Learning outcomes have received much attention in the last decade or so. The public wants to be assured that the courses students pay hard earned money for help them achieve something valuable and ultimately help them obtain a good job. Legislatures have pushed accreditation agencies to demand assessment of outcomes at universities they accredit. UTEP must submit its 5 yr interim report ot its accrediting agency in 2011 and show evidence that all academic programs assess the effectiveness of their curricula in helping student achieve the stated Program Learning Outcomes (PLO).
In the context of this “bigger picture” you can see the roles of individual classes more clearly. If accreditation agencies (the Southern Association for Colleges and Schools: SACS is the agency that accredits UTEP) are demanding accountability of academic programs, the programs must hold faculty and instructional staff accountable for what they do in the classroom. In this context, every single faculty member must ensure that the content, learning activities, and assessments in his/her class are directly contributing to the program’s learning outcomes. No longer can departments and programs allow individual instructors to determine what they will teach in their courses. Each course has to help students achieve the PLOs and must be continually assessed on its effectiveness in doing so. On an annual basis, the faculty must review the data gathered on student performance to determine where improvements are needed in the curriculum to better meet their PLOs. We are now required to show evidence that we are really doing what we say we do. The “trust us, we’re doing our job” argument is no longer accepted.
In this context, faculty must think carefully about what it is that students should be able to do at the end of their course. To determine what those outcomes are, faculty members should understand the PLOs, and the place of their course in the curriculum. Ideally, the faculty in a department should collectively discuss the learning outcomes for each class, ensure these are aligned with the PLOs, and decide which PLOs are covered in which class. Each individual faculty member then has the opportunity to decide how to best help students achieve these outcomes in his/her class.
Determining what the learning outcomes should be for GRAD 6100 was a bit different from the process described above. I relied on conversations with faculty developers at other universities, books by the lead thinkers in teaching and learning, consults with the graduate school, a survey the graduate students in Spring 2009, and my own experiences, to determine what the needs were and what the students should gain from this class to prepare them well for a teaching position in higher education. This seminar cannot cover all the aspects of teaching and learning, we have academic programs that try to do that, nor be everything to everybody. It can only offer general teaching and learning principles that the participants must translate into the specific teaching actions befitting the culture of their disciplines and the constraints placed upon their course through its situational factors (see Fink, 2003).
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Planning backwards
Planning backwards is likely the most important principle in course design. After you have identified the situational factors that define the context for your course (see Fink, 2003) you need to decide what the learning outcomes (goals) are for the class. You need to clearly articulate what the students should know and be able to do after they complete your course in preparation for their next course in the curriculum or their professional tasks. The principle of planning backwards speaks to me because of my background in athletics.
As a coach in international and NCAA Division I gymnastics, planning backwards was required practice if you wanted to develop an effective training plan for the athletes. If you wanted to win a championship you had to sequence your practices such that your gymnasts would learn the physical skills and gain the mental confidence and attitude necessary to accomplish that feat. Therefore, you built your practices from easy to difficult, slow to fast, etc, but in a backwards fashion. It should be no different in any learning situation, but in higher education few courses are designed with this principle in mind. Developing and sequencing learning activities from simple to complex across a semester takes quite a bit of thought, and many instructors rely on textbook authors to take care of sequencing materials. .
Let me refer back to athletics one more time. Backwards planning is fully focused on the athletes, their physical and mental health and continual progress to peak performance. Competition, success, glory, fame, and sometimes lots of money, are strong motivators to work hard on the planning process and "get it right." Clearly, on the academic side of higher education we don't have these strong motivators, but we are responsible for preparing many young people for the next course in their curriculum, and the challenges of life and their profession. Something that is in the end much more important than winning a trophy. Therefore thougtful development of learning goals and meticulous backwards planning are necessary components of course development.
As a coach in international and NCAA Division I gymnastics, planning backwards was required practice if you wanted to develop an effective training plan for the athletes. If you wanted to win a championship you had to sequence your practices such that your gymnasts would learn the physical skills and gain the mental confidence and attitude necessary to accomplish that feat. Therefore, you built your practices from easy to difficult, slow to fast, etc, but in a backwards fashion. It should be no different in any learning situation, but in higher education few courses are designed with this principle in mind. Developing and sequencing learning activities from simple to complex across a semester takes quite a bit of thought, and many instructors rely on textbook authors to take care of sequencing materials. .
Let me refer back to athletics one more time. Backwards planning is fully focused on the athletes, their physical and mental health and continual progress to peak performance. Competition, success, glory, fame, and sometimes lots of money, are strong motivators to work hard on the planning process and "get it right." Clearly, on the academic side of higher education we don't have these strong motivators, but we are responsible for preparing many young people for the next course in their curriculum, and the challenges of life and their profession. Something that is in the end much more important than winning a trophy. Therefore thougtful development of learning goals and meticulous backwards planning are necessary components of course development.
Getting started with course development
Every project starts with an intent. This one was no different. I consider the design of a new course a project. In the old days my approach to designing a course was to select a textbook that came with overheads (nowadays that is either a CD or a webpage with PowerPoint files and a bank of test questions) and I was done. I have to admit, that I too took the road of least resistance and thought that I was solely responsible for transmitting information to the students. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to, because that had been modeled to me my entire life in education. Even in my first year as a faculty member, I was told to sit in on a class taught by a "master teacher" who portayed just that model.
But designing a learning-centered course is much more than picking a textbook for convenience. I intended to develop a course for graduate students that would help them learn more about teaching and develop a "reference of correctness" about teaching and learning that was more than "teaching = delivering information." In other words, I wanted this course to help Teaching Assistants realize that good teaching is not just lecturing by the "sage on the stage" who then leaves the students to their own devices to figure out what all that information really means.
Bill McKeachie suggest to start the development of a course at least 3 months prior to teaching it. I started developing this one towards the end of the spring semester 2009, as it would be taught in the Fall of 2009.
As a starting point I used a class I taught on teaching and course design for doctoral students in the College of Health Sciences during the previous two fall semesters. I had been succesful and I thought I could roll that course over into a seminar for our teaching assistants. I was wrong!
From early comments on the draft syllabus I shared with my collaborators, it was clear that my focus was too much on course design and the theories behind teaching and learning. Masters and new PhD teaching assistants, especially those who have not taught before, clearly have very different concerns. A survey of their needs and personal communications made very clear. I had to change my approach significantly, and started focusing on the basic elements of teaching such as developing a lesson plan, public speaking skills, starting a discussion and facilitating it, basic class management strategies, etc.
I reread some of the classic books on teaching such as McKeachie's Teaching Tips, and Linda Nilson's Teaching at its Best, and reflected on my own experiences and strategies of 22 years in higher education.
Let me digress for a moment and tell you a bit about my learning styles, because they help explain how I go about conqueringt the challenge of designing a course. According to the Felder and Soloman Index of Learning Styles my prefered learning styles are Active, Sensing, Visual, and Global. In other words, I focus on the big picture, then jump in, and muddle around with stuff before I develop a detailed structure. It probably drives others crazy, because in the early phases I change things a lot and that happened in this case as well.
Focusing on the big picture first, I started developing the body of the syllabus. That was the easy part, because after my discussions with the other folks I was pretty clear on what the course needed to accomplish. Using the model developed by Dee Fink (2003) I laid out the basic elements of the course based on what I believed the students needed to be able to DO after they completed the learning experiences I would present to them in this course.
Finally, developing a course is very much a research project, so I tapped into the resources available to develop the most appropriate outcomes and the best possible learning experiences for the students. Having never taught this type of course, my work was based on one big hypothesis: "Based on my studies I think this will work, but I will have to conduct the experiment to see if it does."
But designing a learning-centered course is much more than picking a textbook for convenience. I intended to develop a course for graduate students that would help them learn more about teaching and develop a "reference of correctness" about teaching and learning that was more than "teaching = delivering information." In other words, I wanted this course to help Teaching Assistants realize that good teaching is not just lecturing by the "sage on the stage" who then leaves the students to their own devices to figure out what all that information really means.
Bill McKeachie suggest to start the development of a course at least 3 months prior to teaching it. I started developing this one towards the end of the spring semester 2009, as it would be taught in the Fall of 2009.
As a starting point I used a class I taught on teaching and course design for doctoral students in the College of Health Sciences during the previous two fall semesters. I had been succesful and I thought I could roll that course over into a seminar for our teaching assistants. I was wrong!
From early comments on the draft syllabus I shared with my collaborators, it was clear that my focus was too much on course design and the theories behind teaching and learning. Masters and new PhD teaching assistants, especially those who have not taught before, clearly have very different concerns. A survey of their needs and personal communications made very clear. I had to change my approach significantly, and started focusing on the basic elements of teaching such as developing a lesson plan, public speaking skills, starting a discussion and facilitating it, basic class management strategies, etc.
I reread some of the classic books on teaching such as McKeachie's Teaching Tips, and Linda Nilson's Teaching at its Best, and reflected on my own experiences and strategies of 22 years in higher education.
Let me digress for a moment and tell you a bit about my learning styles, because they help explain how I go about conqueringt the challenge of designing a course. According to the Felder and Soloman Index of Learning Styles my prefered learning styles are Active, Sensing, Visual, and Global. In other words, I focus on the big picture, then jump in, and muddle around with stuff before I develop a detailed structure. It probably drives others crazy, because in the early phases I change things a lot and that happened in this case as well.
Focusing on the big picture first, I started developing the body of the syllabus. That was the easy part, because after my discussions with the other folks I was pretty clear on what the course needed to accomplish. Using the model developed by Dee Fink (2003) I laid out the basic elements of the course based on what I believed the students needed to be able to DO after they completed the learning experiences I would present to them in this course.
Finally, developing a course is very much a research project, so I tapped into the resources available to develop the most appropriate outcomes and the best possible learning experiences for the students. Having never taught this type of course, my work was based on one big hypothesis: "Based on my studies I think this will work, but I will have to conduct the experiment to see if it does."
Continued in the next episode :)
The Importance of Learning How to Teach
Training of graduate teaching assistants has always been a concern at UTEP. In the past the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning (CETaL) offered a series of workshops that helped TAs prepare for their teaching duties. Because of turnover in staff in the center and in the graduate school, TA training has recently not received the attention it deserves. In the spring of 2009 I decided to form a working group with the Dean of the Graduate School and her staff to develop a teaching seminar for Graduate Teaching Assistants because (1) we have an obligation to prepare graduate students, especially PhD students, for a career in higher education as teachers, and (2) we need to develop a learning-centered culture that focuses on teaching students and not solely delivering content.
The purpose of seminar is to further develop the basic skills, knowledge and attitudes of graduate teaching assistants in preparation for their role as teaching professionals in higher education. The seminar aims to help them gain the confidence needed to conquer the challenges they will face in teaching and research, with an emphasis on teaching. The seminar will also help students develop such skills as writing relevant, clear, and measurable learning outcomes; designing powerful, relevant, and authentic learning experiences for individuals and groups; assess different kinds of student learning; use assessment and reflection to continuously improve teaching; dealing with different personalities and difficult people in a positive and effective manner; and creating longer term teaching and research development plans, among others.
Times have changed and we cannot afford to continue the traditional approach of lecturing, i.e. distributing information, with little concern about how students process that information, and leaving them to their own devices in trying to make sense of it all. Teaching requires more than repeating what is already in the textbook or other materials for the class. We have an obligation to teach student how we think in our discipline and how to apply effective problem solving strategies that will lead to innovative solutions to the many challenges we face as a society. This will not happen if we keep asking students to simple memorize what we said or repeat procedures we showed them.
In this blog I will document the strategy I used, the work completed, and the time it took to develop this course. I do have to admit that I am reconstructing the sequence of events because I started this blog after the fact.
The purpose of seminar is to further develop the basic skills, knowledge and attitudes of graduate teaching assistants in preparation for their role as teaching professionals in higher education. The seminar aims to help them gain the confidence needed to conquer the challenges they will face in teaching and research, with an emphasis on teaching. The seminar will also help students develop such skills as writing relevant, clear, and measurable learning outcomes; designing powerful, relevant, and authentic learning experiences for individuals and groups; assess different kinds of student learning; use assessment and reflection to continuously improve teaching; dealing with different personalities and difficult people in a positive and effective manner; and creating longer term teaching and research development plans, among others.
Times have changed and we cannot afford to continue the traditional approach of lecturing, i.e. distributing information, with little concern about how students process that information, and leaving them to their own devices in trying to make sense of it all. Teaching requires more than repeating what is already in the textbook or other materials for the class. We have an obligation to teach student how we think in our discipline and how to apply effective problem solving strategies that will lead to innovative solutions to the many challenges we face as a society. This will not happen if we keep asking students to simple memorize what we said or repeat procedures we showed them.
In this blog I will document the strategy I used, the work completed, and the time it took to develop this course. I do have to admit that I am reconstructing the sequence of events because I started this blog after the fact.
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