Planning, Designing & Evaluating Student Assignments - Part 3

We want them to develop a love for learning because that is
what is going to motivate them to continue learning.
If they got just that from a college education,
that would probably be sufficient.
(Dr. Lee). Now, once we have been able
to identify our highest hopes for students,
we can express the hopes as intended learning outcomes.
And, notice that the intended learning outcomes are a smaller
set than our hopes.
So there's no way that we can completely express,
in our intended outcomes, everything that we desire
for students.
And then once we have done that, we can assess
what we really care about.
What you see is a much, much smaller portion, still.
So, again, what we're going to be talking about this morning
is the relationship between our highest hopes for students
and intended learning outcomes.
And, then, intended learning outcomes and how we can assess
those, you know, how are we going to assess so that we know
that students are beginning to progress and develop towards
the learning outcomes and our expectations for them.
And students themselves will know.
You know, they will have a sense of their own progress.
I'm going to introduce, now, a course planning model.
It is not my course planning model, it is a very, very
traditional instructional design model.
But just because it's instructional, and just because
it's traditional does not mean that it's not powerful,
because it really is a powerful model.
And all this model does is, first of all, I'll suggest that
where we have to start first is by identifying our intended
learning outcomes.
Sometimes this is referred to backward design.
We are starting where we want students to end up.
So after students finish my course, how are they going
to be different?
You know, how are they going to be moving more towards
these highest hopes, these highest expectations
that I have for them, right?
And that's the starting point for instruction, not, as is more
traditionally the case, what textbook am I going to use?
That question is way far down the road, you know,
using this model.
Where we start is where do we want students to end up.
How are they going to be different?
And we'll also see that the ways that they might be different
might not just be what they actually know, the facts that
they know, but some skills and attitudes that they've acquired
over the course of the semester, if that's the unit
that we're talking about.
Okay, now, arrow.
Again, really thinking about backward design rather than
thinking about learning activities, or teaching methods,
or textbooks, we're going to design tests, assignments,
and-or projects that will let us know whether students
have mastered these outcomes.
So, again, it's more backward design.
You might think that we would talk about the learning
activites, but no, we're going to talk about the assignments.
And, as we will see in a little bit later, if you've done
a really good job of identifying your intended learning outcomes,
very often they tell you how you're going
to evaluate students.
And we'll see some examples of that.
And then design appropriate learning experiences.
And I'm using the term learning experiences fairly intentionally
because it does an experience, I mean, you're all having
an experience now.
I'm sitting and talking at you, at least for the time being.
But in time, you're going to have even a better kind
of experience because you're going to be more engaged.
So experience implies a kind of level of engagement that
normally is not thought about in the traditional classroom.
And, I'm going to complete the turn here, but then add another
piece that I hope we can get into by the end of this session,
that this is really not the total story.
And because there's something in between, and it's right here,
and it is assessing the effectiveness of our teaching.
So, the model implies a kind of cyclical model, that we're going
to go back and, you know, look at our intended learning
outcomes, redesign assignments, do learning experiences,
and then we're going to go through the cycle again.
But we're not just repeating the same old course over and over,
and over again.
You know, the kind of stereotype of the aged professor with his
yellowed lecture notes.
We're not going to do that.
What we're going to do, after every time that we've taught
the course, is to ask ourselves did things work?
How did things go?
Did students actually learn what I'd hoped they would learn?
Or did most of the students, or all of the students learn
what I hoped they would learn?
And I can tell you, from my own experience, and I'm sure you
would agree with me that not all of the students are going
to meet your expectations for learning.
And, so, how are you going to do it differently?
And I hope, by the end of this workshop, there are a couple
of examples that I wanted to show you of how we can use
the assignments that you develop to give you evidence
of student learning, that you can then use to revise
and change your classes the next time.
This, to me, is the real power of designing effective student
learning assignments.
They're not only good for the students, they're not only good
for you, but they also are a tool that you can use
to evaluate how effective your instruction has been.
Alright, are there any questions at this point before we,
before we move on?
I wanted to give you just a few examples of,
we're going to focus now on intended learning outcomes.
So that piece of the model.
And, I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail about this,
because I have a feeling that most of you already know this.
But there are two kinds of outcomes.
Different people use different terminology.
I'm accustomed to goals and objectives.
Some of you were getting at this with our little mini-case study
at the beginning, where you said oh those goals are too broad,
they're too general, they're too bland, they don't tell us
anything, they're not very inspiring and everything.
We have goals that state over arching expectations of what
we want students to achieve.
But then we have objectives that state specific kinds
of knowledge abilities, and habits of mind, and behaviors.
So they kind of give our goals some teeth, alright?
And let me give you some examples.
This is some examples from a psychology course.
Let's say one of our goals is to apply psychological theory
to interpret and resolve real world problems.
And, again, we might tweak this a little bit so that it's more
motivating for our students.
This is helpful for us.
It may not be too motivating for students.
And some associated objectives might be explained
in your own words three theories of motivation.
Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages
of each theory.
And then use one theory to analyze a case study concerning
worker productivity and offer specific reccomendations
based on the theory.
Okay?
So, same goal, but we've got three different objectives.
And I'm also wondering, what do you notice
about those objectives?
Yes, Jonna?
(Jonna). The thing I'd say I noticed
about the goal is that I do think it motivates
the students because it says resolve real
world problems, which is where a student is coming from.
Especially an intro student.
(Dr. Lee). Right, how, how.
(Jonna). I think the other thing
is that it's quantitative, you can say three,
I'm going to learn three theories, I'm going to do one
assignment where I'm actually going to use those theories
to analyze a problem, a real world problem.
You know, to me, that's something a student can hold on
to and say okay this is what I can expect.
(Dr. Lee). Okay, yes, and I have
had students say to me that they found it
very helpful to have this degree of specificity
because it makes it very clear what the expectations are.
Did you have a comment?
(female speaker). The other thing is
they're moving through stages of understanding
very specifically.
First, we're becoming acquainted with something.
And then we're analyzing and comparing them.
And then we're going to choose which one we think is the best
one for this particular situation and actually apply it.
(Dr. Lee). Right, so, you can see
that there's kind of a difference between the first one
which is really fairly regurgitating information.