Workshop Program
8:45 AM Coffee and biscotti
9:00 AM Opening by Brian Palenik
Goals of the Workshop
- use "backward design" to design a course
- identify big ideas ("enduring understandings") and essential questions
- articulate goals for student learning
- articulate learning outcomes and design an assessment
- design a learning activity based on research-based evidence on learning, engagement, motivation, and metacognition
- align learning goals, assessments and instruction
9:10 AM Course Design (Enduring Concepts and Goals)
Slides for Course Design Module (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 7MB Mar27 16)
Think-Pair-Share Activity on a "significant learning" experience
Backward Design: Big Ideas/Enduring Concepts, and Essential Questions
Guidelines for Enduring Understandings (Acrobat (PDF) 58kB Oct21 15)
Guidelines for Essential Questions (Acrobat (PDF) 55kB Oct22 15)
PDF version of Course Design Template (Acrobat (PDF) 91kB Oct23 15)
Course Design Template (Excel format) (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 22kB Oct23 15)
Articulating course-level (aspirational or visionary) goals for student learning
Complete the Teaching Goals Inventory to help you "discover" the goals of your teaching
Example Syllabus for Mineralogy Course (Acrobat (PDF) 5.5MB Oct23 15) illustrating how big ideas, essential questions, and course-level goals can be implemented in a syllabus
Reflection and Action Planning
10:30 AM Break
10:45 AM Assessing Learning (Aligning with Outcomes)
Slides for Assessing Learning (Aligning with Outcomes) (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 438kB Mar27 16)
- Warm-up Activity: Outcome-Assessment Alignment
- Introduction to Bloom's Taxonomy
Image of Bloom's taxonomy levels and some verbs
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- Does the learning outcome identify what students will be able to do after the learning experience?
- Is it clear how you would measure achievement of the learning outcome?
- Do chosen verbs have a clear meaning?
- Is the level of cognitive understanding appropriate? Is it aligned with your actual expectations and with student ability? Do your outcomes cover a range of levels?
- Is the terminology familiar/common? If not, is knowing the terminology a goal?
- Is the outcome relevant and useful to students (e.g. connected to their everyday life, or does it represent a useful application of the ideas)?
- Does the outcome align with your course-scale goals?
- Activity: Write Assessments Aligned with your Learning Outcomes
- Reflection and Action Planning
12:15 PM Lunch
1:00 PM Instructional Design (Motivation and Metacognition)
Slides for Metacognition and Motivation (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 2.2MB Mar27 16)
Reading Reflections
Knowledge Surveys
Exam Wrappers
- Student Learning: student learning is most effective when students are asked to connect content to their prior knowledge, when they are actively engaged in negotiating meaning of the content, are supported to be able to build toward more complex ideas (scaffolded) and are provided with opportunities to reflect on their learning experiences. How well did this lesson support these aspects of learning? Use examples from the lesson.
- Engagement: Students are more likely to be engaged in the content when they are able to interact with their peers, in a safe and community-building environment, and when the content is relevant or authentic. How well did this lesson support these aspects of engagement? Use examples from the lesson.
- Motivation: Students are more likely to be motivated to learn if they believe they can be successful at the task asked of them, believe they are supported if they encounter difficulties, and they value the content they are learning (does it relate to their own lives and/or interests). In addition, students also have social goals, when engaging in content, if they are also able to attend to those social goals, they are more likely to stay engaged and motivated to learn. How well did this lesson support these aspects of motivation? Use examples from the lesson.
- Metacognition: Students are more likely to learn deeply if they have the opportunity to reflect on their learning, both about how their understanding has changed, but also what aspects allowed their learning to occur and to identify areas that require more attention in order to more effectively understand the content. How well did this lesson support these aspects of metacognition? Use examples from the lesson.
Personal Reflection and Action Planning
2:20 PM Break
2:30 PM Instructional Design (Active Learning)
Slides for Active Learning (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 2MB Mar27 16)
- Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (Ambrose et al., 2010)
- Warm-up Activity: Concept Sketching
- Active Learning Jigsaw
- Active Learning Techniques (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 180kB Mar28 16)
- Align Outcomes-Assessments-Activities
- Resources for research-based instructional strategies:
- Learning Activity Resources to use or modify:
4:00 PM Reflection and Planning in small groups or individually
- Work on design of activity or on incorporation of a strategy across a whole course
- Check for alignment between learning outcomes, assessments, and activities. Turn to your neighbor and review each others' outcome-assessment-activity alignment
- Compile an action plan that will support successful completion of workshop activities and implementation into a specific course, including resources for future work
4:20 PM Final Thoughts and Workshop assessment
4:30 PM Workshop end
Strategies for Ongoing Improvement
Additional resources
Observation protocols
- COPUS (Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM) from Carl Weiman group - easy training, any colleague can get trained and help you out. Focuses on how instructors and students spend time in the classroom.
- RTOP (Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol); all of the items are shown here. This requires a bit more extensive training, but is still very accessible.
Alternative evaluations
Additional course design resources
- Course design tutorial from On the Cutting Edge
- Pedagogy in Action has information about and examples of many, many different kinds of teaching techniques
- On the Cutting Edge has lots of resources about designing courses around specific topics, subject areas, or strategies
- Teaching Introductory Geoscience has lots of resources and ideas that are more specifically focused on introductory courses, including teaching large courses and motivating students
Show Resources for Bloom's Taxonomy
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