Re-Thinking Your Course

Contact Hours Comparison

• Current 2,520 minutes/semester

• New MWF 2,475 minutes

• New TTh 2,400 minutes

Contact Minutes Over Two Weeks

• Current 350 minutes

• New MWF 330 minutes

• New TTh 320 minutes

First Message

• Get the big rocks in first!!– Steve Ehrman

Multiple Approaches

• Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins– Understanding by Design

• L. Dee Fink– Creating Significant Learning Experiences

What Do I Most Care About

• Eaves-dropping on a conversation among former students five years from now –– What would you most like to hear them

remember from your course?

Possible Goals

•Foundational, short term• Score 80% or higher on comprehensive final

•Foundational, longer term• Master this material so can succeed in next course

•Broader, application/integration• Learn how historians evaluate arguments and information

•Human dimension/caring• See themselves as appreciating history and seeing its

importance

Reminder

• The point is not to include all or most of the goals.

• The key is thinking about what you want to achieve – and making a conscious decision.

Assessment and Classroom Activities

• Design Assessment First– Create exams aimed at testing whether students

learned what you said was most important

• Then Create Classroom Activities– Plan activities designed to help students develop

so they can meet the assessment tasks (and the learning goals)

Before You Teach

• Write out test questions

• Or

• “At the end of this unit, students will be able to…”

Benefits

• Forces use to operationalize goal statements

• Having test questions in mind helps us sort out what to include and what can be left out

• Serves as test of whether you are doing what you really care about

Ways of Shaping Classroom Time

• How/where to deliver information

• Do we have to tell them or are there alternatives?– Flipped classroom?

What Kind of Information

• Depends on Learning Goals• Content– Packaged w/out ambiguity– Lecture or text

• Interpretation/analysis– “Messy” – no single conclusion

What Will The Students Be Doing?

• Active learning• Make relevance explicit• Reflection– What did I learn/what is still unclear– How has my understanding changed– How this information matters in my life

Classroom Activities – The Big Message

• There is never enough time, so you have to leave some things out

• Make sure it is a conscious choice based on your learning goals

Structuring Out of Class

• Explicit planning• Asking them to do things that meet your goals

• Follow with rudimentary flipped classroom– Focus on what they need help understanding– Not delivery of what they have learned from

reading

Getting them to do the work

• Accountability– Not everything has to be graded

• Changing our behavior– Don’t be an enabler

Teaching Strategy

• Techniques v. strategies• Audience, timing and goals– Understand where students are– Find appropriate techniques

• Use combinations to create illusion of variety• Use combinations over different days to move

from lower level learning to higher

Check Your Work

• Dee’s Grid

If you want more …

• More on Dee’s approach, or a chance to talk with others who are trying to re-organize their courses

• During summer• Let me know