The weather in Atlanta has been gorgeous and the sessions inside the Hilton have been sizzling, too, at the POD Conference. It is always so invigorating to be amongst those who spend every day at their respective campus working with faculty to be better teachers.
As always there is a session that really has a wow factor and presents a new idea on something I thought I knew very well, which in this case is curriculum. I attended a session entitled, "Course Design and Curriculum Reform" presented by Edmund Hansen from Northeastern Illinois University. For once, the session was better than the description as I gained new insights into designing a curriculum that enhances and ensures student learning. As the presenter said, the session was about how to teach the curriculum and know whether your students have learned it -- based on factual evidence. He walked us through a matrix that had the following column headings from left to right: Big Ideas, Enduring Understandings (on the part of the student), Learning Outcomes, Common Misconceptions & Barriers (to student learning), Essential Questions, Guiding Concepts, Authentic Performance Tasks, Performance Criteria, and Required Competencies.
It would be next to impossible to explain the content of the workshop so going to recommend the book that I bought from the author at his book signing today for just under $18, entitled, Idea-Based Learning: A Course Design Process to Promote Conceptual Understanding. It has just hit the market and not even on Amazon yet. You can get it in paperback and published by Styllus, ISBN 978-1-57922-614-5. Get yourself a copy, you will not regret it and it will give fresh insights on how to formulate an effective curriculum or revise your current one. If interested in speaking to author, his e-mail is E-Hansen@neiu.edu
1 comment:
I think you will find a text called "Understanding by Design" an excellent introduction to the concepts you outline.
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