Category: Course Design


Archive for the ‘Course Design’ Category

Nov 14 2007

Recommended Textbooks – Supporting Objectives-Related Assignments

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A Meeting of Minds

  • Annotated Bibliography – Chapter 6, “Researching Questions,” & Chapter 3, “Summarizing and Responding”
  • Synthesis – Chapter 7, “Synthesizing the Perspectives of Others”
  • Academic Argument – Chapter 8, “Taking a Position: The Academic Argument”
  • Rhetorical Analysis – Chapter 4, “Analyzing”
  • Process Strategies – Chapter 2, “Reading and Writing Strategically;” Chapter 11, “Revising;” & Chapter 12, “Editing”

    Work in Progress

    • Rhetorical Analysis – Part Two, “Rhetorical Situations”
    • Academic Argument – Part Four, “Analyzing and Writing Academic Arguments”
    • Process Strategies – Part One, “Writing, Reading, and Research: An Introduction,” & Part Three, “Practical Strategies for Writing”

      Everything’s an Argument

      • Rhetorical Analysis – Chapter 5, “Thinking Rhetorically”
      • Academic Argument – Most of the Book!
      • Proposals – Chapter 11, “Proposals”
      • Process Strategies – Chapter 6, “Structuring Arguments”

        The Brief Thomson Handbook

        • Process Strategies – Chapter 1, “Writing and Rhetoric in Context;” Chapter 2, “Inventing and Developing Content;” & Chapter 3, “Revising, Editing, and Proofreading”
        • Academic Argument – Chapter 7, “Writing Arguments”
        • Research Strategies – Section 3, “Conducting Research”

          Nov 14 2007

          Objectives-Based Course Design

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          Backwards Course Design helps faculty plan their course assignments and activities around the goals they are trying to achieve. As the attached worksheets suggest, faculty begin Backwards Course Design by identifying their objectives or desired student learning outcomes. Faculty then determine what would serve as appropriate evidence that students have achieved the objectives; evidence could include successful completion of objectives-based assignments or the ability to apply previous ideas to a new task. Next, faculty plan relevant direct instruction and related student activities to support student learning.

          This step-by-step strategy for course design helps faculty ensure that their classes support the course objectives and that they are scaffolding students’ progress towards meeting those objectives.

          Designing Your Course: Desired Results

          All sections of College Writing aim to achieve the following results.

          Shared Outcomes for English 110: College Writing
          Objectives:
          Students develop a/an…
          Sophisticated writing process—including invention, peer responding, revising, and editing—that results in a clear, effective, well edited public piece Sophisticated understanding of the relationship of purpose, audience, and voice, and an awareness that writing expectations and conventions vary across rhetorical situations Appreciation for the capacity of writing to change oneself and the world
          Experiences:
          Students will…
          Write to persuade by analyzing, interpreting, researching, synthesizing, and evaluating a wide variety of sources Write to academic audience, to non-academic audiences, and for one’s own purposes Write on the spot (determining the audience and purpose of given writing situations) Orally present their work/writing
          Consistency:
          Students can expect that…
          The majority of writing in English 110 is argumentative/persuasive Credit for process is no more than one-third of a student’s grade Courses addressing a single theme or topic are preapproved exceptions, rather than the norm College Writing is taught with writing as content, not as a writing-intensive course that uses writing simply to learn some other content.

          Designing Your Course: Determine Acceptable Evidence

          Shared Objective Sophisticated writing process—including invention, peer responding, revising, and editing—that results in a clear, effective, well edited public piece Sophisticated understanding of the relationship of purpose, audience, and voice, and an awareness that writing expectations and conventions vary across rhetorical situations Appreciation for the capacity of writing to change oneself and the world
          Acceptable Evidence (Assignments, Projects, Graded Activities, etc.)

          • Brainstorm as many options as possible
          • Consider sequencing related assignments across objectives
          • Identify possible assignments that also support the ENG 110 shared experiences

          Designing Your Course: Determine Acceptable Evidence – Meeting Objectives & Experiences

          How could your objective-linked assignment facilitate offering students the identified shared experiences?

          Shared Experiences Objective 1 Assignment:

          Objective 2 Assignment: Objective 3 Assignment:
          Writing to persuade by analyzing, interpreting, researching, synthesizing, and evaluating a wide variety of sources
          Writing to academic audiences, to non-academic audiences, and for one’s one purposes
          Writing on the spot
          Presenting work/writing orally

          Designing Your Course: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

          Objective 1 Assignment:

          Objective 2 Assignment: Objective 3 Assignment:

          Relevant Direct Instruction

          Related In-Class and Out-of-Class Activities to Support Student Learning & Completion of the Assignment

          Designing Your Course: Experience Checklist

          Will my course design ensure that students receive instruction in and have opportunities to practice…?

          • Analyzing Rhetorical Situations
            • Audience & Purpose Analysis
            • Convention Analysis
            • Rhetoric Terminology
          • Writing for Varied Audiences and Purposes
            • Writing to Academic Audiences
            • Writing to Non-Academic Audiences
            • Writing for One’s Own Purpose
          • Developing a Successful and Individualized Writing Process
            • Invention (freewriting brainstorming, clustering, etc.)
            • Planning & Drafting (controlling purpose/thesis, workable plan, etc.)
            • Peer Response
            • Self-Assessment of Writing
            • Revision
            • Editing
            • Independently Planning & Managing the Writing Process
          • Writing Academic Arguments
          • Developing and Refining Research Questions
          • Identifying and Evaluating Print and Electronic Sources
          • Integrating Research
            • Summarizing and Synthesizing Sources
            • Using Source Material as Evidence
            • Meeting Conventions for Citing Sources
          • Presenting Work/Writing Orally
          • Managing Several of the Above Strategies/Practices At Once?

          Sep 13 2006

          Importance of Direct Instruction

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          Since conventions can vary widely among rhetorical communities, students (novice members of, or temporary visitors to, these communities) benefit from direct instruction in writing for varied audiences and purposes. They frequently struggle with reading model texts that employ unfamiliar writing styles, so as instructors, we need to incorporate support beyond simply providing sample texts.

          Even as more advanced writers who are used to tackling academic discourse, when we encounter texts from another discipline, we often have to revise our reading strategies and slow our reading pace as we adjust to a different writing style. Yet our reading strategies (and struggles) often are invisible to our students.

          To support students’ development as writers, if we give them samples of “good” writing, we also should give them strategies for reading these often varied texts. In addition, we can implement several direct instruction techniques to support developing writers.

          Nov 09 2005

          Problem-Based Learning in College Writing

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          • Problem-Based Learning requires students to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills to investigate personally relevant/socially situated problems.
          • “Problem-based learning was pioneered by McMaster University Medical School in Hamilton, Ontario, about 30 years ago. From the beginning it seemed a spectacular success story in the use of case study teaching. Real patient problems became the entire basis for the curriculum. Inspired by this success, a couple dozen other medical schools in the United States and abroad also revamped their curricula around patient cases” (Herreid, 2003, p. 364).
          • In Problem-Based Learning, students work in groups to organize their prior knowledge and research related to the current problem.
          • Problem-Based Learning can result in persuasive writing tasks, in which students argue for their proposed solution. (2005-2006 Instructional Goal)

          Bibliography

          Herreid, C. F. (2003). The death of problem-based learning? Journal of College Science Teaching, 32.6, 364-366.

          Problem-based learning. (2001). Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction. Retrieved November 7, 2005, from http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/pbl/problem.html