Course design workshop

From GeoClasses

Notes from the Cutting Edge Workshop on Course Design held at Hamilton College.

Contents 1 Notes 1.1 Setting goals 2 Modeling class 3 New ideas 3.1 Methods for large lectures 3.2 Labs 3.3 Incorporating GIS into the curriculum 3.4 Concept Sketches 3.5 Preconceptions 3.6 Designing writing assignments 4 Rubrics 5 Assessment

Notes

Setting goals

• Goals need to be testable.
• "What do I want my students to be able to do when they are done with my course?" - what is the absolute minimum.

Modeling class

Intro to modeling class redesign

New ideas

Methods for large lectures

• Pyramid quizzes: Quiz in 2 halves. First half allowing student interaction (5-10 min), second half with a very similar question.

Labs

• Offer TAs credit for teaching new labs developing and using different methods.

Incorporating GIS into the curriculum

• Using ArcMap in all classes? What about free software.
• ArcScene for 3d vis.

Concept Sketches

from Concept sketches

• Sketches that have labels (concept captions) that describe processes (not just labels of features).
• Lines with arrows mean motion is occurring. Instead of arrows, lines link the concept captions to the image without arrows.
• Concept captions link process and product.

• Suggestion: one minute sketches at the end of class.

Preconceptions

Clear the slate. Find out student's preconceptions before getting into a subject. Theoretically, this allows you to identify any erroneous preconceptions and correct them so students are not filtering your new information through the erroneous filter.

Designing writing assignments

• Editorial corrections do not help students learn and correct their mistakes.
• Too much bleeding over a paper overloads students.
  • Start with the 1 or 2 most egregious mistakes and tell students (how) to fix them.
• Anything you can do to get students to rewrite their first draft is good.
  • IN classes with many assignments you can ask students to fix problems identified in the earlier papers.

• Grading, and trying to be fair.
  • Rubrics
    • Don't use A-F grades or 1-10 but a scale that is not as easy to translate to A-F.
    • Example Writing rubric

Rubrics

• 3-81 to 3-87 and 4-74 to 4-75 in notes

Assessment

Assessment of student learning.

Informal assessment: Clickers and raising hands.

• Low risk for student
• Called formative assessment because students are still developing their understanding.

Formal assessment: Exams, quizzes etc.

• high risk
• summative assessment

Assessment methods:

• Serc - http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/assess/types.html
• Salg - Student assessments of learning goals: http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/salgains/instructor/