Sunday, February 1, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
moral development
Kohlberg used these findings to reject traditional character education practices. These approaches are premised in the idea that virtues and vices are the basis to moral behavior, or that moral character is comprised of a "bag of virtues", such as honesty, kindness, patience, strength, etc. According to the traditional approach, teachers are to teach these virtues through example and direct communication of convictions, by giving students an opportunity to practice these virtues, and by rewarding their expression. However, critiques of the traditional approach find flaws inherent in this model. This approach provides no guiding principle for defining what virtues are worthy of espousal, and wrongly assumes a community consensus on what are considered "positive values". In fact, teachers often end up arbitrarily imposing certain values depending upon their societal, cultural, and personal beliefs. In order to address this issue of ethical relativity, some have adopted the values-clarification approach to moral education. This teaching practice is based on the assumption that there are no single, correct answers to ethical dilemmas, but that there is value in holding clear views and acting accordingly. In addition, there is a value of toleration of divergent views. It follows, then, that the teacher's role is one of discussion moderator, with the goal of teaching merely that people hold different values; the teacher does attempt to present her views as the "right" views.
Kohlberg rejected the focus on values and virtues, not only due to the lack of consensus on what virtues are to be taught, but also because of the complex nature of practicing such virtues. For example, people often make different decisions yet hold the same basic moral values. Kohlberg believed a better approach to affecting moral behavior should focus on stages of moral development. These stages are critical, as they consider the way a person organizes their understanding of virtues, rules, and norms, and integrates these into a moral choice (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). In addition, he rejected the relativist view point in favor of the view that certain principles of justice and fairness represent the pinnacle of moral maturity, as he found that these basic moral principles are found in different cultures and subcultures around the world (Kohlberg & Turiel, 1971).
The goal of moral education, it then follows, is to encourage individuals to develop to the next stage of moral reasoning. Initial educational efforts employing Kohlberg's theory were grounded in basic Piagetian assumptions of cognitive development. Development, in this model, is not merely the result of gaining more knowledge, but rather consists of a sequence of qualitative changes in the way an individual thinks. Within any stage of development, thought is organized according to the constraints of that stage. An individual then interacts with the environment according to their basic understandings of the environment. However, the child will at some point encounter information which does not fit into their world view, forcing the child to adjust their view to accommodate this new information. This process is called equilibration, and it is through equilibration that development occurs. Early moral development approaches to education, therefore, sought to force students to ponder contradiction inherent to their present level of moral reasoning.
The most common tool for doing this was to present a "moral dilemma" (see Classroom Practices) and require students to determine and justify what course the actor in the dilemma should take. Through discussion, students should then be forced to face the contradictions present in any course of action not based on principles of justice or fairness.
While Kohlberg appreciated the importance and value of such moral dilemma discussions, he held from very early on that moral education required more than individual reflection, but also needed to include experiences for students to operate as moral agents within a community. In this regard, Kohlberg reconciled some of the differences in orientation that existed between the theories of moral growth held by Piaget and Durkheim. In order to provide students with an optimal context within which to grow morally, Kohlberg and his colleagues developed the "just community" schools approach towards promoting moral development (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). The basic premise of these schools is to enhance students' moral development by offering them the chance to participate in a democratic community. Here, democracy refers to more than simply casting a vote. It entails full participation of community members in arriving at consensual rather than "majority rules" decision-making. One primary feature of these schools is their relatively small size (often they are actually schools within schools), aimed at providing the students with a sense of belonging to a group which is responsive to individual needs. The central institution of these schools is a community meeting in which issues related to life and discipline in the schools are discussed and democratically decided, with an equal value placed on the voices of students and teachers. An underlying goal of these meetings is to establish collective norms which express fairness for all members of the community. It is believed that by placing the responsibility of determining and enforcing rules on students, they will take prosocial behavior more seriously. At the same time, this approach stems from the cognitive-developmentalist view that discussion of moral dilemmas can stimulate moral development.
However, this is not to say that just community school simply leaves students to their own devices; teachers play a crucial leadership role in these discussions, promoting rules and norms which have a concern for justice and community, and ultimately enforcing the rules. This role is not an easy one, as teachers must listen closely and understand a student's reasoning, in order to help the student to the next level of reasoning. This requires a delicate balance between letting the students make decisions, and advocating in a way which shows them the limits in their reasoning. A primary advantage to the Just Community approach is its effectiveness in affecting students actions, not just their reasoning. Students are, in effect, expected to "practice what they preach", by following the rules determined in community meetings.
Kohlberg rejected the focus on values and virtues, not only due to the lack of consensus on what virtues are to be taught, but also because of the complex nature of practicing such virtues. For example, people often make different decisions yet hold the same basic moral values. Kohlberg believed a better approach to affecting moral behavior should focus on stages of moral development. These stages are critical, as they consider the way a person organizes their understanding of virtues, rules, and norms, and integrates these into a moral choice (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). In addition, he rejected the relativist view point in favor of the view that certain principles of justice and fairness represent the pinnacle of moral maturity, as he found that these basic moral principles are found in different cultures and subcultures around the world (Kohlberg & Turiel, 1971).
The goal of moral education, it then follows, is to encourage individuals to develop to the next stage of moral reasoning. Initial educational efforts employing Kohlberg's theory were grounded in basic Piagetian assumptions of cognitive development. Development, in this model, is not merely the result of gaining more knowledge, but rather consists of a sequence of qualitative changes in the way an individual thinks. Within any stage of development, thought is organized according to the constraints of that stage. An individual then interacts with the environment according to their basic understandings of the environment. However, the child will at some point encounter information which does not fit into their world view, forcing the child to adjust their view to accommodate this new information. This process is called equilibration, and it is through equilibration that development occurs. Early moral development approaches to education, therefore, sought to force students to ponder contradiction inherent to their present level of moral reasoning.
The most common tool for doing this was to present a "moral dilemma" (see Classroom Practices) and require students to determine and justify what course the actor in the dilemma should take. Through discussion, students should then be forced to face the contradictions present in any course of action not based on principles of justice or fairness.
While Kohlberg appreciated the importance and value of such moral dilemma discussions, he held from very early on that moral education required more than individual reflection, but also needed to include experiences for students to operate as moral agents within a community. In this regard, Kohlberg reconciled some of the differences in orientation that existed between the theories of moral growth held by Piaget and Durkheim. In order to provide students with an optimal context within which to grow morally, Kohlberg and his colleagues developed the "just community" schools approach towards promoting moral development (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). The basic premise of these schools is to enhance students' moral development by offering them the chance to participate in a democratic community. Here, democracy refers to more than simply casting a vote. It entails full participation of community members in arriving at consensual rather than "majority rules" decision-making. One primary feature of these schools is their relatively small size (often they are actually schools within schools), aimed at providing the students with a sense of belonging to a group which is responsive to individual needs. The central institution of these schools is a community meeting in which issues related to life and discipline in the schools are discussed and democratically decided, with an equal value placed on the voices of students and teachers. An underlying goal of these meetings is to establish collective norms which express fairness for all members of the community. It is believed that by placing the responsibility of determining and enforcing rules on students, they will take prosocial behavior more seriously. At the same time, this approach stems from the cognitive-developmentalist view that discussion of moral dilemmas can stimulate moral development.
However, this is not to say that just community school simply leaves students to their own devices; teachers play a crucial leadership role in these discussions, promoting rules and norms which have a concern for justice and community, and ultimately enforcing the rules. This role is not an easy one, as teachers must listen closely and understand a student's reasoning, in order to help the student to the next level of reasoning. This requires a delicate balance between letting the students make decisions, and advocating in a way which shows them the limits in their reasoning. A primary advantage to the Just Community approach is its effectiveness in affecting students actions, not just their reasoning. Students are, in effect, expected to "practice what they preach", by following the rules determined in community meetings.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
research
Kohlberg's stages of moral development
Kohlberg's stages of moral development are planes of moral adequacy conceived by Lawrence Kohlberg to explain the development of moral reasoning. Created while studying psychology at the University of Chicago, the theory was inspired by the work of Jean Piaget and a fascination with children's reactions to moral dilemmas.[1] He wrote his doctoral dissertation at the university in 1958,[2] outlining what are now known as his stages of moral development.
His theory holds that moral reasoning, which is the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental constructive stages - each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than the last.[3] In studying these, Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages originally studied earlier by Piaget,[4] who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages.[3] Expanding considerably upon this groundwork, it was determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice and that its development continued throughout the lifespan,[2] even spawning dialogue on philosophical implications of such research.[5][6]
Kohlberg used stories about moral dilemmas in his studies, and was interested in how people would justify their actions if they were put in a similar moral crux. He would then categorize and classify evoked responses into one of six distinct stages. These six stages are grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.[7][8][9]
Stages Kohlberg's six stages were grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional.[7][8][9] Following Piaget's constructivist requirements for a stage model (see his theory of cognitive development), it is extremely rare to regress backward in stages - to lose functionality of higher stage abilities.[10][11] Even so, no one functions at their highest stage at all times.[citation needed] It is also not possible to 'jump' forward stages; each stage provides a new yet necessary perspective, and is more comprehensive, differentiated, and integrated than its predecessors.[10][11]
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)
Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)
Pre-Conventional
The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners in the pre-conventional level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the first and second stages of moral development, and are purely concerned with the self in an egocentric manner.
In Stage one (obedience and punishment driven), individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves. For example, an action is perceived as morally wrong if the person who commits it gets punished. "the last time I did that I got spanked so I will not do it again" The worse the punishment for the act is, the more 'bad' the act is perceived to be.[12] This can give rise to an inference that even innocent victims are guilty in proportion to their suffering. In addition, there is no recognition that others' points of view are any different from one's own view.[citation needed] This stage may be viewed as a kind of authoritarianism.[citation needed]
Stage two (self-interest driven) espouses the what's in it for me position, right behavior being defined by what is in one's own best interest. Stage two reasoning shows a limited interest in the needs of others, but only to a point where it might further one's own interests, such as "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours".[3] In stage two concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect. Lacking a perspective of society in the pre-conventional level, this should not be confused with social contract (stage five), as all actions are performed to serve one's own needs or interests. For the stage two theorist, the perspective of the world is often seen as morally relative.
Conventional
The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. Persons who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing these actions to societal views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development.
In Stage three (interpersonal accord and conformity driven), the self enters society by filling social roles. Individuals are receptive of approval or disapproval from other people as it reflects society's accordance with the perceived role. They try to be a good boy or good girl to live up to these expectations,[3] having learned that there is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person's relationships, which now begin to include things like respect, gratitude and the 'golden rule'. "I want to be liked and thought well of; apparently, not being naughty makes people like me." Desire to maintain rules and authority exists only to further support these social roles. The intentions of actions play a more significant role in reasoning at this stage; 'they mean well...'[3]
In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three; society must learn to transcend individual needs. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at Stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force.
Post-Conventional
The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, consists of stages five and six of moral development. Realization that individuals are separate entities from society now becomes salient. One's own perspective should be viewed before the society. It is due to this 'nature of self before others' that the post-conventional level, especially stage six, is sometimes mistaken for pre-conventional behaviors.
In Stage five (social contract driven), individuals are viewed as holding different opinions and values. Along a similar vein, laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid dictums. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet the greatest good for the greatest number of people.[8] This is attained through majority decision, and inevitably compromise. In this way democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.
In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Rights are unnecessary as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not met hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way (see Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative').[13] This can be done by imagining what one would do being in anyone's shoes, who imagined what anyone would do thinking the same (see John Rawls's 'veil of ignorance').[14] The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; one acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it. It appears that people rarely reach stage six of Kohlberg's model. [11]
Examples of applied moral dilemmas
Kohlberg established the Moral Judgement Interview in his original 1958 dissertation.[2] During the roughly 45 minute tape recorded semi-structured interview, the interviewer uses moral dilemmas to determine which stage of moral reasoning a person uses. The dilemmas are fictional short stories that describe situations in which a person has to make a moral decision. The participant is asked a systemic series of open-ended questions, like what they think the right course of action is, as well as justifications as to why certain actions are right or wrong. The form and structure of these replies are scored and not the content; over a set of multiple moral dilemmas an overall score is derived.[2][9]
[edit] Heinz dilemma
A dilemma that Kohlberg used in his original research was the druggist's dilemma: Heinz Steals the Drug In Europe.[5]
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?[5]
Kohlberg's stages of moral development are planes of moral adequacy conceived by Lawrence Kohlberg to explain the development of moral reasoning. Created while studying psychology at the University of Chicago, the theory was inspired by the work of Jean Piaget and a fascination with children's reactions to moral dilemmas.[1] He wrote his doctoral dissertation at the university in 1958,[2] outlining what are now known as his stages of moral development.
His theory holds that moral reasoning, which is the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental constructive stages - each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than the last.[3] In studying these, Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages originally studied earlier by Piaget,[4] who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages.[3] Expanding considerably upon this groundwork, it was determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice and that its development continued throughout the lifespan,[2] even spawning dialogue on philosophical implications of such research.[5][6]
Kohlberg used stories about moral dilemmas in his studies, and was interested in how people would justify their actions if they were put in a similar moral crux. He would then categorize and classify evoked responses into one of six distinct stages. These six stages are grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.[7][8][9]
Stages Kohlberg's six stages were grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional.[7][8][9] Following Piaget's constructivist requirements for a stage model (see his theory of cognitive development), it is extremely rare to regress backward in stages - to lose functionality of higher stage abilities.[10][11] Even so, no one functions at their highest stage at all times.[citation needed] It is also not possible to 'jump' forward stages; each stage provides a new yet necessary perspective, and is more comprehensive, differentiated, and integrated than its predecessors.[10][11]
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)
Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)
Pre-Conventional
The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners in the pre-conventional level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the first and second stages of moral development, and are purely concerned with the self in an egocentric manner.
In Stage one (obedience and punishment driven), individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves. For example, an action is perceived as morally wrong if the person who commits it gets punished. "the last time I did that I got spanked so I will not do it again" The worse the punishment for the act is, the more 'bad' the act is perceived to be.[12] This can give rise to an inference that even innocent victims are guilty in proportion to their suffering. In addition, there is no recognition that others' points of view are any different from one's own view.[citation needed] This stage may be viewed as a kind of authoritarianism.[citation needed]
Stage two (self-interest driven) espouses the what's in it for me position, right behavior being defined by what is in one's own best interest. Stage two reasoning shows a limited interest in the needs of others, but only to a point where it might further one's own interests, such as "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours".[3] In stage two concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect. Lacking a perspective of society in the pre-conventional level, this should not be confused with social contract (stage five), as all actions are performed to serve one's own needs or interests. For the stage two theorist, the perspective of the world is often seen as morally relative.
Conventional
The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. Persons who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing these actions to societal views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development.
In Stage three (interpersonal accord and conformity driven), the self enters society by filling social roles. Individuals are receptive of approval or disapproval from other people as it reflects society's accordance with the perceived role. They try to be a good boy or good girl to live up to these expectations,[3] having learned that there is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person's relationships, which now begin to include things like respect, gratitude and the 'golden rule'. "I want to be liked and thought well of; apparently, not being naughty makes people like me." Desire to maintain rules and authority exists only to further support these social roles. The intentions of actions play a more significant role in reasoning at this stage; 'they mean well...'[3]
In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three; society must learn to transcend individual needs. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at Stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force.
Post-Conventional
The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, consists of stages five and six of moral development. Realization that individuals are separate entities from society now becomes salient. One's own perspective should be viewed before the society. It is due to this 'nature of self before others' that the post-conventional level, especially stage six, is sometimes mistaken for pre-conventional behaviors.
In Stage five (social contract driven), individuals are viewed as holding different opinions and values. Along a similar vein, laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid dictums. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet the greatest good for the greatest number of people.[8] This is attained through majority decision, and inevitably compromise. In this way democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.
In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Rights are unnecessary as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not met hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way (see Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative').[13] This can be done by imagining what one would do being in anyone's shoes, who imagined what anyone would do thinking the same (see John Rawls's 'veil of ignorance').[14] The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; one acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it. It appears that people rarely reach stage six of Kohlberg's model. [11]
Examples of applied moral dilemmas
Kohlberg established the Moral Judgement Interview in his original 1958 dissertation.[2] During the roughly 45 minute tape recorded semi-structured interview, the interviewer uses moral dilemmas to determine which stage of moral reasoning a person uses. The dilemmas are fictional short stories that describe situations in which a person has to make a moral decision. The participant is asked a systemic series of open-ended questions, like what they think the right course of action is, as well as justifications as to why certain actions are right or wrong. The form and structure of these replies are scored and not the content; over a set of multiple moral dilemmas an overall score is derived.[2][9]
[edit] Heinz dilemma
A dilemma that Kohlberg used in his original research was the druggist's dilemma: Heinz Steals the Drug In Europe.[5]
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?[5]
Sunday, January 11, 2009
teaching strat
Homepage --> Room with a View --> Teaching Strategies
Teaching Strategies
These vignettes show you different strategies I use in my classes. Though some are specfically identified by class (e.g., Reading Workshop or Freshman Honors English), they are techniques that are appropriate for all classes.
Notetaking Strategies Graphic Strategies Discussion Strategies Teaching Strategies
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Title Talk: Prereading that focuses on the title of a literary text gets students thinking about the text to come. Such thinking teaches them how to generate ideas, make connections and predictions. Here is a recent example form an initial discussion of Lord of the Flies.
Click to enlarge
Use Visual Aids to Improve Instruction: I copy most of the different Tools for Thought onto transparencies. Depending on the activity, I project the organizer onto the whiteboard or the overhead screen. Here you see it projected onto the whiteboard so I can model for them how to fill in the outline. I used the graphic organizer to take notes for what we were doing that day; then had my Reading Workshop students do the same so they could improve their notetaking skills.
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Involve the Students in the Assessment Process: My students and I created this rubric through collaboration. They came in with their papers (Weekly Paper assignment) then got into groups. They were supposed to read through and identify the important areas of a good paper and the criteria for each category. I used the board to take notes on what they said and provide structure to the discussion. I then used these notes to create the rubric we used for the Weekly Paper.
Click here to see students creating the criteria outlined on the whiteboard in the image to the left.
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Classroom Connection: I am often asked what my classroom computer set up is. This is what it looks like. It is an iMac DVD edition with a T-1 Internet line and supporting connection to the overhead monitor. This meets most of our needs. Students can, for example, do work elsewhere and send it to the class computer (room82@englishcompanion.com) to print or present.
Click to enlarge
Use the Board: Though it will not make much sense here, I wanted to include this example of my use of the board. We were discussing how one chapter in a book can build on or be related to the previous one and/or those which came before it. The image here is one I draw as I talked; thus I used the board to support/narrate what I was saying. The arrows are meant to show how themes (e.g., change) run throughout the stories we were reading. "Kim," "Ana," and "Wendell" refer to (and the boxes represent) different stories/chapters in the book Seedfolks. When the next class comes in, I erase this and start over. I find it does not work to refer to it as a static drawing/diagram in subsequent periods. Also, the act of drawing it makes the teaching more active and makes my thinking more visible.
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Use Multiple Means to Deliver Instruction: In the picture below I am using the overhead to model how to do an assignment in my reading workshop. I photocopied the assignment to a transparency and modeled how to do the assignment. Then I had them try one. We discussed what they came up with, critiqued their responses, then continued for independent practice while I moved around to support them. So students have information to help them on this assignment on the whiteboard, on the overhead, on their handouts, and through my voice. This is not what we do every day. I only use so many modalities when teaching something specific which they need to process by multiple means if they are to learn it.
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Use Reciprocal Teaching: These students in my freshman honors English class work together (as everyone else in class is doing) to read, discuss, and make notes using a graphic organizer designed to help them learn who all the characters are. The novel Jasmine, which we read as part of their integrated world cultures course (taught by the Social Studies teacher), has many characters, jumps in time, and shifts in location. I used reciprocal teaching here to allow students to get a solid understanding who is who and how the text works before moving ahead in the text. Setting up a good foundation early on prevents confusion and problems later.
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Use Student Exemplars; In my freshman honors English class we have worked hard to learn how to read more closely. Each Friday I give them a poem (click here to see an example of one of the weekly poem assignments, complete with alignment to the standards-ooh!) Periodically I take students' responses and type them up as examples for the others. We discuss these to determine why they are good; students then have examples of what I expect them to do and, generally, their work improves that week. Then a few weeks later I will take a few more examples from the best and try to move them up a notch. This is what I refer to in English Teacher's Companion as the continuum of performance: i.e., moving them from novices to mastery . Click here to download a pdf. example of these exemplars from early in the year (i.e., I tell them these would not be strong examples a month later.)
Learn with Your Hands: Here you see a well organized paragraph that has been cut up into individual sentences. My Reading Workshop students have been focusing on paragraph organization and the organization or information; this work builds on that learning. They read a story and, as part of our focus on reading for character, wrote a paragraph using notes they had taken in a graphic organizer. I gave them the prompt: "The father in Tobias Wolff's short story "Powder," is______________________." I then gave them additional prompts to help them craft an initial draft. They I gave them the paragraph I wrote using the same prompt; the only difference was that my paragraph was cut up into pieces. In groups, they had to reconstruct the paragraph, explaining the order in which they arranged the sentences. It was fun and productive.
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Extend Thinking Through Structured Collaboration: Students in the picture to the left work together to develop and extend their ideas. The graphic organizer gives them a means of focusing their thinking; it serves as a generative structure, i.e., one that allows them to focus on what to put in the boxes to explain a process.
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Develop Students Capacity by Modeling: Students in my Reading Workshop finished reading Tobias Wolff's story "Powder," then had to write a paragraph using their notes from their character study graphic organizer. I gave them the prompt: "The father in Tobias Wolff's short story "Powder," is______________________." What you see in the picture to the left are the different possible topics we brainstormed as a class. Brainstorming possible topics helps them see the possibilities at the same time that it develops their capacity to write about them since we discuss the topics as we go.
Teaching Strategies
These vignettes show you different strategies I use in my classes. Though some are specfically identified by class (e.g., Reading Workshop or Freshman Honors English), they are techniques that are appropriate for all classes.
Notetaking Strategies Graphic Strategies Discussion Strategies Teaching Strategies
Click to enlarge
Title Talk: Prereading that focuses on the title of a literary text gets students thinking about the text to come. Such thinking teaches them how to generate ideas, make connections and predictions. Here is a recent example form an initial discussion of Lord of the Flies.
Click to enlarge
Use Visual Aids to Improve Instruction: I copy most of the different Tools for Thought onto transparencies. Depending on the activity, I project the organizer onto the whiteboard or the overhead screen. Here you see it projected onto the whiteboard so I can model for them how to fill in the outline. I used the graphic organizer to take notes for what we were doing that day; then had my Reading Workshop students do the same so they could improve their notetaking skills.
Click to enlarge
Involve the Students in the Assessment Process: My students and I created this rubric through collaboration. They came in with their papers (Weekly Paper assignment) then got into groups. They were supposed to read through and identify the important areas of a good paper and the criteria for each category. I used the board to take notes on what they said and provide structure to the discussion. I then used these notes to create the rubric we used for the Weekly Paper.
Click here to see students creating the criteria outlined on the whiteboard in the image to the left.
Click to enlarge
Classroom Connection: I am often asked what my classroom computer set up is. This is what it looks like. It is an iMac DVD edition with a T-1 Internet line and supporting connection to the overhead monitor. This meets most of our needs. Students can, for example, do work elsewhere and send it to the class computer (room82@englishcompanion.com) to print or present.
Click to enlarge
Use the Board: Though it will not make much sense here, I wanted to include this example of my use of the board. We were discussing how one chapter in a book can build on or be related to the previous one and/or those which came before it. The image here is one I draw as I talked; thus I used the board to support/narrate what I was saying. The arrows are meant to show how themes (e.g., change) run throughout the stories we were reading. "Kim," "Ana," and "Wendell" refer to (and the boxes represent) different stories/chapters in the book Seedfolks. When the next class comes in, I erase this and start over. I find it does not work to refer to it as a static drawing/diagram in subsequent periods. Also, the act of drawing it makes the teaching more active and makes my thinking more visible.
Click to enlarge
Use Multiple Means to Deliver Instruction: In the picture below I am using the overhead to model how to do an assignment in my reading workshop. I photocopied the assignment to a transparency and modeled how to do the assignment. Then I had them try one. We discussed what they came up with, critiqued their responses, then continued for independent practice while I moved around to support them. So students have information to help them on this assignment on the whiteboard, on the overhead, on their handouts, and through my voice. This is not what we do every day. I only use so many modalities when teaching something specific which they need to process by multiple means if they are to learn it.
Click to enlarge
Use Reciprocal Teaching: These students in my freshman honors English class work together (as everyone else in class is doing) to read, discuss, and make notes using a graphic organizer designed to help them learn who all the characters are. The novel Jasmine, which we read as part of their integrated world cultures course (taught by the Social Studies teacher), has many characters, jumps in time, and shifts in location. I used reciprocal teaching here to allow students to get a solid understanding who is who and how the text works before moving ahead in the text. Setting up a good foundation early on prevents confusion and problems later.
Click to enlarge
Use Student Exemplars; In my freshman honors English class we have worked hard to learn how to read more closely. Each Friday I give them a poem (click here to see an example of one of the weekly poem assignments, complete with alignment to the standards-ooh!) Periodically I take students' responses and type them up as examples for the others. We discuss these to determine why they are good; students then have examples of what I expect them to do and, generally, their work improves that week. Then a few weeks later I will take a few more examples from the best and try to move them up a notch. This is what I refer to in English Teacher's Companion as the continuum of performance: i.e., moving them from novices to mastery . Click here to download a pdf. example of these exemplars from early in the year (i.e., I tell them these would not be strong examples a month later.)
Learn with Your Hands: Here you see a well organized paragraph that has been cut up into individual sentences. My Reading Workshop students have been focusing on paragraph organization and the organization or information; this work builds on that learning. They read a story and, as part of our focus on reading for character, wrote a paragraph using notes they had taken in a graphic organizer. I gave them the prompt: "The father in Tobias Wolff's short story "Powder," is______________________." I then gave them additional prompts to help them craft an initial draft. They I gave them the paragraph I wrote using the same prompt; the only difference was that my paragraph was cut up into pieces. In groups, they had to reconstruct the paragraph, explaining the order in which they arranged the sentences. It was fun and productive.
Click to enlarge
Extend Thinking Through Structured Collaboration: Students in the picture to the left work together to develop and extend their ideas. The graphic organizer gives them a means of focusing their thinking; it serves as a generative structure, i.e., one that allows them to focus on what to put in the boxes to explain a process.
Click to enlarge
Develop Students Capacity by Modeling: Students in my Reading Workshop finished reading Tobias Wolff's story "Powder," then had to write a paragraph using their notes from their character study graphic organizer. I gave them the prompt: "The father in Tobias Wolff's short story "Powder," is______________________." What you see in the picture to the left are the different possible topics we brainstormed as a class. Brainstorming possible topics helps them see the possibilities at the same time that it develops their capacity to write about them since we discuss the topics as we go.
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign/tutorial/strategies.html
On the Cutting Edge - Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
Topical Resources
Cutting Edge > Course Design > Course Design Tutorial > Table of contents > Part 2 index > Assessing student learning
If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents.
2.3 Assessing Student Learning
At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, developed a course plan, and selected teaching strategies for specific assignments and activities to help students achieve course goals. In this section of the tutorial, you will decide how to assess student learning in your course. If you have developed activities and assignments, you have already developed some assessment strategies for your course.
What kinds of assessment strategies can you use to determine the extent to which students have met the goals of your course? Assessment of student learning can range from informal assessments of whether students are "getting it" (such as observing a well-informed, articulate discussion of a topic or noticing that students' eyes have glazed over in class), to formal assessments of student learning that contribute to their grades in the course, to research on how students are learning in a specific class. In this tutorial, we focus on assessments used to determine grades, including some informal assessments that might or might not be graded but that provide valuable information about whether students are "getting it". We encourage you to use a matrix of your goals and assessment strategies to make sure that your assessments are aligned with your goals.
________________________________________
Start by downloading the worksheet (Microsoft Word 37kB Jun20 05) that goes with this part, and use it as you work through the sections below.
________________________________________
Task 2.3: Exploring assessment strategies
Below, you will find a list of assessment strategies with links to more information and examples about selected strategies. Keeping the goals of your course in mind, browse the list to find strategies that you could use to assess student learning. Be sure to keep in mind the context and constraints of your course. Go to the course plan that you have developed in Parts 2.1 and 2.2, and add assessments as appropriate. You may decide that the student activities and assignments you have planned are sufficient to meet your goals, or you may decide that you need to add more and/or different strategies. Use the worksheet to check that your assessments are aligned with your goals.
________________________________________
Assessment strategies
The list of assessment strategies below includes only some of the many possibilities. A useful set of assessment resources is available at the Cutting Edge website Understanding What Our Geoscience Students Are Learning: Observing and Assessing. This site includes a page on Assessment Tools and Instruments and a page on Assessment Types. A primer on assessment in the geosciences is available at the Starting Point site.
ConcepTests are conceptual multiple-choice questions used during class that provide immediate assessment of student understanding. More than 300 ConcepTest questions are available on the Starting Point website. Using electronic response systems provides the instructor with immediate feedback about the distribution of answers in the class. Learn more about assessment and ConcepTests here.
Minute papers are one type of classroom assessment technique that will give you an indication of student understanding of a particular topic. A one-minute paper can be used at the end of the class by asking students to write on one of the following questions.
• What was the most important thing you learned in today's class?
• What question do you have about today's class?
• What was the muddiest point of today's class?
Students write their answers on index cards or slips of paper that are turned in at the end of class and can be graded or not. learn more here (more info)
Problem sets can be a useful way to give students practice in solving problems, doing quantitative work outside class time, and practice specific techniques. Problem sets are standard in many science courses and can be an effective assessment strategy in entry-level as well as upper-level courses.
Labs can provide another way to assess student learning. The type of assessment might be a lab report, completion of the lab handout, a research project write-up, or some other assigment.
Concept maps can also be used for assessment. Learn more about assessment using concept maps.
Exams and quizzes are commonly used to assess student learning. They also force students to process information and help prevent students from disengaging in a course. Students need to process information in one way or another to learn. In studying for exams, students read, memborize, organize information, test themselves with questions, and with vary ing degrees of success, process the material for that particular section of the course. Processing inforamtion in a blitz of studying before each exam is not the ideal way to learn material, nor in many courses is it the only way students learn material. Studying before exams is, however, one of the most common ways in which students learn in a course. Exams can include mutiple choice questions, short answers, essay questions, questions about graphs or diagrams, and so forth. If you choose to use exams, it's a good idea to ask yourself how much of the exam requires students to use higher order thinking skills and how much of it requires lower order thinking skills and whether you are satisfied by your answer in light of the goals of your course.
Cooperative exams, also called "two-stage" or "pyramid exams", are exams that are taken by groups of students working together after they have completed the original exam individually. When done in one class period, students take the exam individually for the first part of the class. Then, when all students have turned in the exam, they retake the exam working in groups and, in some cases, in an open-book, open-notes format. Commonly these exams are multiple-choice exams with or without some short answer questions; the cooperative part may also have one or two longer questions. The instructors we know who use this type of exam base the total exam score for each student on 70-75% of the individual exam and 25-30% of the group exam.
Richard Yuretich and Mark Leckie use "two-stage" exams with a significant collaborative component in a 600-student oceanography class that was transformed by modifying lectures to include cooperative learning via interactive in-class exercises and directed discussion. The transformation is described in an article in the Journal of Geoscience Education, Active-Learning Methods to Improve Student Performance and Scientific Interest in a Large Introductory Oceanography Class (Yuretich et al., 2001 ).
Randy Richardson, University of Arizona, also uses two-stage exams in A Geologic Perspective, a large physical science course. He gives an example of one exam (Microsoft Word 86kB Jun20 05), the answer sheet (Microsoft Word 25kB Jun20 05) for the individual part of the exam, the answer sheet (Microsoft Word 25kB Jun20 05) for the collaborative part of the exam, and the instructions (Microsoft Word 29kB Jun20 05)for the exam given to the Disability Center for administering the exam, which explicity lay out the ground rules for the collaborative part of the exam given that he is not present at the Disability Center when the exam starts.
Written and oral assignments such as papers, oral presentations, debates, simulations, and so forth can also be used to assess student learning. In some courses, frequent written and oral assignents can replace traditional exams. In some exam-free courses students prepare one or two short written assignments each week in which they summarize the critical aspects of a reading assignment, relate data ro readings, make comparisions with what they have learned previously, take positions on issues, and analyse or synthesize information and ideas. These assignments then serve as the basis for group or class discussion and oral presentations or require students to pull together information from a series of classes either to solve a problem or to present a summary analysis of a particular topic. The activities that students are engaged in to learn the material are also used to evaluate their accomplishments. This is a type of authentic assessment, an approach to assessment designed to correspond as closely as possible to real world experience.
Grading rubrics
Grading rubrics are written guidelines by which student work is evaluated. They typically articulate items on which student work is judged as well as the standards necessary to achieve certain grades.
Grading rubrics are useful primarily when you have something to grade that isn't simply a matter of right or wrong fro which points can be easily assigned. Thus, they are useful for written work projects and oral work, rather than problem sets or short answer assignments. They allow you to evaluate a number of different facets of a student's work quite easily and rather quickly. Rubrics allow you to lay out specific criteria as well as standards that must be met for a student to earn an A on a particular assignment.
Grading rubrics are useful for encouraging students to give more thorough, thoughful, creative, or well-supported answers. May students produce work that is substsantially correct but of only average insight, thoroughtness, or creativity. Using a rubric, a correct answer of average completeness and insight can be given an average grade (a C+, a B-, a 3, or whatever you believe average work to be worth in your grading scheme), while an above-average grade (and A, a 5, or whatever) can be reserved for truly exceptional insight, throroughness, or creativity. Examples of grading rubrics for written assignments and oral presentations such as might be given at the beginning of the course are included here (Microsoft Word 42kB Jun20 05) and an example of an assignment and associated specific rubrics for that assignment are included here (Microsoft Word 98kB Jun20 05).
Advice for using rubrics
• Establish a standard at the start of the term for what you consider to be average work, and publicize it to the students. Many students believe that if they simply do an assignment, they ought to receive an A. If this is your sense as well, that is perfectly fine, but you should still let students know that. If, on the other hand, you believe that an average job (substantially correct, workmanlike, does-the-job) ought to receive an average grade rather than an outstanding grade, you should let students know that it takes an uncommonly insightful answer to get an A. You should also let them know what you consider to be an average grade.
• Hand out an appropriate grading rubric at the time you hand out an assignment so that students know what your standards will be and what you will be evaluating their assignments on when you grade it. Some instructors include a general grading rubric on their syllabus.
• Take the time to write at least one comment on the rubric as you grade papers - don't let the rubric do all the communicating for you.
• Post examples of average, above average, and superior work, with names suitably removed. A 3 does, in fact, look different from a 4 and substantially different from a 5, and students can benefit from seeing what the difference is between a correct, workmanlike job and a truly exceptional paper.
For additional information about rubrics, see Developing Scoring Rubrics in the Starting Point primer on assessment.
____
???2005 On-line Course Design Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310.
« Previous Page Next Page »
• Cutting Edge
o Affective Domain
o BiocomplexityCareer DevelopmentCareer PrepClimate Change...click to see 4 more...
o Course Design
Workshop 07
Course Design Tutorial
Tutorial overview
Table of contents
Part 1 index
Part 2 index
Course plan
Teaching strategies
Assessing student learning
Syllabus
Part 3 index
Faculty professional development
Workshop 02
Workshop 03
Workshop 04
Workshop 05
Workshop 06
o Data, Simulations and Models
o Discoveries from Mars
o Early Career
o Early Earth
o Energy
o Field Experiences
o Geochemistry
o Geology and Human Health
o Geomorphology
o Geophysics
o Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection
o Hydrogeology
o Introductory Courses
o Leadership
o Metacognition
o Mineralogy
o Ocean System
o Online Games
o Paleontology
o Petrology
o Public Policy
o Rates and Time
o Sedimentary Geology
o Structural Geology
o Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
o Urban Geology
o Visualization
o Web-Based Resources
Last Modified: October 02, 2008 | Printing | Shortcut: http://serc.carleton.edu/9745 | Privacy | Terms of Use | Report a Problem/Feedback
On the Cutting Edge - Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
Topical Resources
Cutting Edge > Course Design > Course Design Tutorial > Table of contents > Part 2 index > Syllabus
If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents.
2.4 Creating the course syllabus
At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, developed a course plan, selected teaching and assessment strategies, and begun to develop some specific assignments and activities. In this section of the tutorial, you will develop your course syllabus, considering the issues raised below, the list of what could be included in a syllabus, and reading a few examples of syllabi.
A detailed syllabus gives students a sense of the nature of the course, what they will be expected to do in the course, and how their performance will be assessed. In many cases, the syllabus is viewed as a contract between you and the students. Whether considered a legal contract or not, a syllabus should be clear about policies and procedures related to the course. Some institutions have specific requirements regarding what should be included on the syllabus.
Three Points to Consider
Goals: A syllabus should be more than the course schedule. You've worked hard to articulate the goals for the course and including them on the syllabus makes it clear to the students what they should be able to do when they have completed the course.
Expectations: While syllabi generally include something about your expectations of students (e.g., assignments, due dates, exams), it is helpful to be specific about other things you expect of students (e.g., your expectations for class participation, attendance, class preparation, their responsibility for learning) and why you have those expectations. It is also important to be clear about what students can expect of you (e.g., the time frame in which you will return assignments, how you will handle late work, that you will start and end class on time).
Tone: A syllabus helps to set the tone for the course. Consider your syllabus from the perspective of a student who is considering taking your class. Do you seem approachable? Welcoming? Organized? Excited about the course?
Syllabus components
• Information about the instructor (and TA) including name, office number, telephone number, email, and office hours
• Course title and other course information including meeting times, room number, credits, prerequisite courses or skills, co-requisite courses, course website
• Titles and authors of required/recommended textbooks
• Course goals
• Statement of why students should want to take your course
• Describe how the course relates to students' lives
• Course description, which might include the "big questions" this course will addres and/or how the course fits into the discipline and the curriculum
• Some type of graphic or image that is related to the course content
• Course schedule including dates of field trips and other scheduled meetings outside class time; this might convey the conceptual structure used to organize the course
• Information about assignments and assessments including types of assignments and assessments, nature of exams (take home, open book, in-class) due dates, grading criteria and grading scale, rubrics, and so forth)
• Other course requirements such as attending an office hour or forming study groups
• Description of students' responsibilities in the learning process
• How you hope the students will approach the readings, take responsibility for their learning, the amount of study time expected in the course
• Statement that the syllabus is subject to change
• Policies on attendance, academic integrity, late assignments, missed exams, cell phones
• Important dates such as last day to withdraw from the course
• Suggestions on how to succeed in the course such as strategies for studying, taking tests, and taking notes, information about campus resources
• Statement regarding accommodation for students with disabilities
Sample Syllabi
Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (Acrobat (PDF) 127kB Jun20 05)
Earth's Environmental Systems (Microsoft Word 34kB Jun20 05)
Geology and Development of Modern Africa (Microsoft Word 62kB Jun20 05)
Planetary Geology (Microsoft Word 6.3MB Jun20 05)
Structural Geology (Microsoft Word 43kB Jun20 05)
________________________________________
Assignment 2.4: Creating your course syllabus
Develop your course syllabus, making sure you include your goals, clearly state what you expect from students and what they can expect from you, and consider the tone you want to convey through the syllabus.
________________________________________
Additional resources
Creating a Syllabus from Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis
Syllabus Components, one of the Teaching Resources: Planning and Policies, Arizona State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Building a Better Syllabus, Nutshell Notes (Teaching tips in a nutshell - One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence), University of Colorado at Denver, Office of Teaching Effectiveness
Syllabus Construction Guide by Lester A. Lefton, University of South Carolina, Institutional Planning and Assessment
Notes from Learning-Centered Syllabi Workshop prepared by Lee Haugen in 1998, Iowa State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Syllabus Construction by Greyson H. Walker, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Teaching Resource Center
Syllabus Construction Handbook, Chemeketa Community College, Opportunity Center
Designing a Learning-Centered Syllabus, University of Delaware, Center for Teaching Effectiveness
____
???2005 On-line Course Design Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310.
« Previous Page Next Page »
• Cutting Edge
o Affective Domain
o BiocomplexityCareer DevelopmentCareer PrepClimate Change...click to see 4 more...
o Course Design
Workshop 07
Course Design Tutorial
Tutorial overview
Table of contents
Part 1 index
Part 2 index
Course plan
Teaching strategies
Assessing student learning
Syllabus
Part 3 index
Faculty professional development
Workshop 02
Workshop 03
Workshop 04
Workshop 05
Workshop 06
o Data, Simulations and Models
o Discoveries from Mars
o Early Career
o Early Earth
o Energy
o Field Experiences
o Geochemistry
o Geology and Human Health
o Geomorphology
o Geophysics
o Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection
o Hydrogeology
o Introductory Courses
o Leadership
o Metacognition
o Mineralogy
o Ocean System
o Online Games
o Paleontology
o Petrology
o Public Policy
o Rates and Time
o Sedimentary Geology
o Structural Geology
o Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
o Urban Geology
o Visualization
o Web-Based Resources
Last Modified: June 12, 2008 | Printing | Shortcut: http://serc.carleton.edu/9886 | Privacy | Terms of Use | Report a Problem/Feedback
On the Cutting Edge - Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
Topical Resources
Cutting Edge > Course Design > Course Design Tutorial > Table of contents > Part 2 index > Syllabus
If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents.
2.4 Creating the course syllabus
At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, developed a course plan, selected teaching and assessment strategies, and begun to develop some specific assignments and activities. In this section of the tutorial, you will develop your course syllabus, considering the issues raised below, the list of what could be included in a syllabus, and reading a few examples of syllabi.
A detailed syllabus gives students a sense of the nature of the course, what they will be expected to do in the course, and how their performance will be assessed. In many cases, the syllabus is viewed as a contract between you and the students. Whether considered a legal contract or not, a syllabus should be clear about policies and procedures related to the course. Some institutions have specific requirements regarding what should be included on the syllabus.
Three Points to Consider
Goals: A syllabus should be more than the course schedule. You've worked hard to articulate the goals for the course and including them on the syllabus makes it clear to the students what they should be able to do when they have completed the course.
Expectations: While syllabi generally include something about your expectations of students (e.g., assignments, due dates, exams), it is helpful to be specific about other things you expect of students (e.g., your expectations for class participation, attendance, class preparation, their responsibility for learning) and why you have those expectations. It is also important to be clear about what students can expect of you (e.g., the time frame in which you will return assignments, how you will handle late work, that you will start and end class on time).
Tone: A syllabus helps to set the tone for the course. Consider your syllabus from the perspective of a student who is considering taking your class. Do you seem approachable? Welcoming? Organized? Excited about the course?
Syllabus components
• Information about the instructor (and TA) including name, office number, telephone number, email, and office hours
• Course title and other course information including meeting times, room number, credits, prerequisite courses or skills, co-requisite courses, course website
• Titles and authors of required/recommended textbooks
• Course goals
• Statement of why students should want to take your course
• Describe how the course relates to students' lives
• Course description, which might include the "big questions" this course will addres and/or how the course fits into the discipline and the curriculum
• Some type of graphic or image that is related to the course content
• Course schedule including dates of field trips and other scheduled meetings outside class time; this might convey the conceptual structure used to organize the course
• Information about assignments and assessments including types of assignments and assessments, nature of exams (take home, open book, in-class) due dates, grading criteria and grading scale, rubrics, and so forth)
• Other course requirements such as attending an office hour or forming study groups
• Description of students' responsibilities in the learning process
• How you hope the students will approach the readings, take responsibility for their learning, the amount of study time expected in the course
• Statement that the syllabus is subject to change
• Policies on attendance, academic integrity, late assignments, missed exams, cell phones
• Important dates such as last day to withdraw from the course
• Suggestions on how to succeed in the course such as strategies for studying, taking tests, and taking notes, information about campus resources
• Statement regarding accommodation for students with disabilities
Sample Syllabi
Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (Acrobat (PDF) 127kB Jun20 05)
Earth's Environmental Systems (Microsoft Word 34kB Jun20 05)
Geology and Development of Modern Africa (Microsoft Word 62kB Jun20 05)
Planetary Geology (Microsoft Word 6.3MB Jun20 05)
Structural Geology (Microsoft Word 43kB Jun20 05)
________________________________________
Assignment 2.4: Creating your course syllabus
Develop your course syllabus, making sure you include your goals, clearly state what you expect from students and what they can expect from you, and consider the tone you want to convey through the syllabus.
________________________________________
Additional resources
Creating a Syllabus from Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis
Syllabus Components, one of the Teaching Resources: Planning and Policies, Arizona State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Building a Better Syllabus, Nutshell Notes (Teaching tips in a nutshell - One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence), University of Colorado at Denver, Office of Teaching Effectiveness
Syllabus Construction Guide by Lester A. Lefton, University of South Carolina, Institutional Planning and Assessment
Notes from Learning-Centered Syllabi Workshop prepared by Lee Haugen in 1998, Iowa State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Syllabus Construction by Greyson H. Walker, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Teaching Resource Center
Syllabus Construction Handbook, Chemeketa Community College, Opportunity Center
Designing a Learning-Centered Syllabus, University of Delaware, Center for Teaching Effectiveness
____
???2005 On-line Course Design Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310.
« Previous Page Next Page »
• Cutting Edge
o Affective Domain
o BiocomplexityCareer DevelopmentCareer PrepClimate Change...click to see 4 more...
o Course Design
Workshop 07
Course Design Tutorial
Tutorial overview
Table of contents
Part 1 index
Part 2 index
Course plan
Teaching strategies
Assessing student learning
Syllabus
Part 3 index
Faculty professional development
Workshop 02
Workshop 03
Workshop 04
Workshop 05
Workshop 06
o Data, Simulations and Models
o Discoveries from Mars
o Early Career
o Early Earth
o Energy
o Field Experiences
o Geochemistry
o Geology and Human Health
o Geomorphology
o Geophysics
o Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection
o Hydrogeology
o Introductory Courses
o Leadership
o Metacognition
o Mineralogy
o Ocean System
o Online Games
o Paleontology
o Petrology
o Public Policy
o Rates and Time
o Sedimentary Geology
o Structural Geology
o Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
o Urban Geology
o Visualization
o Web-Based Resources
Last Modified: June 12, 2008 | Printing | Shortcut: http://serc.carleton.edu/9886 | Privacy | Terms of Use | Report a Problem/Feedback
On the Cutting Edge - Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
Topical Resources
Cutting Edge > Course Design > Course Design Tutorial > Table of contents > Part 2 index > Assessing student learning
If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents.
2.3 Assessing Student Learning
At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, developed a course plan, and selected teaching strategies for specific assignments and activities to help students achieve course goals. In this section of the tutorial, you will decide how to assess student learning in your course. If you have developed activities and assignments, you have already developed some assessment strategies for your course.
What kinds of assessment strategies can you use to determine the extent to which students have met the goals of your course? Assessment of student learning can range from informal assessments of whether students are "getting it" (such as observing a well-informed, articulate discussion of a topic or noticing that students' eyes have glazed over in class), to formal assessments of student learning that contribute to their grades in the course, to research on how students are learning in a specific class. In this tutorial, we focus on assessments used to determine grades, including some informal assessments that might or might not be graded but that provide valuable information about whether students are "getting it". We encourage you to use a matrix of your goals and assessment strategies to make sure that your assessments are aligned with your goals.
________________________________________
Start by downloading the worksheet (Microsoft Word 37kB Jun20 05) that goes with this part, and use it as you work through the sections below.
________________________________________
Task 2.3: Exploring assessment strategies
Below, you will find a list of assessment strategies with links to more information and examples about selected strategies. Keeping the goals of your course in mind, browse the list to find strategies that you could use to assess student learning. Be sure to keep in mind the context and constraints of your course. Go to the course plan that you have developed in Parts 2.1 and 2.2, and add assessments as appropriate. You may decide that the student activities and assignments you have planned are sufficient to meet your goals, or you may decide that you need to add more and/or different strategies. Use the worksheet to check that your assessments are aligned with your goals.
________________________________________
Assessment strategies
The list of assessment strategies below includes only some of the many possibilities. A useful set of assessment resources is available at the Cutting Edge website Understanding What Our Geoscience Students Are Learning: Observing and Assessing. This site includes a page on Assessment Tools and Instruments and a page on Assessment Types. A primer on assessment in the geosciences is available at the Starting Point site.
ConcepTests are conceptual multiple-choice questions used during class that provide immediate assessment of student understanding. More than 300 ConcepTest questions are available on the Starting Point website. Using electronic response systems provides the instructor with immediate feedback about the distribution of answers in the class. Learn more about assessment and ConcepTests here.
Minute papers are one type of classroom assessment technique that will give you an indication of student understanding of a particular topic. A one-minute paper can be used at the end of the class by asking students to write on one of the following questions.
• What was the most important thing you learned in today's class?
• What question do you have about today's class?
• What was the muddiest point of today's class?
Students write their answers on index cards or slips of paper that are turned in at the end of class and can be graded or not. learn more here (more info)
Problem sets can be a useful way to give students practice in solving problems, doing quantitative work outside class time, and practice specific techniques. Problem sets are standard in many science courses and can be an effective assessment strategy in entry-level as well as upper-level courses.
Labs can provide another way to assess student learning. The type of assessment might be a lab report, completion of the lab handout, a research project write-up, or some other assigment.
Concept maps can also be used for assessment. Learn more about assessment using concept maps.
Exams and quizzes are commonly used to assess student learning. They also force students to process information and help prevent students from disengaging in a course. Students need to process information in one way or another to learn. In studying for exams, students read, memborize, organize information, test themselves with questions, and with vary ing degrees of success, process the material for that particular section of the course. Processing inforamtion in a blitz of studying before each exam is not the ideal way to learn material, nor in many courses is it the only way students learn material. Studying before exams is, however, one of the most common ways in which students learn in a course. Exams can include mutiple choice questions, short answers, essay questions, questions about graphs or diagrams, and so forth. If you choose to use exams, it's a good idea to ask yourself how much of the exam requires students to use higher order thinking skills and how much of it requires lower order thinking skills and whether you are satisfied by your answer in light of the goals of your course.
Cooperative exams, also called "two-stage" or "pyramid exams", are exams that are taken by groups of students working together after they have completed the original exam individually. When done in one class period, students take the exam individually for the first part of the class. Then, when all students have turned in the exam, they retake the exam working in groups and, in some cases, in an open-book, open-notes format. Commonly these exams are multiple-choice exams with or without some short answer questions; the cooperative part may also have one or two longer questions. The instructors we know who use this type of exam base the total exam score for each student on 70-75% of the individual exam and 25-30% of the group exam.
Richard Yuretich and Mark Leckie use "two-stage" exams with a significant collaborative component in a 600-student oceanography class that was transformed by modifying lectures to include cooperative learning via interactive in-class exercises and directed discussion. The transformation is described in an article in the Journal of Geoscience Education, Active-Learning Methods to Improve Student Performance and Scientific Interest in a Large Introductory Oceanography Class (Yuretich et al., 2001 ).
Randy Richardson, University of Arizona, also uses two-stage exams in A Geologic Perspective, a large physical science course. He gives an example of one exam (Microsoft Word 86kB Jun20 05), the answer sheet (Microsoft Word 25kB Jun20 05) for the individual part of the exam, the answer sheet (Microsoft Word 25kB Jun20 05) for the collaborative part of the exam, and the instructions (Microsoft Word 29kB Jun20 05)for the exam given to the Disability Center for administering the exam, which explicity lay out the ground rules for the collaborative part of the exam given that he is not present at the Disability Center when the exam starts.
Written and oral assignments such as papers, oral presentations, debates, simulations, and so forth can also be used to assess student learning. In some courses, frequent written and oral assignents can replace traditional exams. In some exam-free courses students prepare one or two short written assignments each week in which they summarize the critical aspects of a reading assignment, relate data ro readings, make comparisions with what they have learned previously, take positions on issues, and analyse or synthesize information and ideas. These assignments then serve as the basis for group or class discussion and oral presentations or require students to pull together information from a series of classes either to solve a problem or to present a summary analysis of a particular topic. The activities that students are engaged in to learn the material are also used to evaluate their accomplishments. This is a type of authentic assessment, an approach to assessment designed to correspond as closely as possible to real world experience.
Grading rubrics
Grading rubrics are written guidelines by which student work is evaluated. They typically articulate items on which student work is judged as well as the standards necessary to achieve certain grades.
Grading rubrics are useful primarily when you have something to grade that isn't simply a matter of right or wrong fro which points can be easily assigned. Thus, they are useful for written work projects and oral work, rather than problem sets or short answer assignments. They allow you to evaluate a number of different facets of a student's work quite easily and rather quickly. Rubrics allow you to lay out specific criteria as well as standards that must be met for a student to earn an A on a particular assignment.
Grading rubrics are useful for encouraging students to give more thorough, thoughful, creative, or well-supported answers. May students produce work that is substsantially correct but of only average insight, thoroughtness, or creativity. Using a rubric, a correct answer of average completeness and insight can be given an average grade (a C+, a B-, a 3, or whatever you believe average work to be worth in your grading scheme), while an above-average grade (and A, a 5, or whatever) can be reserved for truly exceptional insight, throroughness, or creativity. Examples of grading rubrics for written assignments and oral presentations such as might be given at the beginning of the course are included here (Microsoft Word 42kB Jun20 05) and an example of an assignment and associated specific rubrics for that assignment are included here (Microsoft Word 98kB Jun20 05).
Advice for using rubrics
• Establish a standard at the start of the term for what you consider to be average work, and publicize it to the students. Many students believe that if they simply do an assignment, they ought to receive an A. If this is your sense as well, that is perfectly fine, but you should still let students know that. If, on the other hand, you believe that an average job (substantially correct, workmanlike, does-the-job) ought to receive an average grade rather than an outstanding grade, you should let students know that it takes an uncommonly insightful answer to get an A. You should also let them know what you consider to be an average grade.
• Hand out an appropriate grading rubric at the time you hand out an assignment so that students know what your standards will be and what you will be evaluating their assignments on when you grade it. Some instructors include a general grading rubric on their syllabus.
• Take the time to write at least one comment on the rubric as you grade papers - don't let the rubric do all the communicating for you.
• Post examples of average, above average, and superior work, with names suitably removed. A 3 does, in fact, look different from a 4 and substantially different from a 5, and students can benefit from seeing what the difference is between a correct, workmanlike job and a truly exceptional paper.
For additional information about rubrics, see Developing Scoring Rubrics in the Starting Point primer on assessment.
____
???2005 On-line Course Design Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310.
« Previous Page Next Page »
• Cutting Edge
o Affective Domain
o BiocomplexityCareer DevelopmentCareer PrepClimate Change...click to see 4 more...
o Course Design
Workshop 07
Course Design Tutorial
Tutorial overview
Table of contents
Part 1 index
Part 2 index
Course plan
Teaching strategies
Assessing student learning
Syllabus
Part 3 index
Faculty professional development
Workshop 02
Workshop 03
Workshop 04
Workshop 05
Workshop 06
o Data, Simulations and Models
o Discoveries from Mars
o Early Career
o Early Earth
o Energy
o Field Experiences
o Geochemistry
o Geology and Human Health
o Geomorphology
o Geophysics
o Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection
o Hydrogeology
o Introductory Courses
o Leadership
o Metacognition
o Mineralogy
o Ocean System
o Online Games
o Paleontology
o Petrology
o Public Policy
o Rates and Time
o Sedimentary Geology
o Structural Geology
o Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
o Urban Geology
o Visualization
o Web-Based Resources
Last Modified: October 02, 2008 | Printing | Shortcut: http://serc.carleton.edu/9745 | Privacy | Terms of Use | Report a Problem/Feedback
On the Cutting Edge - Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
Topical Resources
Cutting Edge > Course Design > Course Design Tutorial > Table of contents > Part 2 index > Syllabus
If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents.
2.4 Creating the course syllabus
At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, developed a course plan, selected teaching and assessment strategies, and begun to develop some specific assignments and activities. In this section of the tutorial, you will develop your course syllabus, considering the issues raised below, the list of what could be included in a syllabus, and reading a few examples of syllabi.
A detailed syllabus gives students a sense of the nature of the course, what they will be expected to do in the course, and how their performance will be assessed. In many cases, the syllabus is viewed as a contract between you and the students. Whether considered a legal contract or not, a syllabus should be clear about policies and procedures related to the course. Some institutions have specific requirements regarding what should be included on the syllabus.
Three Points to Consider
Goals: A syllabus should be more than the course schedule. You've worked hard to articulate the goals for the course and including them on the syllabus makes it clear to the students what they should be able to do when they have completed the course.
Expectations: While syllabi generally include something about your expectations of students (e.g., assignments, due dates, exams), it is helpful to be specific about other things you expect of students (e.g., your expectations for class participation, attendance, class preparation, their responsibility for learning) and why you have those expectations. It is also important to be clear about what students can expect of you (e.g., the time frame in which you will return assignments, how you will handle late work, that you will start and end class on time).
Tone: A syllabus helps to set the tone for the course. Consider your syllabus from the perspective of a student who is considering taking your class. Do you seem approachable? Welcoming? Organized? Excited about the course?
Syllabus components
• Information about the instructor (and TA) including name, office number, telephone number, email, and office hours
• Course title and other course information including meeting times, room number, credits, prerequisite courses or skills, co-requisite courses, course website
• Titles and authors of required/recommended textbooks
• Course goals
• Statement of why students should want to take your course
• Describe how the course relates to students' lives
• Course description, which might include the "big questions" this course will addres and/or how the course fits into the discipline and the curriculum
• Some type of graphic or image that is related to the course content
• Course schedule including dates of field trips and other scheduled meetings outside class time; this might convey the conceptual structure used to organize the course
• Information about assignments and assessments including types of assignments and assessments, nature of exams (take home, open book, in-class) due dates, grading criteria and grading scale, rubrics, and so forth)
• Other course requirements such as attending an office hour or forming study groups
• Description of students' responsibilities in the learning process
• How you hope the students will approach the readings, take responsibility for their learning, the amount of study time expected in the course
• Statement that the syllabus is subject to change
• Policies on attendance, academic integrity, late assignments, missed exams, cell phones
• Important dates such as last day to withdraw from the course
• Suggestions on how to succeed in the course such as strategies for studying, taking tests, and taking notes, information about campus resources
• Statement regarding accommodation for students with disabilities
Sample Syllabi
Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (Acrobat (PDF) 127kB Jun20 05)
Earth's Environmental Systems (Microsoft Word 34kB Jun20 05)
Geology and Development of Modern Africa (Microsoft Word 62kB Jun20 05)
Planetary Geology (Microsoft Word 6.3MB Jun20 05)
Structural Geology (Microsoft Word 43kB Jun20 05)
________________________________________
Assignment 2.4: Creating your course syllabus
Develop your course syllabus, making sure you include your goals, clearly state what you expect from students and what they can expect from you, and consider the tone you want to convey through the syllabus.
________________________________________
Additional resources
Creating a Syllabus from Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis
Syllabus Components, one of the Teaching Resources: Planning and Policies, Arizona State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Building a Better Syllabus, Nutshell Notes (Teaching tips in a nutshell - One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence), University of Colorado at Denver, Office of Teaching Effectiveness
Syllabus Construction Guide by Lester A. Lefton, University of South Carolina, Institutional Planning and Assessment
Notes from Learning-Centered Syllabi Workshop prepared by Lee Haugen in 1998, Iowa State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Syllabus Construction by Greyson H. Walker, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Teaching Resource Center
Syllabus Construction Handbook, Chemeketa Community College, Opportunity Center
Designing a Learning-Centered Syllabus, University of Delaware, Center for Teaching Effectiveness
____
???2005 On-line Course Design Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310.
« Previous Page Next Page »
• Cutting Edge
o Affective Domain
o BiocomplexityCareer DevelopmentCareer PrepClimate Change...click to see 4 more...
o Course Design
Workshop 07
Course Design Tutorial
Tutorial overview
Table of contents
Part 1 index
Part 2 index
Course plan
Teaching strategies
Assessing student learning
Syllabus
Part 3 index
Faculty professional development
Workshop 02
Workshop 03
Workshop 04
Workshop 05
Workshop 06
o Data, Simulations and Models
o Discoveries from Mars
o Early Career
o Early Earth
o Energy
o Field Experiences
o Geochemistry
o Geology and Human Health
o Geomorphology
o Geophysics
o Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection
o Hydrogeology
o Introductory Courses
o Leadership
o Metacognition
o Mineralogy
o Ocean System
o Online Games
o Paleontology
o Petrology
o Public Policy
o Rates and Time
o Sedimentary Geology
o Structural Geology
o Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
o Urban Geology
o Visualization
o Web-Based Resources
Last Modified: June 12, 2008 | Printing | Shortcut: http://serc.carleton.edu/9886 | Privacy | Terms of Use | Report a Problem/Feedback
On the Cutting Edge - Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
Topical Resources
Cutting Edge > Course Design > Course Design Tutorial > Table of contents > Part 2 index > Syllabus
If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents.
2.4 Creating the course syllabus
At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, developed a course plan, selected teaching and assessment strategies, and begun to develop some specific assignments and activities. In this section of the tutorial, you will develop your course syllabus, considering the issues raised below, the list of what could be included in a syllabus, and reading a few examples of syllabi.
A detailed syllabus gives students a sense of the nature of the course, what they will be expected to do in the course, and how their performance will be assessed. In many cases, the syllabus is viewed as a contract between you and the students. Whether considered a legal contract or not, a syllabus should be clear about policies and procedures related to the course. Some institutions have specific requirements regarding what should be included on the syllabus.
Three Points to Consider
Goals: A syllabus should be more than the course schedule. You've worked hard to articulate the goals for the course and including them on the syllabus makes it clear to the students what they should be able to do when they have completed the course.
Expectations: While syllabi generally include something about your expectations of students (e.g., assignments, due dates, exams), it is helpful to be specific about other things you expect of students (e.g., your expectations for class participation, attendance, class preparation, their responsibility for learning) and why you have those expectations. It is also important to be clear about what students can expect of you (e.g., the time frame in which you will return assignments, how you will handle late work, that you will start and end class on time).
Tone: A syllabus helps to set the tone for the course. Consider your syllabus from the perspective of a student who is considering taking your class. Do you seem approachable? Welcoming? Organized? Excited about the course?
Syllabus components
• Information about the instructor (and TA) including name, office number, telephone number, email, and office hours
• Course title and other course information including meeting times, room number, credits, prerequisite courses or skills, co-requisite courses, course website
• Titles and authors of required/recommended textbooks
• Course goals
• Statement of why students should want to take your course
• Describe how the course relates to students' lives
• Course description, which might include the "big questions" this course will addres and/or how the course fits into the discipline and the curriculum
• Some type of graphic or image that is related to the course content
• Course schedule including dates of field trips and other scheduled meetings outside class time; this might convey the conceptual structure used to organize the course
• Information about assignments and assessments including types of assignments and assessments, nature of exams (take home, open book, in-class) due dates, grading criteria and grading scale, rubrics, and so forth)
• Other course requirements such as attending an office hour or forming study groups
• Description of students' responsibilities in the learning process
• How you hope the students will approach the readings, take responsibility for their learning, the amount of study time expected in the course
• Statement that the syllabus is subject to change
• Policies on attendance, academic integrity, late assignments, missed exams, cell phones
• Important dates such as last day to withdraw from the course
• Suggestions on how to succeed in the course such as strategies for studying, taking tests, and taking notes, information about campus resources
• Statement regarding accommodation for students with disabilities
Sample Syllabi
Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (Acrobat (PDF) 127kB Jun20 05)
Earth's Environmental Systems (Microsoft Word 34kB Jun20 05)
Geology and Development of Modern Africa (Microsoft Word 62kB Jun20 05)
Planetary Geology (Microsoft Word 6.3MB Jun20 05)
Structural Geology (Microsoft Word 43kB Jun20 05)
________________________________________
Assignment 2.4: Creating your course syllabus
Develop your course syllabus, making sure you include your goals, clearly state what you expect from students and what they can expect from you, and consider the tone you want to convey through the syllabus.
________________________________________
Additional resources
Creating a Syllabus from Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis
Syllabus Components, one of the Teaching Resources: Planning and Policies, Arizona State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Building a Better Syllabus, Nutshell Notes (Teaching tips in a nutshell - One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence), University of Colorado at Denver, Office of Teaching Effectiveness
Syllabus Construction Guide by Lester A. Lefton, University of South Carolina, Institutional Planning and Assessment
Notes from Learning-Centered Syllabi Workshop prepared by Lee Haugen in 1998, Iowa State University, Center for Teaching and Learning
Syllabus Construction by Greyson H. Walker, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Teaching Resource Center
Syllabus Construction Handbook, Chemeketa Community College, Opportunity Center
Designing a Learning-Centered Syllabus, University of Delaware, Center for Teaching Effectiveness
____
???2005 On-line Course Design Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310.
« Previous Page Next Page »
• Cutting Edge
o Affective Domain
o BiocomplexityCareer DevelopmentCareer PrepClimate Change...click to see 4 more...
o Course Design
Workshop 07
Course Design Tutorial
Tutorial overview
Table of contents
Part 1 index
Part 2 index
Course plan
Teaching strategies
Assessing student learning
Syllabus
Part 3 index
Faculty professional development
Workshop 02
Workshop 03
Workshop 04
Workshop 05
Workshop 06
o Data, Simulations and Models
o Discoveries from Mars
o Early Career
o Early Earth
o Energy
o Field Experiences
o Geochemistry
o Geology and Human Health
o Geomorphology
o Geophysics
o Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection
o Hydrogeology
o Introductory Courses
o Leadership
o Metacognition
o Mineralogy
o Ocean System
o Online Games
o Paleontology
o Petrology
o Public Policy
o Rates and Time
o Sedimentary Geology
o Structural Geology
o Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
o Urban Geology
o Visualization
o Web-Based Resources
Last Modified: June 12, 2008 | Printing | Shortcut: http://serc.carleton.edu/9886 | Privacy | Terms of Use | Report a Problem/Feedback
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