By "flavour" of the course we mean largely how learners will experience is it a really collaborative course where they'll spend a lot of time working groups? Or, is it more of an individual reflective practice course where they'll be guided through setting goals and reflecting?
There's no one right flavour. It all depends on your learners, the subject area and your organisations' context. Below we've got a few questions as prompts to help you reflect on what kind of course you're imagining.
Use - How learners will use these courses?
Here’s where you should explain your vision for how learners will use iQualify and any other roles involved in supporting learners through their courses.
Which aspects of learning will be online?
Which (if any) will be face to face?
Will learners be encouraged to share or collaborate at any point?
How will learners be supported (both face-to-face and online) in their journey?
How regularly will learners be accessing their courses?
Will the learners be sharing their work or progress with others in any way?
Will learners engagement or progress be monitored in any way?
Principles – What do we believe?
What are your beliefs about how people learn?
What are your beliefs about how people should be assessed?
What should drive the learning?
What conditions are necessary for learning?
What key relationships or connections are needed?
What is the learner’s role? The facilitator’s?
Who makes which decisions about learning?
Procedures – Is there a “recipe” that content should follow?
How should each topic begin?
What elements (e.g. hook, scenario, formative activities, readings, reflection, communication) should always be included in each topic?
How frequently should elements occur?
What order should elements appear in?
Recording the "flavour"
As with defining your audience, you can brainstorm answers and ideas for these questions with a group. Then, see if you can identify themes, requirements and contradictions evident within your answers.
For instance, maybe you've said that you believe people learn through trying things out on the job, but your "recipe" doesn't include any activities or reflections to scaffold them into trying things out or reflecting on what they've learned.
You should record your final answers so that the group involved in creating the courses can use these answers to guide them. The way you record your flavour or learning and teaching approach is totally up to you, but here's an example of what defining the learning and teaching approach might look like - Example learning and teaching approach. Feel free to use this document as a base, and amend it to suit your context.
What next?
Remember once you've defined your flavour, check it against what you've identified for your target audience (or have a go at completing that step now in Course planning - Identify your audience).
One smaller-scale of "flavour" is the style evident in the text of the course. So, if you're ready to consider this stage check out Course planning - Set the style.