Office Hours Off Campus
Our “office hours off campus” idea transpired from a speech given by Dr. Iain Campbell at a publisher’s workshop we attended. Dr. Campbell teaches large
Sarah Nixon, PhD, and John Fishback
August 23, 2019
Course Design
Variations to Traditional Multiple-Choice Testing
Many college courses employ multiple choice (MC) tests as a primary means of assessment. Although these are sometimes critiqued (Kaufman, 2001), modifications can be made
Lynne N. Kennette, PhD, Phoebe S. Lin, PhD, and Lisa R. Van Havermaet, PhD
August 9, 2019
Creating a Roadmap for Success by Beginning at the End
Forward thinking might be exactly what teachers strive for in the classroom, but it may require some backwards design. Beth Harrison, PhD, director of the
Tierney King
July 12, 2019
Fostering Student Ethical Development as Part of the Curriculum
A state worker fabricates laboratory test results that can lead to false criminal convictions A restaurant inspector disregards health code violations Someone tampers with sports
Miriam Rosalyn Diamond, PhD
July 1, 2019
Designing Meaningful and Measurable Outcomes: A First Step in Backwards Design
I’ve sat on the Curriculum Committee at two different higher education institutions. I’ve also participated in college assessment committees and accreditation committees at both the
Vicki Caruana PhD
June 24, 2019
Six Things You Can Do to Deepen Student Learning
For baseball fans and players, springtime can only mean one thing: spring training. Every year professional baseball players head to Arizona or Florida to hone their craft. These are professionals mind you, but they continue to spend hours each year working on many of the same things Little Leaguers work on during the start of their seasons—throwing, catching, hitting, base running, and so forth.
As they make minor adjustments in these fundamentals of the game, the overall outcome is a major improvement. The same is true for faculty who remain mindful of their fundamentals, and make small, incremental improvements to their teaching.
Mary Bart
March 29, 2019
From Summiting Bloom’s to Promoting Lifelong Learning
Bloom’s Taxonomy has long been regarded as the holy grail in leading students through a process of content mastery. The traditional journey begins with imparting information to learners and finds its apex in enabling learners to evaluate and assess knowledge claims. In theory, each step of the journey to mastery builds on prior steps.
Miriam Bowers-Abbott
February 20, 2019
Seven Ways to Make Your Syllabus More Relevant
Can a syllabus get students excited for your course? What will keep students coming back to it? These seven design elements can help students get the most out of your syllabus, prepare them for the course, and focus on the learning goals ahead. My Engaging Syllabus Design: Example illustrates all of these design elements.
Christina Moore
January 11, 2019
Backward Design, Forward Progress
Readers of Faculty Focus are probably already familiar with backward design. Most readily connected with such researchers as Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, and Dee Fink, this approach to course construction asks faculty to initially ignore the specific content of a class. Rather, the designer begins the process by identifying desired learning goals, and then devising optimal instruments to measure and assess them. Only thereafter does course-specific content come into play—and even then, it is brought in not for the sake of “covering” it, but as a means to achieve the previously identified learning objectives. Courses designed this way put learning first, often transcend the traditional skillset boundaries of their discipline, and usually aim to achieve more ambitious cognitive development than do classes that begin—and often end —with content mastery as the primary focus. Although the advantages of backward design are manifest, it’s probably still the exception to, rather than the rule of, course planning.
Pete Burkholder, PhD
December 5, 2018
Enhancing Learning through Zest, Grit, and Sweat
Early in my career, I focused most of my efforts on teaching content. That is, after all, what most of us are hired to do, right? With experience and greater understanding of how learning works, my attention shifted toward metacognition. I began investing lots of time and energy reading and identifying ways to help students grow as learners while they learned the content.
Lolita Paff, PhD
November 14, 2018
