Instructional / Course Design
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Beauty II: Defining the Big, Bold and Beautiful
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler Getting lost in the beauty of our discipline and sharing it with our students raises the challenge of what to cover within the limited time of our course or program. With all that is beautiful about our discipline, what do we focus on? One approach is to focus on the fundamental perspectives and approaches that define a discipline – the building blocks of a field! These building blocks can be identified and prioritized through several lenses: Celebrating what’s Unique: What makes your discipline unique? What are the key premises, approaches, conceptions, or methodologies not found in other disciplines? What is the unique contribution that…
- Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies
Self-Belief and Student Success
[social_share/] [social-bio] I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of not performing to our potential at given points in our life due to anxiety, illness, the physical environment or just because we were having an off day. The importance of context on our ability to perform should not be underestimated. One factor that can greatly impact our ability to perform is our belief that we can achieve what we want to in a given context. If we believe we can do something we are far more likely to succeed. It could be argued that believing we can do something is simply a matter of knowing ones own strengths and weaknesses. …
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The Course Design Process
[social_share/] [social-bio] If you have made it through one or more university degrees, it is likely that you have wondered why some courses appeared almost entirely unplanned, while others were highly structured and obviously planned well in advance. If you have ever been a teaching assistant or an instructor, it is likely that you thought about how to plan a course so that students, like you did in the past, get the most from it. This can be a daunting thought for a first time instructor, or for an instructor who wants to try something different while planning next term’s courses. Luckily, others have thought about this a great deal,…
- Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Program Evaluation, SoTL
Being More Efficient
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler “efficient |iˈfiSHənt| adjective (esp. of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense (of a person) working in a well-organized and competent way [ in combination ] preventing the wasteful use of a particular resource” –(New Oxford American Dictionary”, 3rd Edition, 2010, Oxford University Press) Efficiency focuses on the level of relevant output achieved relative to the amount of effort. Perhaps it is like the phrase “Work better, not harder” or “lift smarter, not harder”. So what does being efficient mean for teaching? What does being efficient mean for curriculum renewal? Set your goals: Focus energy on the…
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How’s the View? Four Lenses for Looking at Your Curriculum
[social_share/] [social-bio] While paging through a recent addition to our in-house library at the GMCTE by Blackmore and Kandiko, I encountered a reference that I find quite helpful for understanding why it is important to view curricula from different perspectives. The work referenced is by Basil Bernstein who was a sociology of education scholar in the UK, until his passing in 2000. Bernstein suggested that the curriculum can be viewed through four lenses. I frame these first in the form of questions curriculum review committees can ask themselves and then add Bernstein’s terminology below. With respect to our curriculum…. ….what do we say we will do? This is the “planned…
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When ‘Better’ does not equal ‘Easier’
[social_share/] [social-bio] Often conversations about active learning eventually come around to discussions around “push back from students” and comments about resistance to “doing more work” in class and that students don’t like to work harder. I wonder about that. I wonder if students might feel better about doing more work if they knew that this might mean they would learn more and retain more. I wonder if we could highlight for students that engaging actively in class often results in learning more. I wonder how things would change if “better” could come to mean learning more because one has made an effort and that greater skill development might occur because…
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Why ‘Student Learning Objectives’?
[social-bio] So why is a curriculum development person commenting about learning objectives—the unit of planning that occurs at the individual lesson level? Usually you’d hear me going on about program goals and outcomes, and graduate attributes—the big picture! I wanted to highlight the importance of having clear, explicit learning objectives because it is all of these learning objectives that collectively create and contribute to an aligned and unified program of study. Paying attention to what happens in each lesson makes for a more successful learning journey in the long run. There are good official, technical, and pedagogical reasons for having student learning objectives for each lesson and lab, but the…
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The Importance of Technology Integration Across a Program
[social-bio] At the recent EdMedia conference in Victoria, BC, I noted a recurring theme around the integration of learning technologies. Many people were talking about the ongoing issue of these technologies being used in a course here and there as opposed to being integrated across programs. There are a number of problems with this approach to learning technologies. Blogs and ePortfolios can both be useful tools for students to assemble evidence of their learning, reflect and show their growth. When these are only used in a course or two throughout a students program, the blogs and ePortfolios are often incomplete, interrupted (if used in two courses at different points in…
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Assessment For Learning
[social-bio] “Students can, with difficulty, escape from the effects of poor teaching, they cannot (by definition if they want to graduate) escape the effects of poor assessment.” (Boud, 1998) Think back to your experience as an undergraduate. How did you decide what to focus on in the hours outside the classroom? What drove your priorities in selecting what work to dedicate time to? If you were anything like me your decisions were driven by what you thought would get you a good grade. Don’t get me wrong, I was there to learn and was passionate about the subject I was studying. But I was also practical. I had limited time…
- Academic Integrity, Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Program Evaluation
The Academic Honesty Bonus: Another Advantage of an Aligned Curriculum
[social-bio] In my role as a Curriculum Development Specialist, I get to talk with faculty about their programs and the many reasons to examine and renew curricula in higher education. In recent months, another advantage to an aligned curriculum has come to mind for me: academic honesty. I posit that the three following relationships hold generally true, and promote academic honesty among students. When faculty alert students to the progressive nature of the curriculum and convey to students how what they are learning now prepares them for, not only life after graduation but for future courses, students can better recognize the benefit of deep learning. For example, students can come…