Course Design By Objectives

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Course Design By Objectives

• Effective Teaching
• AHE 6103
• UTSA
• By Cynthia Price

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Research-driven Course Design Redesign

• A systematic process for course design or
  revision
• Your Students - Research on learners tells us a
  lot about how students acquire, organize, and
  retrieve information. It also indicates the
  special needs of particular groups first year
  undergraduates. women in non-traditional fields,
  non-native speakers of English.
• Scope and Content - Many faculty fall into the
  "coverage trap," believing that students will
  learn what we teach, no matter the amount or
  pace. Coverage is an illusion no one can cover
  their entire field even given several semesters.
  The most we can do is provide students with a
  sampling of information, techniques, issues, and
  the skill to continue to learn throughout their
  lives.
• Teaching Objectives - Student-centered objectives
  enable the faculty member and students to more
  easily monitor progress.
• Learning Activities to Meet Objectives- Feedback
  - Different learning activities (ways to select,
  acquire, and maintain information) are
  appropriated depending on faculty objectives and
  student needs Lectures, discussion, small
  groups, projects, and writing.
• Type, Amount and Timing of - Frequent, timely
  and constructive feedback is key to the learning
  process often, however, a lack of resources
  (i.e. time, graders, reliance on traditional
  means) may make providing feedback challenging.
• Grading Mechanisms - One of students' biggest
  complaints is that grading is often not fair or
  consistent, and that they did not know what the
  instructor expected.
• Monitoring Your Teaching - Effective instructors
  are effective because they constantly monitor
  what is working in a course and try to determine
  what isn't working and why.

Source 4Faculty.org
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Introduction

• Setting goals and objectives are among the
  critical activities that distinguish the making
  of a learning syllabus from simply putting
  information on paper or online.
• What distinguishes this Learning movement is
  its focus on student success. Teachers are very
  good about explaining, making presentations,
  making good sense, talking to students. But we
  think most often in terms of our discipline, our
  subject, and are not trained or certain that we
  need to be experts in learning as well as in our
  content area. The first step is to move beyond
  our curriculum expertise, to draw on the work of
  instructional designers, learning theorists,
  cognitive scientists to help us zero in on
  helping students master and become interested in
  the material we teach. The thought that we could
  help students learn is very seductive. We havent
  seen ourselves as being the ones to help students
  learn to learn, to communicate, to study, to
  master critical skills. Leaving that teaching to
  experts in Basic Skills or to counselors has not
  produced the results they and we want, not for
  their lack of knowledge or accomplishment, but
  because the skills and attitudes need to be
  taught continuously in all classes, in the
  context of real learning events, or they dont
  stick. The Learning Paradigm emphasizes real
  world application, communication, constant
  improvement for teacher and student. This only
  happens across disciplines. The way to start
  participating in the integration of learning
  skills is by setting goals and objectives that
  emphasize "Doing," and to implement assessment
  practices that monitor progress, success, failure
  so that change is sustained and growth continues.
• Setting goals is a lever that allows us to hoist
  significant change into place in our courses. One
  of the important changes is to stop thinking in
  terms of what we want to do with the course
  Teaching Goals--and shift to articulating what
  students will be able to do as a result of the
  course and our assistance. This is not a natural
  activity for most of us. It takes some doing and
  seeing results to make it second nature.

Source 4Faculty.org
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Learned Centered Goals/Objectives

• Course Goal
• What will the course do for my students? How
  will the course benefit them?
• Learning Objective
• What should my students be able to do upon
  completion of this course?
• You can stay on a learning-centered track by
  keeping those questions in mind when you plan
  your course. The first question is your reminder
  to discover and emphasize how course material
  relates to the lives and futures of your
  students. This is an important component in
  building a learning environment that nurtures
  intrinsic motivation.  The second question keeps
  your focus on the difference between, What will
  my students know at the end of the course? and,
  What will my students be able to do at the end
  of the course? This distinction is critical
  because setting goals based on DO naturally
  prompts you to design assignments and assessments
  that require your students to think in ways that
  push them higher on Blooms scale. Setting KNOW
  goals tends to restrict assignment and assessment
  design to the Knowledge level of the Taxonomy.
• Understand that thinking of learning objectives
  in terms of what the students will be able to do
  is a defining moment in the move from being an
  instruction-centered to learning-centered.
  Constructing good learning objectives places an
  emphasis on what the student learns as opposed to
  whether the teacher has "covered the material"
  and made good presentations. Consider the
  following table, from Huba and Freed's
  Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses,
  for other aspects of the shift from the
  information-centered to the learning-centered
  paradigm

Source 4Faculty.org
5
from Huba and Freed's Learner-Centered Assessment
on College Campuses, Learner Centered Course
Goals By Mark Ferrer
6
Reflection improves teaching.

• Setting personal goals pushes us and our students
  to improve. For instance, a helpful personal goal
  would be one you set because you want to address
  issues raised by students from the previous term
  another personal goal about your own teaching
  might be that you improve your use of lecture by
  mastering the punctuated lecture approach.
  Whatever you choose, naming it and planning to
  work on it will result in growth.
• The same is true for students. You (and/or your
  institution and department) identify the learning
  objectives the DO goals for the course so
  that your students will master the course
  material as they progress toward those goals.
  This is simple cybernetics goal-directed
  behavior is more likely to result in
  accomplishment of the objective than random
  behavior. Because this is the case, setting the
  goals and objectives in your course is a
  critically important activity.
• First, a word about semantics. Educators
  sometimes distinguish between goal and
  objective.. The University of Arkansas
  Components of the Syllabus site
  (http//www.cast.uark.edu/local/tatew/5CourseGoals
  .html ) makes the distinction by saying that
  goals should be general statements of intended
  outcomes and that objectives should be specific
  statements including measurable and observable
  terms.
• Perhaps more commonly, at least within the
  learning-centered paradigm, outcomes are stated
  as objectives because the concept of DO with the
  knowledge is a natural consequence of active
  learning and moves students higher on Blooms
  Taxonomy. To save confusion in this section,
  lets agree that goal is used to mean the
  benefits students derive from taking the course.
  Well use objective to mean the behaviors your
  students will be able to demonstrate at the end
  of the course or the end of a unit. This is a
  logical and learning-centered distinction
  students doing with the course content means
  they are working at the higher levels of Blooms
  Taxonomy compared to students knowing the course
  content, which is a Knowledge-level Taxonomy
  placement.  

Source 4Faculty.org
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Heres a nutshell approach to course goals
setting

• Find the benefits to the students as a result of
  taking the course and publicize them. This means
  youll have to elicit this information from
  current students in order to share it with future
  students.

Heres a nutshell approach to learning objectives
setting
As you plan your course (and subsequent to that,
your syllabus), think about what your students
should be able to do upon completion of the
course and how youre going to measure how well
they will be able to do those things. Keeping
these two guidelines in mind throughout your
course preparation will keep you on a
learning-centered track.
Source 4Faculty.org
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Identify the purpose of the course

• Reflect upon the course outline. Check with your
  department chair to learn about campus policies
  about how the course should be taught. Spend a
  good deal of time reflecting upon what you think
  is most important for students to learn and be
  able to do by the end of the course. Talk to
  others in your field, search the internet, e-mail
  faculty across the state who teach the course and
  ask for their syllabi. Now winnow down the ideas
  gained to those you believe will best serve your
  students.
• Be careful to consider who your students are.
• What do they need from the course?
• What will they need to learn that will help them
  to continue learning in the discipline on their
  own or in formal classes?

Source 4Faculty.org
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Identify the Purpose of the Course(Continued)

• As mentioned in the previous slide, check with
  Dean and/or Department Chair concerning
  college-defined objectives for your course. Some
  institutions have course learning outcomes that
  must remain the same no matter who teaches the
  course. If that is the case, then you academic
  freedom means you decide how youll help students
  achieve those outcomes. You will decide on the
  enabling objectives, those things students learn
  to do toward reaching the learning outcomes. Your
  first step as you plan the course is to determine
  what students will be able to do upon successful
  completion of the course.

Source 4Faculty.org
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Develop Learner-Centered Outcomes

• It is critical to ask this question What do you
  want your students to be able to do as a result
  of taking this course? The answer to this
  question will provide you with your learning
  outcomes.

Source 4Faculty.org
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General Guidelinesfor Writing Learning Outcomes

• Here are some general guidelines for the wording,
  organization, and tone as you craft objectives
  (adapted from the Columbia Colleges website)
• Goals and objectives should be stated as student
  outcomes (The student will.., or You will be
  able to ).
• They may be organized according to the units of
  the course if appropriate, include projects and
  options.
• They should correspond to the professional
  standards of the discipline and work environment
  the student is preparing to enter.

Source 4Faculty.org
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Describe Learning Outcomes

• Describe your learning objectives using active
  verbs that indicate what students will need to do
  as the semester progresses. For example, in a
  course on history, one instructor told students
  they would acquire the basic skills used by
  historians, which include the ability to
• Critically analyze primary documents
• Identify an authors thesis and evaluate how well
  it is supported
• Write a logical and coherent argument of your own

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What is a Learning Outcomes?

• Learning outcomes often appear as a list of
  skills or abilities. They may also include the
  facts or skills that students should understand
  by the end of the course. Most faculty prepare
  learning outcome per lesson as follows
• Learning outcomes Upon completion of this
  lesson you should be able to
• Describe the _________
• Analyze _____________
• Explain how __________
• Describe the different approaches to_______ and
  list some of the ______ that may be used to
  accomplish this goal.
• Name the____________
• Identify a _____________.

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Using Blooms Learner Centered Outcomes

• The importance of keeping Bloom in mind as you
  create/define your learning objectives for the
  course and unit is clear. The added benefit is
  that our process of syllabus/course planning and
  its order of activates help you
• Determine objectives in terms of student-doing
• Create assessments to measure achievement of
  objectives
• Create assignments to facilitate student
  achievement of objectives
• Working this way guides you constantly along the
  learning centered path. Planning the order of the
  steps keeps your focus on student learning and
  not solely on the presentation of material
• one reason students do not learn may be related
  to the failure of many faculty to consider,
  articulte, and specify their expectations and
  objectives. Outcomes assessment forces academics
  to become student-centered.
• from Successful College Teaching by Baiocco
• Source 4Faculty.org, http//4faculty.org/includes
  /digdeeper/lc_learning_objecti.htm

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Blooms Taxonomy

• Blooms Taxonomy helps to clarify how to define
  and phrase objectives so that you are requiring
  students to work at higher levels of the
  Taxonomy. Integrating as an activity requires
  students to do something with the material.
  List on the other hand, requires only
  successful memorization and ability to say or
  write what has been memorized. Use Blooms table
  to locate your objectives. The level of demand on
  students abilities to think critically, solve,
  problems, make connections rises as the chart
  moves from knowledge (lowest demand) up to
  evaluation (highest demand). Keeping the level
  required to complete your objective commensurate
  with your students readiness to accomplish it
  means that you have set realistic, positive
  objectives one that will result in success
  rather than frustration and loss of engagement.

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• Cognitive Taxonomy Circle

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How the Taxonomy Promotes Active Learning

• Clark (2002) provided an adaptation of Bloom's
  work to facilitate active learning. Although
  originally the tool was developed by a class of
  teachers for use in curriculum building in the
  high school level, the suggestions would work for
  college level classes as well. The inner ring
  contains the original levels of Bloom's taxonomy.
  The middle ring offers synonyms for the various
  academic processes that comprise that taxonomic
  level. The outer ring links process to product.
  For example, if you wanted to increase
  application skills, you might ask students to
  construct diagrams of the key concepts involved
  in the content of the class. If you wish to
  improve evaluation skills, you might ask students
  to produce an editorial for the student newspaper
  in which they discuss the strengths and
  weaknesses of a particular side of a
  controversial issue. We have modernized the
  language of the original circle to reflect the
  latest version of Bloom's Taxonomy.

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How do you begin the process?

• ...by looking at the course description, looking
  at similar courses on the internet, reviewing in
  their minds what they expect the student to be
  able to do with the course information once
  completed.
• It might take a few drafts to accomplish the best
  statement but the Learner Outcome statement
  should be an overview, and what the student can
  DO with the course knowledge.
• Then what?...Summarize the student activities
  into one, two, or three Performance Objectives.
  Performance objectives are what you, as the
  instructor, expect to observe, hear or read what
  a student doing to demonstrate knowledge of the
  subject.
• That leaves Measures of student mastery of
  learner outcomes. How do you or will you measure
  their performance and what level of mastery is
  required to pass the course? It must tie back to
  the Learner Outcome.
• You can have more than is required (based on your
  subject and your departmental mandates) or your
  policies might be a bit more stringent than
  expected by the college. Implement those
  differences on your syllabus to meet your course
  needs.

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Questions to Guide Course Design Decisions

• Determine and understand the student audience.
• Who is likely to enroll in the course?
• What are their academic backgrounds?
• What are their initial interests likely to be?
• If you are in a position to determine who can
  enroll, what audience are you designing the
  course for?
• Identify course goals and learning objectives.
• What do you expect your students to be able to do
  as a result of the course?
• What prerequisite knowledge do students need to
  begin the course?
• Are there skills or attitudes which students
  should develop to achieve these goals?
• How will students be able to demonstrate that
  they have achieved the course objectives?
• What are your areas of interest and expertise
  related to the course?
• Defining and limiting the course content.
• What do all students in the course need to
  master?
• What should students seeking a good knowledge
  learn?
• What optional material will be provided for
  students with special skills or interests?
• What resources are available to assist your
  teaching?

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Questions to Guide Course Design
Decisions(Continued)

• Organizing the course content.
• What order of course content will aid students'
  understanding of the course?
• What pace will both address the course objectives
  and accommodate variations in students' learning?
  
• Planning learning activities to enable students
  to achieve the objectives.
• What learning activities will students do in
  class?
• What learning activities will students need to do
  outside of class, for example, to get sufficient
  practice using new concepts or skills?
• How will out-of-class learning activities be
  related to or integrated with in-class
  activities?
• How will the learning objectives fit with
  students' individual interests and objectives?
• What kind of feedback will students receive about
  the learning activities?
• Planning methods of evaluating student learning
  and providing feedback.
• What type of evaluation methods are consistent
  with the course objectives?
• For what type of evaluation methods can you
  provide sufficient feedback to students?
• How many assignments constitute a reasonable
  workload for an N unit course?
• Which learning activities will be graded?

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Example From the Syllabus

• Course Content
• requirements for becoming a teacher in Texas
   Some of these could be Performance Objectives
• characteristics of effective teachers
• effective teaching methods
• the four domains of the Pedagogy and Professional
  Responsibilities Standards
• issues and challenges surrounding teaching as a
  profession
• social challenges that impact students and
  schools
• the importance of diversity, equality, and social
  justice in delivering high-quality education for
  all students teaching practices that are
  culturally relevant
• organizational structure of schools, from the
  local level to the federal level
• key sources of funding for public schools and
  issues related to over-reliance on any one of
  these sources.

• Catalog Description
• Education 1301 is designed for students who are
  considering teaching as a career. The course
  offers students an opportunity to examine their
  motives for becoming a teacher and learn what is
  required to become a certified teacher in the
  state of Texas. Students will also explore and
  discuss the current culture of schooling and
  classrooms, as well as the governance and funding
  structure of American schools. A 16 hour field
  experience in the public school setting is
  required. (can be part of a measure?)

By Sandra Caceres, SAC
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From the internet....

• Introduction to Teaching and Learning
• This course provides an introduction to teaching
  and learning in a variety of K-12 settings.
  Through visits to schools, classroom discussions,
  selected readings, and hands-on activities, we
  explore the challenges and opportunities of
  teaching. Topics of study include educational
  technology, design and experimentation, student
  learning, and careers in education.

• Course Rationale and Overview
• This course is designed as the first semester of
  a two course sequence that introduces MIT
  students to K-12 teaching and learning. This
  sequence may be followed by an additional three
  course sequence involving student teaching that
  leads to state licensure.
• Many factors have shaped this course to date,
  primary among them have been
• Time in Student Schedules
• Students do not major in education, but add these
  on as additional courses
• Learning Styles of MIT Students
• Most MIT students have had math and science come
  to them easily, have learned well from lectures,
  and succeeded on multiple choice tests
• Battle Against Efficiency
• Many students feel that lectures are the most
  efficient way to deliver information to students,
  and should therefore be the primary mode of
  teaching
• Lack of Breadth in Student Experience
• Most MIT students have experienced limited
  teaching modalities, and have primarily had
  classes with other students who did well in
  science and math
• Waste of an MIT Degree. Students are influenced
  by their peers, parents and professors who often
  tell them that going to teach would be a waste of
  their degrees
• (continues)

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From the internet....
Course Rationale and Overview (continued) As a
result these courses are designed to provide
students with maximum exposure to different
teaching and learning styles, and provide them
with encouragement and support as they pursuing
their interests in teaching. The course
emphasizes the benefits of a constructivist
approach, and the merits of hands-on,
project-based, collaborative work. All too many
traditional education courses lecture to the
students about the virtues of such hands-on
constructivist approaches. Instead this course in
turn takes a hands-on constructivist approach so
that students may experience these methods while
they learn about them. Lecturing by the professor
takes up only about 10 of class time, with the
remainder occupied by class/group discussions,
hands-on activities, and student-lead exercises.
This approach sometimes confuses students who are
not used to such methods. The second semester
explicitly addresses these issues, and students
consistently demonstrate understanding of this
material in their own practice teaching.
By Sandra Caceres, SAC
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The Final Result...
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Benefits of Stating Course Objectives

• They communicate your intentions clearly to
  students and to colleagues.
• They provide a framework for selecting and
  organizing course content.
• They provide a framework for selecting
  appropriate teaching and learning activities.
• They guide you in decisions about assessment and
  evaluation methods.
• They give students information for directing
  their learning efforts and monitoring their own
  progress.

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Strategies for Common Difficulties in Planning
Courses
How can I obtain enough helpful information about
my students knowledge and skills to ensure I
cover the appropriate material, keep a good pace
and provide enough feedback and support?

• Obtain assessments of particular student
  cohorts from senior faculty.
• Build in mechanisms in case your initial
  assumptions about your students are inaccurate.
  For example, identify material to potentially add
  to or drop from the course as needed, and reserve
  one or two classes per semester to catch up or
  add special topics as needed.
• Administer simple diagnostic tests in the first
  week of class or use standard assignments to
  benchmark and compare across several years.
• Because of the wide range of student
  backgrounds in any class, you might want to
  consider including supplemental instruction like
  review sessions, flexible office hours,
  additional reference material, sample problems
  and solutions, and models of outstanding student
  works.

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Strategies for Common Difficulties in Planning
Courses
How can well-written objectives enhance student
learning?

• Our objectives often focus on what we will do
  in a course instead of what we want students to
  achieve. Write student-centered objectives in
  terms that are observable and measurable (for
  example, whether students can provide examples of
  concepts or solve a particular class of
  problems).
• Consider a broad spectrum of learning
  activities (such as case studies, interactive
  multi-media, project courses, simulations, small
  group discussions and student presentations ) to
  help students more effectively practice and
  efficiently achieve course goals.
• Be sure the variety of learning activities
  included in the course matches the range of
  objectives. For example, consider the types of
  thinking involved in each of your objectives
  (e.g., comprehension, application, analysis) and
  check how well the learning activities can
  accomplish those.
• Consider talking with students about how to use
  objectives to monitor their own learning.

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Strategies for Common Difficulties in Planning
Courses
What types of feedback mechanisms are both
efficient and effective?

• Determine the nature of the feedback students
  will need to master the concepts and skills for
  each assignment. For example, feedback may be
  individual or group, more or less detailed,
  descriptive or evaluative as well as oriented
  toward short-term or long-term change. Based on
  the form of feedback you choose and the resources
  you have (e.g., graders), estimate the time
  required to provide the feedback and, if needed,
  adjust your plans for the nature or number of
  learning activities.
• Select some assignments that will be turned in
  but not graded. For example, ask students to
  categorize rather than solve problems, generate
  an example of a concept or application, or
  summarize an authors argument. A quick read can
  enable instructors to identify common themes or
  errors and provide prompt feedback to the class
  as a whole. These assignments can provide an
  opportunity for students to be creative and
  receive feedback without the risk of a low grade.
• In courses with studios or presentations,
  consider providing immediate feedback to groups
  rather than individuals. After observing several
  students work, instructors might comment on both
  the common strengths and weaknesses so students
  see shared difficulties and dont feel the
  awkwardness of being critiqued in front of a
  group.
• Provide more detailed solution sets to reveal
  the appropriate underlying reasoning, to identify
  potentially misunderstood concepts or principles,
  and to elaborate how common student errors
  followed from these misunderstandings.

29
Strategies for Common Difficulties in Planning
Courses
How can I cope with the limited time available
for teaching complex subjects?

• Review the learning activities planned in the
  course to determine how efficient various
  activities are likely to be in achieving
  particular objectives. Both class time and
  students time out of class are limited, so we
  want students to devote their time to the most
  productive activities. Often we teach concepts in
  class that would be learned more effectively in
  another medium for example, assigned reading is
  sometimes the best choice for conveying detailed
  explanations because students can control the
  pace and reread as needed. You could then use
  strategies to make students accountable for the
  reading.
• You might consider different combinations of
  familiar learning modes. Lectures can complement
  reading assignments by elaborating or providing
  alternative views, especially when students have
  read strategically. You might use brief writing
  assignments to prepare students so that
  discussions are more productive.
• Give students some explicit directions for
  combining their learning strategies effectively.
  For example, lectures can sometimes introduce
  complex readings that students should study
  further. Or you might tell students that careful
  reading in advance is necessary to provide
  background information for in-class applications.
  
• Based on course objectives and the students in
  the class, distinguish between different levels
  of material and their importance for different
  groups of students. The core elements of the
  course should be taught so that they can be
  mastered by everyone. Provide additional material
  to promote deeper understanding if time permits,
  especially for students with special aptitudes or
  plans to continue in the field. Use supplemental
  readings, projects and other resources to
  challenge highly motivated, interested students.

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References

• Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.) (2001).A
  taxonomy of learning, teaching, and assessment A
  revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational
  objectives. New York Longman. http//www.apa.org/
  ed/new_blooms.html
• Caceres, S., Example Syllabi SAC Faculty Have
  Modified, http//www.accd.edu/sac/iic/STAFF/scacer
  es/Syllabi/Modified20Syllabi/ModifiedSyllabi.htm
• Ferrer, M., Learner Centered Course Goals,
  4Faculty.org,web site http//www.4faculty.org/inc
  ludes/digdeeper/lc_coursegoals.htm
• Ferrer, M., Learner Centered Course Goals,
  4Faculty.org, web site http//www.4faculty.org/in
  cludes/105r2.jsp
• Nilson, L.B., Teaching At Its Best A
  Research-Based Resource for College Instructors,
  Anker Publishing Company, Inc., Vanderbilt
  University
• Smythe, K. and Halonen, J., Using the New Bloom's
  Taxonomy to Design Meaningful Learning
  Assessmentshttp//www.apa.org/ed/new_blooms.html