Designing Courses to Work Smarter Together

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Designing Courses to Work Smarter Together
Tom Carey University of Waterloo California
State University
Together?
Designing Courses to Work Smarter Designing
Courses to Work Smarter
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• Overview of this session (and follow on Institute
  activities)
• Designing Courses to Work Smarter macro level
• Getting the most value from faculty and student
  time
• Designing Courses to Work Smarter micro level
• Using discipline-oriented research on teaching
  learning
• Designing Courses Together
• Complement SDSU Design Institute with discipline
  interactions
• I dont have enough time
• collaborative teams for course redesign
• I need to see it in my context(if time permits)
• sharing exemplary teaching practice
• Why Course Redesign (now)?

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Designing (Whole) Courses to Work Smarter (1)
National Center for Academic
Transformation www.thencat.org
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Example Organizing Around Tasks Rather than
Content

• A Task is an opportunity to practice/reinforce an
  outcome
• learning outcome
• course outcome
• program outcome
• includes capabilities, values and attitudes

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Example Organizing Around Tasks Rather than
Content

• A Task is an opportunity to practice/reinforce an
  outcome
• learning outcome
• course outcome
• program outcome

60 second assignment What was the task for
students in your last lecture?
90 second assignment Share with a neighbor
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Example Rethinking how we use time
Mon Wed Fri Mon
Wed Fri
In-Class Activities ? ? Assessmt Feedback
Out-of-Class Activities ? ?
Creating Significant Learning Experiences An
Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses
L. Dee Fink, Jossey-Bass 2003 Earlier, short
version at http//www.ou.edu/pii/significant/selfd
irected1.pdf
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Designing Courses to Work Smarter micro level
What capabilities are particularly difficult for
students to develop? What concepts are
particularly troublesome? Why? What can I do to
support/promote/enhance student learning?
www.ed.ac.uk/etl
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Troublesome knowledge

• Ritual knowledge - names and dates are rote
  learned
• Inert knowledge that the student does not often
  use
• Conceptually difficult knowledge
• such as complex technical knowledge or ideas
  affected by mistaken expectations derived from
  everyday experience
• Alien knowledge/Threshold Concepts

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Threshold conceptsin economics

• A threshold concept can be considered as akin
  to a portal,
• opening up a new and previously inaccessible
  way of thinking
• about something. It represents a transformed
  way of
• understanding or viewing something without
  which the learner
• cannot progress.
• For example, if opportunity cost is
  accepted by students as a
• valid way of interpreting the world, it
  fundamentally changes their
• way of thinking about their own choices, as
  well as serving as a
• tool to interpret the choices made by others.
• Meyer Land (2003)

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Troublesome knowledge

• Ritual knowledge - names and dates are rote
  learned
• Inert knowledge that the student does not often
  use
• Conceptually difficult knowledge
• such as complex technical knowledge or ideas
  affected by mistaken expectations derived from
  everyday experience
• Alien knowledge/Threshold Concepts
• presentism in history
• atomic structure in Chemistry General
• Tacit knowledge - acted on but not conscious of.
• Perkins (in press)

Your examples?
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Characteristics of Threshold Concepts - The
Jewels in the Curriculum
Transformative ontological as well as conceptual
shift Usually irreversible, therefore retained
once you see in a different way Often
integrative highlights previously hidden
interconnections
Bounded by discipline and should be treated as
provisional/explanatory Likely to involve
emotional component of letting go/tolerating
confusion Requires teachers to gaze backwards
across their own thresholds listen to students
to gauge mis/alternate conceptions
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Designing Courses Together
Challenges for Faculty to Identify and Use
Research Exemplary Practices I dont have
time

• Solution work-in-progress
• Faculty cooperate on their individual course
  redesigns in a common target subject area
• E.g., California State University collaborative
  teams in Spring 08
• General Chemistry and Developmental Mathematics.
• Demo (private Google Groups website)

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Designing Courses Together
Challenges for Faculty to Use Research
(contd) I need to see it in my discipline
context

• Solution work-in-progress
• ELIXR program to provide discipline-oriented case
  stories of exemplary practice (with links to
  research)
• Mobilize through teaching learning centers

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Why Course Redesign (now)?
Universities have been significant contributors
to knowledge-based productivity gainsbut have
not themselves reaped the benefits
First, the cost of providing higher education has
increased over timea natural consequence of the
kind of our particular enterprise. Because higher
education is a labor intensive enterprise with
little opportunity for increasing productivity
and because wages increase more rapidly than
other goods and services that factor into
inflation, our costs will rise more rapidly than
inflation in general. Whats more, we widen
that gulf by helping to produce an educated
workforce, which subsequently creates
productivity gains in the rest of the economy and
slows the pace of general inflation (but not
ours). David Longanecker, "Money for
Something - But What?" The New Balancing Act in
the Business of Higher Education TIAA-CREF
Institute Conference, 2005
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Why Course Redesign (now)?
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Why Course Redesign (now)?
Squeeze Play How Parents and the Public Look at
Higher Education Today
Public Agenda and the National Center for Public
Policy and Higher Education, 2007
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Why Course Redesign (now)?
How can we provide access and success to a wider
audience
Take 100 8th graders today and ask how many will
have a college degree in 10 years. Given current
completion and participation rates along the way,
the answer is 18. What, I ask you, will the
other 82 students be doing in the America of
2015?...Kirwan
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Designing Courses to Work Smarter Together
Contact information tcarey_at_calstate.edu Private
Google Groups workspace will soon have a public
excerpt (email Tom to be notified) Information
about CSU Transforming Course Design
project http//www.calstate.edu/ats/transformin
g_course_design/ http//transform.csuprojects.or
g Enhancing Teaching and Learning project
ELIXR http//elixr.merlot.org
www.ed.ac.uk/etl
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Other Examples of Online Artifacts for
Knowledge Exchange
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