Talk:College Attainment

Instructor comments on your project -- Jz833665 13:50, 9 November 2011 (EST)

Nathan, Your mini-course addresses an important practical need. The instructional analysis (e.g. needs assessment) you've carried out is very helpful and informative. A few things for you to consider: Given the goal to aspire students for college education, and the current low number of students who are motivated, your mini-course (and the program that teachers will design) need to include an attitude-related aspect of learning outcomes: to recognize the value of higher education for 21st century careers. The outcomes you've identified seem to focus on what colleges require of students. In career counseling, there is another important factor to be considered: the students need to learn to reflect on themselves to find out their own goal of life, passions, interests, strengths and weaknesses.

Please continue to finish your task analysis and develop the whole mini-course.

Instructor comments on your lesson sequencing -- Jz833665 20:53, 13 November 2011 (EST)

Re. Outcomes, Objectives and Sequencing of Unit I'm pleased to see your unit/lesson level objectives that have been clearly stated and appropriately sequenced. Nice work. Two issues: 1) I think your program development needs to include a strong focus on inspiring students for college (in line with your earlier analysis), not just help them get the information and procedure. 2) The objective of the following lesson could be clearer: "Lesson 3: Teachers will integrate literacy lesson plans into the program to meet the local literacy standards..." Are you specifically talking about writing skills needed for college application?

Comments by Nathan -- Nathan Lockett 16:13, 27 November 2011 (EST)

Hi All. I am not sure how this comment section is supposed to work. But, I know the three of us are in a group. I plan on adding links to resources on every page, an assessment rubric, a curriculum map and of course finishing my 2nd and 3rd units. Do you have any other suggestions as to what I should add? Thanks.

Re: Comments by Nathan -- Lydia Ashley 17:39, 30 November 2011 (EST)

Hi Nathan, this is my first time using Wiki so if any of my comments or questions don't make sense to you, that would be why, so please don't hesitate to educate me along the way. :) As I was going through your Unit 1, I noticed that you have part 1, part 2 etc...underneath sections that already are listed as a specific unit. This just kind of confused me a bit. Are those different objectives inside your Units?

Re: Re: Comments by Nathan -- Nathan Lockett 17:32, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Yes, I should probably call them lessons. But, because my course is more of a guide for doing something and not teaching a new skill, I called them parts.

Instructor comments on your draft units -- Jz833665 11:30, 29 November 2011 (EST)

Hi Nathan, I've reviewed the draft units you've created. In the next/final phase, you may further enhance the organization of your course to better inform and engage the participants. Here are a few things you may do:

• Add an course front/intro page that will serve to inform the participants of your intent/focus, target audience, course-level objectives, and course structure.

• Consolidate and better structure each unit: For example, you may put the objectives and prerequisites of the whole unit up front (instead of listing them as different parts), and use more specific and informative subheadings (e.g. instead of part 1, spell out the focus on this part).

• Add navigation links in the end of each unit.

Here is a example for you: Developing Learning Communities Through Blended Learning Activities

--Fiona Grady 21:00, 30 November 2011 (EST)

I can't seem to find the link to the actual course. Perhaps you are making changes to the wiki as I type. I will check back. The prep work looks great.

Re: -- Fiona Grady 02:25, 5 December 2011 (EST)

I finally figured out this evening. Will comment tomorrow.

I think you probably tried to get into it while I was editing it. It was not really structured well before and Dr. Zhang suggested that I completely re-do the structure. Let me know if you think there are ways to make it easier to navigate.

Re: Re: -- Fiona Grady 19:50, 6 December 2011 (EST)

Nathan, I think the thing that threw me off is that there is no overview or cover page so to speak for the course. The way I am thinking of it, the portfolio is for us, the students in this class and Dr Zhang to provide insight into the design process. Participants in the actual course would not see the portfolio page. So for participants in the course there should be a page which provides them with an introduction to the course, the objectives at the course level, etc. but would not include the instructional map since that is not something that would usually be made transparent to participants. Having said that, while I have one of these pages, but it is not complete.

Based on the understanding above, I would include the links on the bottom of your portfolio page to one of the pages in your course. I liked the links that you provided.

In Unit 1, Part 1 I was confused by the prerequisites. A couple of them looked like things participants would be able to do after that lesson.

In Unit 3 I was confused about the rubric. Is the college readiness cohort model document the rubric? If so, it might help if you labeled it as "rubric."

One other suggestion would be to add some images to engage participants. I know it's hard to do with the wiki tool we are using. I added a bunch of photos to my course and it was exhausting. Actually, maybe you could provide some links to some college tours on youtube or videos of students describing their college experience.

I think this course is a great idea. It would also be nice as a booklet that could easily be passed out in k-12 schools so teachers could start their own groups to work through the material.

Re: Re: Re: -- Nathan Lockett 10:23, 7 December 2011 (EST)

Thanks for the insight Fiona. I put the curricular map and other information on the portfolio page because this course is meant to be done independently, with no contact from an instructor. That being the case, I felt it was important to give the participants complete access to the course information.

The cohort model is not the rubric, the rubric is Unit 2 Part 1. The cohort model is my example of how to carry the course forward. I will try to make that more clear.

You are right, I should try to add some images. I doubt I will be able to do it as well as you. Those things are difficult!

I did mean for this to be a digital booklet, so I am happy that you got the sense that that is what is was. It's intention is for teachers to use it on their own and create a program.