Define the outcomes (competencies and skills) beforehand
You might be familiar as an educator with the process of writing learning outcomes and objectives based on the famous Bloom’s Taxonomy. However, many educators tend to focus on lower cognitive levels of Blooms Taxonomy especially when it comes to a content-driven approach towards learning. A structured approach to writing learning outcomes would be that the course designer needs to relate the outcomes with the assessment criteria and this should in practice be reflected in assignments, written exams or tests (whether theory or practical).
You might be familiar as an educator with the process of writing learning outcomes and objectives based on the famous Bloom’s Taxonomy. However, many educators tend to focus on lower cognitive levels of Blooms Taxonomy especially when it comes to a content-driven approach towards learning. A structured approach to writing learning outcomes would be that the course designer needs to relate the outcomes with the assessment criteria and this should in practice be reflected in assignments, written exams or tests (whether theory or practical).
In activity-based learning, you can apply more or less the same principles but with some flexibility. Furthermore, in such approaches outcomes may not always relate to the subject matter content that is being taught. Outcomes are often translated into the words competencies and skills that demonstrate more what the learner can do in practice than his ability for rote learning and memorization.
Furthermore there should not also be too many skills and competencies that should be targeted at in each learning activity. The support of instructional designers can help the lecturer in getting the right balance or if the lecturer is experienced in such types of pedagogical approaches, then this task can be quite easy. The focus needs to be on the quality of the learning experience rather than on quantity.
To be continued.....
Keep the outcomes list and the number of learning activities reasonable
Learning activities essentially contain instructions on what is expected to be done by the student. In many cases, there are a number of sub-activities to do such as reading materials, installing and using software, participation on forums and other related activities. These sub-activities take time contrary to reading and understanding a chapter. Therefore, having too many activities will unduly overload the learner and cause a sense of illusion and de-motivation causing disinterest and probably dropping the course. As a rule of thumb a course of 45 hrs (3 credits) would preferably contain at most three major activities.
Furthermore there should not also be too many skills and competencies that should be targeted at in each learning activity. The support of instructional designers can help the lecturer in getting the right balance or if the lecturer is experienced in such types of pedagogical approaches, then this task can be quite easy. The focus needs to be on the quality of the learning experience rather than on quantity.
To be continued.....
It is in fact very judicious to create a moderately loaded scheme of work or learning outcomes. In fact it is not the quantity of things that a student learn that bust his or hers motivation but the quality or rather the deep understanding of the thing he or she have learned.Bulky modules usually tend to depress and students do not keep in touch with these as they are discouraged.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rachel in the sense that it is only the content of a particular work scheme that helps a student in his or her understanding of the particular topic or subject. However, from another school of thought, lengthy and bulkier courses can motivate student in working harder since they know that it is more difficult of scoring good grades in those modules compared to other related subjects.
ReplyDeleteThe method described above is a good one. Providing the outcomes and objectives before hand is of great benefit. This makes the student more comfortable and more confident about what he will be studying. It help to guide students in their learning in that they explain what is expected of them, in turn helping them to succeed in their studies. It also help the teacher to focus on precisely what they want students to achieve in terms of both knowledge and skills.
ReplyDeleteNext, keeping the learning outcomes and the activities reasonable encourages the students and makes him happy. It gives the student room to breathe instead of causing a sense of confusion and feeling discouraged