is the alignment of each component (content, assessment, and pedagogy) with each other. And we propose that alignment is operationalized by placing what you want learners to retain long after instruction (the enduring outcomes) at the center of the design. We assert that the assessment and pedagogy need to flow from the enduring outcomes. And we also assert that feedback (not “grading”) is the most important aspect of assessment and that practice is the key feature of pedagogy. Key words: course design, backward design, alignment INTRODUCTION “We never educate directly, but indirectly by means of the environment. Whether we permit chance environments to do the work, or whether we design environments for the purpose makes a great difference.”(John Dewey 1916) “It could well be that faculty members of the twenty-first century college or university will find it necessary to set aside their roles as teachers and instead become designers of learning experiences, processes, and environments.”(James Duderstadt 2010) FALL 2020 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 4 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION Opinion: Course Design in the Time of Coronavirus: Put on Your Designer’s CAP The Covid-19 pandemic recently forced countless courses to be taught remotely, and this trend is likely to continue. Although grappling with uncertainty and change is stressful, this mandate also provides an opportunity to reassess the structure of our courses and more fully incorporate evidence-based practices. As Singer and Smith wrote “Discipline-based education research (DBER) dispels myths about learning and yields results – if only educators would use it” (Singer and Smith 2013a, and elaborated upon in 2013b) . Our goal in this piece is to share a way of thinking about course design that was invaluable to us during the rapid move to remote learning. For more specific pedagogical suggestions, see Prince, Felder and Brent (2020) . We offer the Content-Assessment-and-Pedagogy (CAP) triangle as a framework to help faculty redesign and perhaps re-imagine their courses. When redesigning for remote instruction, it is tempting to focus all one’s attention on the mostrecent educational technology tools. Many of our institutions have very able instructional technology consultants and this opinion piece does not mean to duplicate their services here. Instead, we discuss a way of thinking about course design that, for us, has been an invaluable tool in making design decisions. Our model has been refined by over ten years of using it to help future and current faculty design or redesign their courses and to help those creating “universities” in industry. Although the CAP model is always a useful framework for course design, we contend it is even more essential when course design decisions need to be made quickly – as they were with the recent rapid switch to remote learning. Since our title asks you, the reader, to put on your designer’s CAP, it is important to provide insight into some

FAQs

What problem does the article address about course redesign?

It addresses how the pandemic forced many faculty to move to remote instruction, creating the need to redesign course content and assessment along with the mode of instruction.

What is the CAP triangle framework?

The CAP triangle is a course design framework that aligns content, assessment, and pedagogy, adapted from backward design and paralleling the engineering design process.

How does CAP define alignment in course design?

Alignment is operationalized by placing enduring outcomes—what learners should retain long after instruction—at the center, so assessment and pedagogy flow from those outcomes.

Oct 15, 2026

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