FUNDAMENTALS OF COURSE DESIGN

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FUNDAMENTALS OF COURSE DESIGN

• Introduction to Teaching Workshop
• Sponsored by the Academy for the Art of Teaching
• Friday, November 17, 2006
• 1100 1145am
• Session Facilitator Erskine S. Dottin
• dottine_at_fiu.edu

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Words of Wisdom

• If teachers want to create courses in which
  students have significant learning experiences,
  they need to design that quality into their
  courses (Fink, n.d.).

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ACTIVITY ONE Promoting Active Learning

• Brain research suggests that a mechanism by which
  mental networks may connect and organize
  information is through ACTIVE LEARNING.
  Provocative questions are useful in this regard.
  On the other hand, learning is a social matter.
  Interacting with others serves as a useful
  vehicle in enriching and deepening ones thinking.

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ACTIVITY DIRECTIONS

• I will share different anagrams.
• At your respective tables/work groups, THINK
  about the answer consult your colleagues
  regarding the correct answer (PAIR), and have one
  group member record the groups answer on paper.
• I will ask different groups to share answers
  (SHARE)

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ANSWER SAND BOX

• SAND

SAND
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Answer?

• MAN
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  ------
• BOARD

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Answer?

• STAND
• --------------------------------------------------
  ---------------------------------------------
• I

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Answer?

• R/E/A/D/I/N/G

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Answer?

• WEAR
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  ------------------------
• LONG

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Answer?

• R
• R O A D S
• A
• D
• S

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Answer?

• T
• O
• W
• N

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Answer?

• LE
• VEL

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Answer?

• 0
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  
• M.D.
• Ph.D.
• B.A.

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Answer?

• GROUND
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  ------------------------------------------------
• FEET
• FEET
• FEET
• FEET
• FEET
• FEET

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Answer?

• G.I.
• --------------------------------------------------
  ----------------------------------------------
• C C C
• C C
• C

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Critical Question

• WHAT IS THE FIRST QUESTION YOU MUST ASK YOURSELF
  AS YOU BEGIN TO DESIGN YOUR COURSE?

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FIRST STEP IN COURSE DESIGN

• The best teachers try to find out as much as
  possible about their students ambitions, their
  approaches to and conceptions of learning, the
  ways they reasoned, the mental models they
  brought with them, their temperaments, their
  habits of heart and mind, and the daily matters
  that occupy their attention (Bain, 2004, p.
  157).
• Personal characteristics, cognitive levels,
  learning styles.

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SECOND STEP IN COURSE DESIGN

• USE A BACKWARD COURSE DESIGN PROCESS
• This process starts at the end of the learning
  process and works back toward the beginning.

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ACTIVITY TWO

• Think of the TV Show, JEOPARDY
• Workshop Session Facilitator Our category is
  TEACHING AND LEARNING
• ANSWER This famous educational philosophers
  name is sometimes incorrectly associated with a
  library catalog classification system.
• QUESTION WHO IS.?
• ANSWER This word means to draw out, comes from
  the Latin word educere, and is used as a synonym
  for schooling.
• QUESTION WHAT IS .?
• ANSWER This often used term in todays teaching
  and learning, and scholarship of the classroom
  literature, finds its etymology in the Latin word
  for foot.
• QUESTION WHAT IS .?

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USING THE BACKWARD COURSE DESIGN Third Step

• ACTION ONE USE CONTENT, SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE
  ANSWERS TO FIND AN ESSENTIAL
• QUESTION TO GUIDE LEARNING.
• LET US ASSUME THAT YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO
  TEACH A COURSE IN THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION,
  Philosophical Foundations of Education. YOUR STEP
  IN DESIGNING THE COURSE IS TO EXAMINE THE
  RELEVANT TEXTS IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION
  AND THE RELEVANT STANDARDS FOR FOUNDATIONS OF
  EDUCATION.
• Let us assume that the texts highlight the
  following content knowledge as being vital for
  beginning teacher education candidates
• Philosophy and its relevance to teaching.
• Teachers beliefs about how their pupils come to
  know (EPISTEMOLOGY)
• What is real in terms of content knowledge
  (METAPHYSICS)
• What moral and ethical dispositions students
  should or should not acquire and their relation
  to classroom practice (AXIOLOGY).
• How different philosophical schools of thought
  (Idealism, Realism, Theistic Realism,
  Essentialism, Perennialism, Pragmatism,
  Progressivism, Social Reconstructionism, and
  Existentialism) help teachers better understand
  what they do, and how they do it.
• Building a teaching philosophy.
• ACTIVITY
• If the texts and standards offer key content
  knowledge (ANSWERS) then what was/were the key
  question/s that led to that knowledge?
• WHAT IS AN ESSENTIAL QUESTION IN THE FOREGOING
  TOPICS AND CONTENT?

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FROM BIG QUESTION TO EVIDENCE OF LEARNING

• SO, you have identified the BIG QUESTION the
  course will help students address
• Essential Question How should teaching and
  learning be approached?
• ACTION TWO WHAT FORM OF EVIDENCE MIGHT BEST
  DEMONSTRATE STUDENTS COMMAND OF THE ESSENTIAL
  QUESTION?
• Learning evidence A teaching philosophy

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ACTION THREE WILL THE FORM OF EVIDENCE OF
LEARNING, CALLED AN ARTIFACT, (A Teaching
Philosophy) PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF STUDENTS
LEARNING IN TERMS OF THEIR

• REMEMBERING INFORMATION (e.g., understand and
  remember facts, terms, concepts, principles,
  etc.)
• APPLYING KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONTENT (e.g.,
  problem-solving, decision-making practical
  thinking, analyze and evaluate critical
  thinking, imagine and create creative
  thinking, managing complex projects, etc.)
• INTEGRATING IDEAS (e.g., making connections among
  ideas subjects, people) - within the course
  between this course and other courses among
  material in course and students personal,
  social,and/or work life.
• ACQUIRING SELF KNOWLEDGE (e.g., learning about
  and changing ones self understanding and
  interacting with others identifying/changing
  ones feelings, interests, values)

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ACTION FOUR LAY OUT PERFORMANCE LEARNING TASK
FOR THE COURSE

• Students will write a personal philosophy of
  education statement in which they justify their
  approach to teaching and learning. The statement
  should be reflective and personal, and it should
  bring to life, through a metaphor, a teacher
  education candidate who is intentional about
  teaching practices and committed to the
  profession. The statement should reveal the
  students convictions about reality, how we come
  to know, and the values for teaching and helping
  students learn.
• The statement should contain the following
  components a general introduction through a
  metaphor of how teaching and learning should be
  approached the use of the metaphor to describe
  how learning occurs the use of the metaphor to
  describe how to facilitate learning the use of
  the metaphor to describe the role of the teacher
  and goals for students the use of the metaphor
  to describe how to translate concepts of teaching
  and into classroom action.

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ACTION FIVE WHAT PRE-REQUISITE KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS
AND HABITS OF MIND (DISPOSITIONS) ARE NEEDED BY
STUDENTS TO PRODUCE THE ARTIFACT (The Philosophy
Statement) THE EVIDENCE OF LEARNING?

• Understand basic philosophic ideas and different
  approaches to teaching and learning (including
  suggested approaches to dealing with LEP
  students).
• Be able to offer justification (explain why one
  is doing what one is doing)
• Be able to use good syntax and grammar and the
  APA reference style in his/her writing.
• Be disposed to having convictions/beliefs about
  how we come to know, learn, etc.

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ACTION SIX HOW WILL THE STUDENTS
PERFORMANCE/PRODUCTION BE ASSESSED/JUDGED?
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ACTION SEVEN WHAT KINDS OF LEARNING EXPERIENCE
WILL BEST FACILITATE THE STUDENTS ACQUISITION OF
THE KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND HABITS OF
MIND/DISPOSITIONS NEEDED TO PRODUCE THE ARTIFACT
(The Philosophy Statement)?

• Help students know where they are headed.
• Help students know the knowledge, skills, and
  habits of mind/dispositions needed to complete
  the performance task successfully.
• Help students acquire the skill of offering
  justification for why and what one does and says.
• Help students understand basic philosophic ideas
  and approaches.
• Help students to hold convictions/beliefs about
  educational matters.
• Help students to show their understanding of how
  teaching and learning should be approached.

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THE SYLLABUS

• USING THE BACKWARD COURSE DESIGN TO LAY OUT
  SYLLABUS

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WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

• NAME 3 THINGS YOU LEARNED IN THIS SESSION

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.

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THANKS!!!!

• My sincerest thanks to you for allowing me to
  learn with and from you today.