Create an Order for Your Course Topics
You probably have a good sense of the major topics that you need to cover. However, to be thorough, you can check the major textbooks in your field, the concerns of the leading journals, and the syllabi of your colleagues teaching similar courses or courses that precede or follow yours in a sequence. How to best order these topics? A system may immediately suggest itself— such as proceeding chronologically or using the order of the textbook you adopt. You may also consider a meaningful order of course topics that builds from the abstract to the specific, or that alternates between theory and application, or that groups course topics by the kinds of approaches, skills, or methods they require.
You probably have a good sense of the major topics that you need to cover. However, to be thorough, you can check the major textbooks in your field, the concerns of the leading journals, and the syllabi of your colleagues teaching similar courses or courses that precede or follow yours in a sequence. How to best order these topics? A system may immediately suggest itself— such as proceeding chronologically or using the order of the textbook you adopt. You may also consider a meaningful order of course topics that builds from the abstract to the specific, or that alternates between theory and application, or that groups course topics by the kinds of approaches, skills, or methods they require.