Lesson Planning

In my ideal mind, I plan classes months out, with great thought and time. In reality, it is usually rather rushed, very close to the start of the next quarter. I'm two weeks out now from the start of Summer Quarter on June 24. Next week I'll be at the national Canvas conference InstructureCon  in Utah for most of the week and probably not getting a lot done on this class, so I really need to do some serious work this week if I want to implement some of my new ideas.

Over the weekend, I worked on my lesson planning template. As you may know, I spent the last two quarters teaching in the Education School at Seattle U, a class called Adult Education Methods. The class really stressed the importance of lesson planning in order to implement important aspects of teaching like Universal Design and the Kolb learning cycle, which appeals to adult learners with concrete experiences. It also stressed the importance of summative and formative assessment and critical thinking.

My Global Studies really needs a complete revamp and building it upon carefully planned lessons seems like a good idea, rather than the random compilation of good ideas that it currently is. So, I'm crafting a lesson planing template that I think will work for me.

This week's goal is to write the lesson plan for each of the 8 modules and to set the visibility dates in my Canvas class. I'll also write to my students with my summer welcome letter to get them preparing for what is to come.

As always, if you see something in my materials that is useful to you, please feel free to use and modify.

Outcomes Frustration

I've taught 3 Quality Matters workshops in the last two days and am in the second week of moderating a two week Applying the Quality Matters Rubric class online.  So, I am feeling all QM all the time at the moment.  One key aspect of Quality Matters is Alignment - essentially seeking to have everything in the class lead students to meet the course outcomes.

I'm working on making sure my American Government module level objectives are aligned with my course level objectives. I'm going to be honest with you - these course level objectives are horrible. They are not measurable and they omit about half of the important things one should be able to do at the end of an American Government class, including being a good citizen or a thinking member of our country (which to me is the key reason for students to take this class). I was talking with my dean about this and he observed that these objectives were written ages ago and need to be completely rethought.

So, I am struggling, as I imagine many of you do, to make the class that needs to be taught align with the objectives that I have. I am getting around it by thinking broadly about the language of the objectives. For example, one outcome is to "Explain the changing nature of government" and under that, I am including many of the media pieces of the class, where students examine media depictions of the government and explore how that matches with what they know to be true.

The other option, which I am also likely to take as I pull things together in these last days, is to have some portions of the class that do not align with the outcomes that are there.  For this class, meeting the existing outcomes seems like only about 2/3 of the class. The other 1/3 really focuses on using the understanding of American Government to become a good citizen. So this class as it stands would not live through a Quality Matters review, as I confess that I likely will have some module level objectives that don't align with course level objectives.

Are any of you struggling with alignment? Trying to make the course you think should be taught align with the ancient objectives of a course that used to be taught?

Reference:
American Government Alignment Outline - in Workflowy
Quality Matters website

Course Structuring - Technology last

The quarter starts in less than two weeks and I am scrambling to get everything organized. I am especially conscious of the fact that I will be out of town at a conference every week in October. So at least the first several weeks of my American Government class needs to be completely done.

I have been using Workflowy to organize my American Government class and create my course map. Workflowy is essentially an outlining program.  I personally love outlines - I have a linear mind and ordering things in lists like this makes me happy.  I know it is not for everyone, so you might want to use mind maps or whatever. 

When planning an online class it is incredibly tempting to dive right into the learning management system, but resist the temptation!  The technology should be last.  You want the technology to support what you are doing, not the other way around. If you don't know what you are doing, then you can't know how to support it. So, start with your outline, your course plan, your outcomes/objectives.  

This is hard, I admit. For me and I'm guessing a lot of you, playing with the technology and thinking of how it can improve teaching and learning is great fun. But in the crunch time of the last couple of weeks before the quarter, there is no time for fun. I have to be focused and get this course map/outline done. You'll see how successful I am by checking out my live Workflowy American Government Outline.

Back to the Course map

A couple of days ago, I posted about using Canvas for my American Government class. I forgot to add, however, that it is way too early to actually be putting things in the LMS. I am still working on my course map, which is limited by the fact that I am still working on my module level outcomes.  Once I have sketched out my module level outcomes and my initial ways of measuring the achievement of those outcomes (the assessments), then I'll have a basis for selecting my materials.

Now, I know this seems convoluted and backwards. But if we are really centered on outcomes and student learning, then the outcomes and measurement needs to be at the beginning, not at the end.

That being said, I'm a bit behind (the story of my life!). I can't believe I'm already into week 4 of this project. My course map should be mostly done at this point, so I'm giving myself a goal to get it finished this week. Stay tuned!

Resources:
American Government Course Map
Blank Course Map 

Objectives in the Course Map

Today, I made a bit of progress on my American Government Course Map. Now, it is important to note that this is something one works on over time, so don't let it seem overwhelming. Ideally, you would start out with your objectives. The nice part about the objectives is that it shouldn't be much work on your part. 


Course Level Objectives - you should have these from your Syllabus or from the Course Outline on file at your college from when the course went through the course approval process. The course I am teaching went through the course approval process in the early 1990's and the outcomes were not measurable.  So, I tweaked them slightly to be measurable.  I pasted the objectives at the top of my course map and numbered them.


Course Topics - I took the topical outline from the approved course outline as well. I pasted these topics, one per row, in the the first column of the course map and added the heading "Course Topic". This wasn't in the template, but I found organizing things by topic easier to wrap my head around. The 


Module Level Outcomes - this is the thing you are least likely to have on hand, but should be relatively easy to find.  If you have a textbook, there is a good chance that there are chapter objectives at the beginning of each chapter. Those are a fabulous starting point for your module level objectives. 


However, as you may recall, I'm not planning to use a textbook for this class. Since I have not taught it in several years, I don't even have any old American Government texts laying around. I will hit up some colleagues next week to look at what they use, but in the meantime, I found some other starting points to use. I found a Moodle Course on American Government.  (Cautionary note - even though the heading says Open Access, the copyright notice at the end says "All Rights Reserved" - not open.)  I also found the outline for McGraw Hill's American Government text. The chapter objectives are there and are a nice starting point for my module level outcomes.  I'm just using these as inspiration and will be developing the actual module level outcomes as I go along.


I pasted those in, row by row, putting the module objectives under the appropriate topic.  The next step is to map the objectives. That means to note which course level objectives are met by the student achieving the module level objective. For example, when a student is able to "describe the nature of democratic government" they are moving towards meeting several course level objectives, including "Explain the concepts and themes of American Government". Since this is outcome #1, I put a #1 in the Course Outcomes column. I also added the other relevant outcome numbers in that column.


After all of the module level outcomes are mapped, I'll start the real fun - finding the content that helps the students learn the outcomes. In other words, looking for my open source textbook or its equivalent.


I should note, in all honesty, that I am a little behind. I should have done this course mapping in the first week and worked on the syllabus during the second week. We move on to reviewing content in the third week (good grief - week 3 already?!?). I'll have a quick look at my syllabus tomorrow and try to get us back on track. Have a look at the handy new To Do List to see it all in one place.


Resources:


Blank Course Map

Course Design To Do List - I'm keeping a list, with handy links to the relevant 

Getting Started with a Course Map

It's time to start actually planning this class. The last time I taught American Government, it was around 2003, so this is essentially a new prep for me. If I was doing things the way I used to, I'd start by hunting for a book. But that is actually a step that is a ways down the path. The first step really is my course outcomes.  Now, I'll be honest with you - I taught for years before even really reading my course outcomes. They certainly were not the starting point of my course planning process.  But, as a Quality Matters master reviewer, I now know that the course outcomes are what it's all about.

I’ve been working as an instructional designer in the Open Course Library and we’re using a great Course Map that is really making course planning easy, systematic and outcomes based. I’m all about easy, so this is what I’ll be using.  Here is a link to the course map.  I'll start filling out my version this week and share it out with you.