1. Designing Effective and Innovative Courses Barbara J. Tewksbury Department of Geosciences Hamilton College btewksbu@hamilton.edu http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops

2. Interview questions  Interview and prepare to introduce the person sitting next to you. Find out: Name, institution What course is she/he designing or redesigning? What excites him/her about the prospect of designing and teaching this course? What concerns does she/he have about designing and teaching this course?

3. Aims of this workshop  Take you through a process to design an effective, innovative, and challenging course Students learn significant and appropriate content and skills Students have practice in thinking for themselves and solving problems in the discipline Students leave the course prepared to use their knowledge and skills in the future

4. What kind of course are we after? “Challenging courses are those that lead students into situations where the only way out is through thinking” Iris Weiss, 2005, unpub. materials from an NRC-MSP conference

5. How are courses commonly designed?  Make list of content items important to coverage of the field  Develop syllabus by organizing items into topical outline  Flesh out topical items in lectures, recitations, discussions, labs  Test knowledge learned in course

6. What’s missing??  Articulation of what your students need  Articulation of goals beyond content/coverage goals  Deliberate consideration of strategies to achieve goals beyond content goals  Plan for evaluation of success

7. An alternative goals-based approach  Brings same kind of introspection, intellectual rigor, systematic documentation, and evaluation to teaching that each of us brings to our research  Really shakes the tree and designs the course from the bottom up  Assessment falls out naturally

8. Overview of the workshop  Articulating context and audience  Setting goals Setting overarching goals Setting ancillary skills goals Choosing content to achieve the goals  Developing a course plan Exploring teaching strategies Developing a course outline with assignments, activities and assessments to give students practice in goals-related tasks  Following through

9. Does it work?  7 years of workshops on Designing Effective and Innovative Courses in the Geosciences  Now part of NSF-funded On the Cutting Edge program (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops)  New online tutorial  An effective design template  !!Not the only way to design a course!!

10. An aside on terminology  Design model is goals-focused  Terminology: goals vs. objectives vs. outcomes vs. learning goals vs. learning objectives vs. learning outcomes Geology faculty at our workshops largely not fluent in edu-speak Some have encountered terms defined differently in different venues Our workshop participants wasted time and energy coping with the distinctions

11. An aside on terminology  The problem with the word “learning” The brown bread example brown bread

12. An aside on terminology  The problem with the word “learning” “I am in the middle of learning research techniques in geomicrobiology.” “I am finding out more about learning research in the geosciences.”  Ditto learning objectives and learning outcomes

13. An aside on terminology  For our workshops, we have collapsed goals, objectives and outcomes into one standard English term “goals”.  Goals for us will be concrete and measurable (“My goal in life is to make a million $$”; “My goal next year is to make the Olympic sock wrestling team.”)  Avoided “learning” as an adjective.

14. Step I: Context and audience  Our course design process begins with answering the following: Who are my students? What do they need? Can’t set goals effectively until these questions are answered What are the constraints and support structure?

15. Task: context & constraints  Go to page 1 of the assignments.  Answer each question first, and then, if you have time, go back and consider the challenges and opportunities presented by what you consider to be the most important aspect(s) of context and constraints

16. Step 2: overarching goals  Teaching is commonly viewed as being teacher-centered.  Reinforced by the teaching evaluation process  Commonly reinforced by how we phrase course goals: “I want to expose my students to….” or “I want to teach my students that…” or “I want to show students that…”

17. Step 2: overarching goals  “It dawned on me about two weeks into the first year that it was not teaching that was taking place in the classroom, but learning.” Pop star Sting, reflecting upon his early career as a teacher

18. Step 2: overarching goals  We can’t do a student’s learning for him/her  Need to set course goals for the students, not the teacher

19. Goals phrased as student-focused goals  At the end of this course, students will be able to…”  Focuses on student learning  Helps us get over thinking of course as an opportunity for teacher to expose students to something or teach them about something

20. Goals phrased as students being able to do something  What do you want your students to be able to do after they have taken your course?  Which would we rather have? I want my students to have a strong background in ____ OR I want my students to use their strong background in order to do ____

21. Goals phrased as students being able to do something  Helps us focus beyond content coverage/mastery  Helps us focus beyond the end of the semester – what value has the course added to student lives, abilities, and skill sets?  Helps us see a path from goals to course design - makes very clear what kind of practice students must receive in the course to become good at the “doing”

22. Goals have potential to transform a course  Example from an art history course Survey of art from a particular period Vs. Enabling students to go to an art museum and evaluate technique of an unfamiliar work or evaluate an unfamiliar work in its historical context or evaluate a work in the context of a particular artistic genre/school/style

23. Goals have potential to transform a course  Example from a math course Practice in particular techniques (stats, calc, diff eq) Vs. Enabling students to evaluate statistical claims in the popular press/advertising or analyze applications of calculus in unfamiliar situations or solve unfamiliar real-world problems in science/engineering

24. Goals have potential to transform a course  Example from a history course Survey of history of a particular time period Vs. Enabling students to evaluate an unfamiliar event in its historical context or reconstruct an unfamiliar historical event from different viewpoints or a familiar historical event from a new viewpoint or seek out and evaluate information about an unfamiliar historical event

25. Goals have potential to transform a course  Example from an education course Survey of results of research on learning Vs. Enabling students to design classroom activities for students that are consistent with educational theory and the science of learning.

26. Goals have potential to transform a course  A course should enable students, at appropriate level, to do what professionals do in the discipline, not just expose them to what professionals know.

27. So, what do professionals do?  What sorts of things do you do simply because you are a professional in your discipline?? I use the geologic record to reconstruct the past I use geologic past to predict the future I look at houses on floodplains, and wonder how people could be so stupid I hear the latest news from Mars and say, well that must mean that….

28. So, what do professionals do?  Physicist: predicts outcomes based on calculations from first principles  Art historian: assesses works of art  Historian: interprets historical account in light of the source of information  English prof: analyzes prose/poetry

29. Task: What do you do?  Your course should enable your students, at appropriate level, to do what you do in your discipline, not just expose them to what you know.  Go to page 5 of the assignments. In context of general course topic, what do you do? What does analyze, evaluate, etc. involve? Alternatively, what is unique about your world view/the view of your discipline??

30. Goals involving lower order thinking skills tasks  Knowledge, comprehension, application explain describe paraphrase list identify recognize calculate know about prepare

31. Examples of goals involving lower order thinking skills  At the end of this course, I want students to be able to: List the periods of the geologic time scale Recognize examples of pointilist art Label a time line with the dates of major events leading up to World War I. Calculate standard deviation for a set of data Know about Earth systems

32. Examples of goals involving lower order thinking skills  At the end of this course, I want students to be able to: Compare and contrast transcendentalism and existentialism. Describe how the Doppler shift provides information about moving objects, and give an illustrative example. Explain how stem cells form and what applications might be developed.

33. Goals involving higher order thinking skills tasks  Analysis, synthesis, evaluation, some types of application predict interpret evaluate derive design formulate analyze synthesize create

34. Examples of goals involving higher order thinking skills  At the end of this course, I want students to be able to: Develop and test age-appropriate lesson plans. Analyze an unfamiliar work of art (which is different form recalling those covered in class) Evaluate the historical context of an unfamiliar event. Frame a hypothesis and formulate a research plan.

35. Examples of goals involving higher order thinking skills  At the end of this course, I want students to be able to: Collect and analyze data in order to ___ Design models of ___ Solve unfamiliar problems in ____ Find and evaluate information/data on ____ Predict the outcome of ____

36. Why are overarching goals important?  If you want students to be good at something, they must practice.  Goals drive both the course plan and assessment  Goals are the underpinnings of your course and serve as the basis for developing activities to meet those goals.

37. What kind of goals to set?  Higher order or lower order thinking skills?  Measurable outcomes or not?  Abstract or concrete goals?

38. Setting goals phrased with higher order thinking skills  Overarching goals involving lower order thinking skills are imbedded in ones involving higher order thinking skills  “being able to interpret tectonic settings based on information on physiography, seismicity, and volcanic activity” has imbedded in it many goals involving lower order thinking skills

39. Setting goals phrased with higher order thinking skills  Helps us focus on developing students’ abilities to think for themselves and solve problems in the discipline while still addressing mastery of content  Helps us integrate assessment from the beginning that goes beyond recall and reiteration

40. Setting “measurable” goals  Easier to design a course when overarching goals phrased so that you could imagine tasks that students could perform that would show whether they had mastered the content and skills of the course. I want students to be able to interpret unfamiliar tectonic settings based on information on physiography, volcanic activity, and seismicity (measurable). Vs. I want students to understand plate tectonics (not directly measurable).

41. Setting concrete goals  Abstract goals are laudable but difficult to assess directly and difficult translate into practical course design I want students to appreciate the complexity of Earth systems. I want students to think like scientists.  Setting concrete goals helps us get beyond laudable but vague aims

42. Task: evaluating goals  Go to page 6.  Determine if each goal: Is student-focused Involves higher-order thinking skills tasks Is a measurable goal Is concrete, rather than vague and abstract  For goals that don’t measure up, how would you improve them?

43. Task: write overarching goals for your course  Go to page 8.  Draft overarching goals for your course  1-3 overarching goals is ideal.  There is no one right set of overarching goals for a particular course topic.  Heed the guidelines!!

44. On your large Post-It sheet  Your name and institution  Course title, level, and # of students  Prerequisites, if any  Does your course serve as prerequisite for other courses?  Any other important context info  First draft of overarching goals

45. Step 3: Setting ancillary skills goals  Ancillary skills Accessing and reading the geologic literature Working in teams Writing and quantitative skills Critically assessing information on the web Self-teaching, peer teaching, oral presentation

46. Importance of limiting number of ancillary skills goals  To improve skills, students need repeated practice and timely feedback  Hard to provide adequate practice and feedback unless goals are limited.

47. Task: write ancillary skills goals for your course  Go to page 9.  Set 1-2 ancillary skills goals  Make sure that you are prepared to provide students with practice and timely feedback !!

48. Step 4: Achieving goals thru selecting content topics  What general content topics could you use to achieve the overarching goals of your course?

49. Example from a geo hazards course  Overarching goal: students will be able to research and evaluate news reports of a natural disaster and communicate their analyses to someone else

50. Be able to research and evaluate news reports of a natural disaster and communicate analyses to someone else  Instructor #1 chose four specific disasters as content topics 1973 Susquehanna flood Landsliding in coastal California Mt. St. Helens Armenia earthquake

51. Be able to research and evaluate news reports of a natural disaster and communicate analyses to someone else  Instructor #2 chose four themes as content topics Impact of hurricanes on building codes and insurance Perception and reality of fire damage on the environment Mitigating the effects of volcanic eruptions Geologic and sociologic realities of earthquake prediction

52. Be able to research and evaluate news reports of a natural disaster and communicate analyses to someone else  Instructor #3 chose to focus on a historical survey of natural disasters in Vermont Historical record of flooding in NW Vermont 1983 landsliding 2-3 other places in Vermont that have had natural disasters of different types.

53. Goals and content topics unite to provide course framework  Previous example Single goal; each instructor could achieve goal even though content topics different Choice of content topics drives how the instructor will accomplish the goal. Students will receive different kinds of practice during the course even though the overall goal is the same Course very different from survey course derived from list of content topics

54. Goals and content topics unite to provide course framework  How about a different goal for the same hazards course? Students should be able to evaluate and predict the influence of climate, hydrology, biology, and geology on the severity of a natural disaster. Could we use the same content topics? Yes! How would the courses be different? In the activities developed to accomplish the goals and the type of practice students receive!!

55. Intersection of context, goals, and content  Research & evaluate news report or evaluate and predict influence of climate, hydro, geo, bio on the severity of a natural hazard?  Which goal makes most sense for who your students are and what they need?  Which content topics make the most sense for your students, your setting, your experience, your students’ futures?

56. Fleshing out content topics  Higher order thinking skills goals have imbedded in them lower order thinking skills goals  Broad content topics have imbedded in them many concepts and content items that would be covered in a standard survey course

57. Fleshing out content topics  Geology and Development of Modern Africa  Not a “Geology of Africa” course  Overarching goal: students will be able to analyze the underlying influence of geology on human events  Context is Africa, although goal is more general

58. Fleshing out content topics  Content topic #1: influence of climate change on prehistoric settlement patterns in North Africa  Imbedded content items Geologic content knowledge: 14 C dating, fossils, lacustrine sedimentation, stratigraphic columns, using sedimentary rocks to interpret paleoenvironments, geologic time scale,….

59. Fleshing out content topics  Content topic #2: influence of development of East African Rift on hominid evolution  Imbedded content items Geologic content knowledge: formation and evolution of continental rifts, radiometirc dating, rift volcanisms, stratigraphic columns, fossils, using sedimentary rocks to interpret paleoenvironments, geologic time scale, fluvial and alluvial processes, faulting, geologic history of East Africa, evolution

60. Selecting content coverage  A course that is not a survey course can be content-rich  Courses with depth rather than breadth are viable alternative  Topic coverage doesn’t have to be linear

61. Selecting content coverage  Can meet content expectations for subsequent courses if topics selected carefully  Combination of clearly-stated goals and specific content topics provides clear pathway to designing practice for students in tasks related to the goal

62. Other examples of choosing broad content topics  Goal: Students will be able to help future elementary school students ID rocks and help them with interpretations  Broad content topics: 3 locations with different bedrock geology around which to build different rock interpretation activities

63. Other examples of choosing broad content topics  Goal: Students will be able to use data from recent Mars missions to re-evaluate pre-2004 hypotheses about Mars geologic processes and evolution  Broad content topics: 1) origin of drainage networks, 2) extent of intermediate to silicic rocks, 3) origin of layered rocks

64. Other examples of choosing broad content topics  Goal: Students will be able to make observations of rx and thin sections and collect field data to evaluate conditions of deformation and deformation mechanisms responsible for structures and fabrics and, where possible, deformation history in a sequence of rocks.  Broad content topics: three case studies, 1) brittle def features in Capitol Reef, 2) brittle and ductile features in SW Tibet, 3) ditto in eastern NY state with wrap-up field trip

65. Task: choose content topics to achieve overarching goals  Go to page10.  List your overarching goal(s).  For each, list possible broad content topics that you could use to achieve that goal.  For each content topic, begin a list of imbedded content items that students must master to achieve the goal using that topic.

66. Developing a course plan  For each overarching goal, how will you lead students to the point where they can do ____ on their own?  Alternative phrasing: how will you give students practice in doing ____?

67.  As you enter a classroom, ask yourself this question: “If there were no students in the classroom, could I do what I am planning to do?” If the answer to the question is yes, don’t do it. Choosing classroom strategies General Ruben Cubero, Dean of the Faculty, United States Air Force Academy (Novak et al., 1999, Just-in-Time Teaching)

68. Importance of having a teaching toolbox  If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Same goes for teaching. If the only tool in your teaching toolbox is lecturing, then….

69. Importance of having a teaching toolbox  Learn about successful student-active assignment/activity strategies think-pair-share, jigsaw, discussion, simulations, role-playing, concept mapping, concept sketches, debates, long-term projects, research-like experiences…. assignments involving writing, poster, oral presentation, service learning….  Make deliberate choices of the best strategy for the task.

70. Importance of integrating assessment & course design  If having students meet the goals is important, assessment is a “natural”  Example: Students will be able to evaluate and predict the influence of climate, hydrology, biology, and geology on the severity of a natural disaster. Give students an unfamiliar example Can they do it??

71. Importance of integrating assessment & course design  What students receive grades on must be tasks that allow you to evaluate whether students have met the course goals  If students are graded largely on their abilities to recall, define, recognize, and follow cook-book steps, you have not evaluated their progress toward goals involving higher order thinking skills.  Don’t assess what is easily measured – assess what you value.

72. Mini-sessions on teaching strategies and assessment  Chose one or more of the concurrent and sequential sessions on teaching strategies  Go to the coaching sessions for help in designing assignments/activities using particular teaching or assessment strategy.

73. Task: your course plan  Go to page 12.  Draft a course plan that organizes the order of content and topics in the context of the goals and uses appropriate assessments and teaching strategies for giving students goals-related practice as they encounter content and concepts.

74. Task: final posters  Poster #1 Name, course title, # of students, course context Overarching goals Course plan Short statement of how the course plans allows students to achieve overarching goals

75. Task: final posters  Poster #2 Description of at least one activity or assignment, with assessment, using one of the teaching strategies described in the workshop, with statement about how it fits into your course plan Statement about what you would particularly like feedback on