ABSTRACT
Content-heavy lectures and traditional summative assessment practices have long been employed in higher education classrooms. Opposed to this approach, two instructors teaching an introductory content-rich course to undergraduate students in a teacher education program experimented with existing educational theories to prioritize experiential, reflective learning grounded in formative assessment practice. Through experimentation, collaboration, and reflection, an emerging course design framework was established. The innovative teaching solution framework combined backward design, Kolb's model for experiential learning, and imaginative education (IE) theory to create a community of learners where enduring understanding is the outcome. When COVID-19 forced classes to remote learning environments, the true fidelity of the framework emerged through instructor self-assessment and student feedback. This emergent Imaginative Course Design Framework allows educators to structure their courses as engaging, meaningful, and lasting learning experiences that support students in depth of understanding. The authors share concrete examples of performance tasks from their education course to demonstrate how the emergent Imaginative Course Design Framework connects to theory and creates the conditions for rich, inspired learning. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.