I have finished with the final project in Curriculum Design and only have two more small assignments and then I am done for the semester. I can honestly say that it was a wonderful learning experience and that the instructor provided much needed guidance and support throughout the course, making this a challenging and productive learning experience.
Since my last blog we began the actual design process of our course. We worked with design worksheets that guided our learning and the actual design of our first 3 units. These design worksheets were the tools that we used to develop our lesson plans. We first developed the Lesson Objectives and found our content resources for the first 3 lessons. This was challenging as I had failed to consider my first week as an introduction week so I had to find resources for that week and plan on how to do introductions for this course and really lay some groundwork. I was disappointed as I was excited to begin and wanted to work on 3 weeks of my course content. However, I am very glad that the introduction week was a requirement as I had some struggles here and benefited from the feedback. I believe that I have now built an introduction week that sets good expectations, clearly identifies the requirements of the course and begins to consider the technological learning needs of students entering the class.
We then moved into student-to-content interactions. This was a difficult unit for me as I had a hard time grasping the concepts. I understood that something was occurring while the students read the materials and considered the subject as hand but I could not understand how I could plan a course and lay a foundation for that student-to-content interaction. I got some additional assistance from the instructor and began making critical connections. Student-to-content interactions are learning activities that occur after the content has been digested by the student. These learning activities require that the student uses the material they have learned in some manner. The design goal is to design learning activities that are relevant and facilitate learning.
We then worked on our student-to-student interactions which are simply designing how students interact with other students using the content materials. Some examples of how this occurs are through discussion posts, group activities, chat, and synchronous group discussions. In my course the interactions will be only through the discussions posts so my design goal was to produce discussion posts questions that students would answer (student to content interaction) and that other students could read and then respond to (student-to-student interaction). These questions needed to be open ended questions that the student could respond to in such a way that other students could then offer their varying opinions about first student's response. This interaction teaches students to read a response, think critically about the response and then provide their own reactions to the first students response. This provides both students an opportunity to learn from the other student and to perhaps learn the material from another perspective or at a deeper level.
We then considered the student-to-instructor interaction where the instructor provides feedback and guidance to the student. In my course the student-to-instructor interactions will occur during the discussion boards and through assessments/assignments. Points are assigned to the assigned work based on a rubric that has been provided to clearly communicate the expectations to the student. This allows both the student and the instructor to assess how well the student is learning the material.
We also designed the assessments for these first three units. It was challenging to make sure that the assessments were developed in such a way that they assessed the learning objectives that were originally established. This was a point where I needed to really focus to see if my course was "hanging together" from beginning to end and if the design and material were functional to meet the learning objectives. There were many re-writes at this point as I determined that I had gotten off track.
The design sheets are a wonderful tool to keep you on track and to help you determine if you have gotten off track. They are also a great way to share your work with someone else and receive feedback from them as to if you are being consistent throughout the design of the course. They are a tool that I will use in the future as I work on completing my course design.
We then began exploring quality standards in course design using the Quality Matters Rubric. This is a very thorough rubric that assists with the assessment of a course. We first were given one standard and used that standard to evaluate the design class that we are taking. We had access to every ones work and thus could see how each standard was assessed in the course we were currently taking. Next we used the entire rubric to assess a partners design project. That was much more difficult since the course was not fully developed and we had to use each standard in the rubric. What this learning activity accomplished for me was it gave me many areas to consider in my own course that I would not have otherwise considered. This is another tool that I will use as I fully design my course.
We worked on our own assignments and reviewed peers assignments, providing feedback throughout this course. This course is designed to model what we are learning so I learned from the model my own work, responding to others work, other's responses to my work and the instructors feedback to my work. Due to this well designed course I have been able to master the course objectives set out in the course and the learning objectives in each unit.
Thanks to GSU for this course and certificate program. And a very special thanks to my instructor, Jan Engle, who taught we forethought and patience. Enjoy your retirement, you will be missed!
