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

[Kenneth Romeo]

Bruce,

I think you are on the right track, but I think it extends beyond course 
templates.  This is an idea which seems to be included in what you wrote, 
but I wanted to emphasize that point.

I would hope that we would be able to design something that, rather than 
just reflect the administrative needs of the institution, could begin to 
capture the creativity of instructional staff.  In my own teaching, I have 
found that the most basic unit of creativity is not the course, but the 
activity, which spans anywhere from several minutes to several class 
meetings.  Please pardon my examples from language teaching, but the 
structure of presentation courses I teach is completely different from 
listening courses.  And my colleagues, both in ESL and foreign languages, 
often take completely different approaches to structure in courses with the 
same goals.  However, because we teach language, there are often very 
similar approaches to activities:  small groups, real media, information 
gaps, simulations, etc.

I have also had the opportunity to teach pedagogy courses for 
undergraduates, and I find that while they really find it difficult to grasp 
the factors needed to put together a whole course, they can really sink 
their teeth into an assignment that asks them to design a single 20-minute 
activity.

Taking a step back, while we have many opportunities to do activities in a 
single course, we usually only get one opportunity a year to do any given 
course.  There is a lot of trial and error in teaching, even for those of us 
with lots of experience.

I feel like an LMS should not just be a platform for delivering content to 
students, but for teachers to improve their craft and share it with others. 
In pre-digital days, this was the teachers’ lounge and in-service days.  At 
the Stanford Language Center, we kluge it with Sakai sites that only have 
instructors as members.  I am still not sure what the best way to facilitate 
this sharing is, but I have a feeling that it looks something like a 
portfolio.  You should notice the shift here:  portfolios were originally 
designed for students to collect their work, but they might also be useful 
for teachers to assemble activities.  I realize that OAE may not immediately 
solve this problem, but I would hope that it will be able to move us forward 
just a little.

Ken



From: pedagogy-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org 
[mailto:pedagogy-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of Bruce D'Arcus
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 2:27 AM
To: pedagogy Learning
Subject: [DG: Teaching & Learning] Fwd: on templates (and assessment)



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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