Teaching in Higher Ed

instructional_design

Assessment and instructional design

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luke-pt

My husband (Dave) and I are preparing to participate in a parent/teacher conference about our son (Luke) for the first time. Dave brought home a couple of forms that we needed to fill out about Luke, that included us doing some at-home assessment.

I told Luke we were going to do some games and some experiments and that I needed his help. Many of the questions asked about things that I wasn't sure as to Luke's current level of proficiency.

Sample questions

The questions went something like this:

_____ can jump forward six inches with both feet.

[  ]  Yes  [  ]  Sometimes  [  ]  No

_____ can follow a three-part set of instructions without being reminded of any of the steps (such as move your jacket from the floor to the couch, bring me the red book, and put your cup in the sink…)

[  ]  Yes  [  ]  Sometimes  [  ]  No

Careful consideration in assessment

I was conscientious as I filled in each answer. I didn't want us to be those parents who over-inflate our child's abilities in our own minds.

The directions were quite clear and they seemed to predict my questions about how to rank Luke's skills.

Verifying skills

After I completed the assessment, I kept reflecting on how many of the items I had to double check (by having Luke perform whatever skill it was asking whether or not he knew how to do).

I'm one of his parents and one would think I would already know such things.

How much more, then, is it likely that we as faculty aren't always able to gauge where our students are in terms of their progression in our classes?

Motivation vs competence

Dave and I also joked quite a bit while completing the assessment about the number of times that we were confused about whether we should answer the questions as to whether or not he can do a particular task, or whether or not he will.

How much of the time are we able to assess whether it is a lack of competence that is holding our students back, or whether or not the problem is with motivation?

The Mager Six Pack

The whole experience had me thinking, once again, about my most-often consulted set of books in my home office: The Mager Six Pack.

I was first introduced to Mager's books in the late 90s, when the third edition of the Mager Six Pack was published.

Mager's writing is more geared toward an audience doing any kind of instruction, not necessarily specifically toward those teaching in a higher education context.

However, this does not present a weakness, as far as I'm considered. I'm still amazed that a couple of decades later and in any kind of an educational context, Mager has much to offer.

Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna–How to Figure out Why People Aren't Doing What They Should Be, and What to do About It

The title of the first book in the series speaks for itself. I've used it extensively in teaching managers how to figure out what to do when their employees aren't meeting expectations in some way.

Often, a company asks a training department to offer some kind of workshop to fix a performance problem, when it is way down on Mager's list of steps to potentially take, well after having looked at other potential reasons for things not going as they should.

Preparing Instructional Objectives

This would be the place I would have all teachers in higher ed start, as it relates to Mager's work. I just saw that you can purchase this title on Amazon for $4.00, so it is also an affordable way to get started with Mager's work, if you decide not to purchase the entire Six Pack.

Those of us who are fans of the Choose Your Own Adventure books will like Mager's writing approach in this book. He presents information to you along the way and then gives you little quizzes to assess your learning. He has you turn to a specific page, based on how you answer a question.

If you wind up turning to the page that shows you knew your stuff, he has you skip over additional review. If the page you turned to shows that you need a bit more support in learning about this aspect of instructional objectives, he provides further examples.

Measuring Instructional Results

The prior title looked at how to craft instructional objectives. This book explores how to assess learning and the attainment of those outcomes.

I probably need to pull this one off the shelf more often than I have, as it has checklists and other resources to help you when working to assess learning outcomes.

How to Turn Learners On… Without Turning Them Off: Ways to Ignite Interest in Learning

As I shared with the example of Luke not necessarily always wanting to perform a particular task, this isn't only a problem when relating to almost-four year-olds… Mager gives insight in this title about how to help motivate learners.

Goal Analysis: How to Clarify Your Goals So You Can Actually Achieve Them

Mager leverages his writing approach in this title, as he gives you over 50 practice exercises to help you with goal setting.

Making Instruction Work: Or Skillbloomers: A Step-By-Step Guide to Designing and Developing Instruction That Works

Again, this is a title I could probably pull out more often. This book describes itself as a practical resource for instructional designers. There are all sorts of instructional methods out there, but Mager focuses on proven ones that work and will enhance your teaching.

My recommendation

It looks like the original publisher of the Mager Six Pack is no longer printing them. However, I saw in the reviews that the Mager Consortium still has them available.

Mager does have a playful writing style that may be a source of irritation for some academics. If you can get past that, he does provide a structure for his books that focus on the concrete and practical side of instruction.

I hope you'll consider adding the Mager Six Pack to your instructional library. While you're at it, spend some time thinking about ways that you are assessing your students' learning throughout your course and approaches you're using to address motivation throughout the semester.

[reminder]Are there any books on your higher ed bookshelf that you have referenced more than any other over the years?[/reminder]

Choose your own adventure learning

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choose-your-own-adventure-learning

When I was a kid, one of my favorite forms of story telling was the Choose Your Own Adventure series. The books were written in a non-linear way, allowing me to grapple with how I would handle a particular situation.

Cave_of_timeEvery couple of pages brought forth a dilemma with two or three possible routes to take. If I wanted to choose option A, I was directed to turn to a specific page. Option B took me to an entirely different part of the book. You could read the book repeatedly and get a different story each time.

Edward Packer created the series of books out of an exchange he had with his daughters. He used to tell them stories each night about a character named Pete. One day, he ran out of adventures to send Pete on and he asked his children what they thought Pete should encounter that night.

When he saw how engaged his daughters became, he decided to extend the idea into written form. The Choose Your Own Adventure series was quite successful, selling 250 million copies between 1979 and 1999.

Choose Your Own Adventure Learning

The idea for using a choose your own adventure style of instruction for my business ethics course came, initially, from my desire to incorporate some type of undergraduate research into the class. Bethany Usher was on episode 27 of Teaching in Higher Ed and was such an inspiration to me to begin to engage in the messy work of leading undergraduate research.

I wound up failing in my ability to get traction with any kind of formal research projects, but I did start to think more about approaching the class in a more flexible manner than my typical syllabi afford students.

Goals

As I started to put together a framework for the assessment for the learning, I kept a few goals in mind.

1) Offer varied methods for demonstrating learning

I wanted to be sure that students were assessed on each, main, learning outcome for the class. However, I also wanted students to be given choices as to how they might demonstrate their learning.

2) Help students discover their strengths

Instead of having students focus on improving their weak areas, my desire was that this course would help them identify and amplify their strengths.

3) Ask students to take responsibility for their learning

I also hoped that students would be more autonomous in their learning and have some of their childlike curiosity sparked.

Structure

I started by putting together a graphic that showed the students the various ways they had to demonstrate their learning throughout the semester and the associated potential point values.

busn435-pointsdistribution

In order to ensure that students demonstrated learning in each of the four primary learning outcomes, they were required to take at least three exams (out of a possible five).

Each student chose a combination of points that added up to 1000 and only contained one project worth 250 points (the service learning or research project).

Then, I showed them how the various assignments were timed throughout the semester.

module-timing

Some assignments were based on the four modules, each around 3-4 weeks apart. I had students use the scheduling service, Doodle, to sign up to give their in class presentations.

The timing of the exams was not flexible, as they occurred in class and were only offered on a single night of class. The timing of the weekly assignments was also not flexible, as they were designed to be reinforcement for before the class sessions were held.

There were a series of comprehensive assignments, which were assessed in the last few weeks of the semester. Some of our graduating accounting majors put together this video on how to create more ethical business practices through internal controls, as their service learning project.

The intent was that it could help people with limited business experience reduce their risk of fraud. One area that I know I need to improve on the next time I teach this class is to have more measurable outcomes surrounding what “done” looks like for these projects. While I was incredibly impressed with the video, I had hoped that they would have a particular group of individuals who could be helped by it.

I'm disappointed that I didn't outline my expectations more effectively, but am also reminded of what my friend, Doug McKee, says:

If you aren't failing at teaching, you aren't trying hard enough.

Results

On the final week of our class, I asked the students to give input as to what worked and what didn't about the way the class was structured. I had been candid with them in the beginning about my experimentation with this format and we had made some tweaks along the way as we discovered problems with my initial design.

The students were excited to share their feedback with me on how much they liked the class structure.

Here are some of the notes I took that relate directly to the Choose Your Own Adventure learning approach:

We got to play to our strengths.

I could schedule the assignments around my other classes' exam and assignment dates.

It shifted the responsibility for learning from you, as the professor, to us, as the students.

I liked being able to decide whether or not attendance was going to be a factor in my grade for this class.

The flexibility of this structure was great.

Planning out which assignments I would do when also helped me do a little thinking about my learning, in advance of right around when the assignment was due, like I do in so many of my other classes.

It was rewarding to discover that the goals I had set out for this experiment were achieved. I also found other aspects to the approach that I hadn't even anticipated as a potential benefit.

Other ideas

I wasn't surprised when I discovered that I'm not the only person to have had the idea to make a class in to a Choose Your Own Adventure format. Here are 20 ideas for ways you might use a similar format in your classes.

[reminder]Let us know what ways you have given your students more control over their own learning. [/reminder]

 

 

Creating measurable learning objectives

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The first time I taught at the college level, I received a call to teach a course exactly five days before it began. I have now taught the same class seven times and each time I teach it, the objectives of the course change. Sometimes these differences have been dramatic, while other times I make a few minor changes to the wording.

Learning objectives are a crucial part of ongoing improvement to my course curriculum and teaching methodology. They steer the direction of a course and help gauge our progress throughout the semester.

What is Important to Learn?

Learning objectives help us to ask, ‘What is most important for students to learn in this class and how will I know when the learning has occurred?’ While there are many definitions used in clarifying learning objectives, the one I have found most useful comes from an expert in the corporate training world.

Mager (1997) defines a learning objective as (p 3):

… a collection of words and/or pictures & diagrams intended to let others know what you intend for your students to achieve.