Initiative

In designing “God and the Good Life,” the team at Notre Dame decided early on that the course should be digitally integrated, that materials should all exist online, in an open-source format that was easily accessible (and at no cost) to our students and the general public. This has led to some of our biggest successes in terms of pedagogy, strategy, and outreach in that our courses allow for what we call dynamic delivery, the ability to offer the course in both online and in-person formats -- and to transition between these two formats quickly -- without much duplication of effort, and with a remarkable preservation of the quality of student learning outcomes and experience.

The heart of our course, though, has always been (and remains) a commitment to pedagogically sound and evidence-based design principles. In applying “backward design,” always evaluating and reevaluating our student learning goals and assessment mechanisms, we think we can keep PWOL courses student-centered, while incorporating useful and targeted technologies.  Beginning in March of 2020, we have started to consult with other instructors to walk them through the process of designing their own digitally integrated, dynamically delivered PWOL courses. Over the course of this experience, we have developed a process to walk with them, side-by-side, as they move through this process.

Over the summer of 2020, we piloted our design process on three courses:

• Living a Good Life at Wesleyan University

• Philosophy as a Way of Life at Florida State University

• God and the Good LIfe at Boise State University

We are currently using these case studies to pursue further grant funding that would allow us to continue these efforts with other institutions. If you have more quetstions about the initiative, please reach out at philife@nd.edu.