[DG: Teaching & Learning] Fwd: on templates (and assessment)

[Bruce D'Arcus]

And because this touches on assessment/pedagogy in OAE, sending here as well
....

Some context on a comment I just added to Confluence on "templates":

<
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Sakai+OAE+v1.1+progress+tracking?focusedCommentId=75666017#comment-75666017
>

.. which I've complained about a number of times in the past. In
short, I'm suggesting OAE define a small number of discrete "template"
concepts, and use the language consistently in communication.

So the context is where I'm hoping to steer the notion of a "course
template."

A couple of people in the comp sci department at my institution (one
of whom now works at Google) wrote a Ruby Rails LMS a few years ago:

<http://www.cascadelms.org/>

I would like to see some of their (tested) ideas on assessment make
their way into OAE.

In summary, in Cascade, a few of the core concepts are (maybe with
slight tweaks in language to be more consistent with OAE):

Outcome - a particular, itemized, learning goal
Program - offers courses and defines ProgramOutcomes
ProgramOutcome - high-level learning goals for a program
CourseTemplate - a generic notion of a course (English 101), with
defined outcomes
Course - a specific course offering (English 101, Spring 2010, Dr. Jones)
AssessmentItem - a task offered in the context of a course, and
designed to achieve one or more course outcomes; includes assignments
and tests/quizzes
Rubric - a benchmark against which to assess the degree to which an
outcome has been achieved (can be used in grading of course)

So back to "templates." A CourseTemplate here is just a high-level
description and list of CourseOutcomes, potentially with assignments,
etc. It is not primarily focused on presentation (as I take current
OAE course templates to be), but on content and pedagogy. These
templates then get owned, and defined, by programs (they're too
specific to be defined at the institutional level).

CourseOutcomes can be linked to ProgramOutcomes, from one or more Programs.

Rubrics categories can get linked to CourseOutcomes.

All of these, then, can tied together in advanced Course and Program
reporting.

So to create a new Course, you can select a CourseTemplate, and have
all of this prepopulated: outcomes, assignments, etc.

This actually models quite well how actual course design and program
work happens, at least at my institution. It also potentially could be
used quite successfully to make life easier for students and faculty.

While I see this is a direction OAE "templates" could evolve in, I'm
not entirely clear.

Either way, I think it would help to mint some discrete template
concepts/terms for OAE, to more easily describe what they could and
should be, how they should work, etc.

Bruce
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