Talk:J. Robin Ward

Instructor comments on your topic and instructional analysis -- Jz833665 (talk) 11:57, 23 February 2015 (EST)

Hi Robin-

Your instructional analysis of define the possible outcomes of learning and analyze the needs and the learn is solid and helpful! Excellent work!

The needs assessment survey suggests that the gap is less about understanding what narrative is and its usefulness, but about the narrow scope of strategies in using narrative learning activities. So your mini-course will focus more on designing learning and assessment activities that require students to create narratives for deep understanding. Is this right?

Reply re: Project Scope -- JRobinWard (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2015 (EST)

Yes, I certainly want to include methodology for encouraging the overlooked potential of the narrative, but I want to include some more familiar uses as scaffolding, as well.

Instructor comments on your task analysis and unit-level performance objectives -- Jz833665 (talk) 10:53, 7 April 2015 (EDT)

Hi Robin,

I'm pleased to see your progress made in this project. A few issues for you to reflect on:

1) Your course level performance objectives state: by the end of this course, the learn will have completed the following... This is a statement about activities. The learning objectives mean to make clear what you expect the learner to be able to do/perform as the the result of their learning through your mini-course, NOT what they will complete within your mini-course (tasks and activities). The tasks and activities in your course are the means to preparing the learner to develop competencies to be demonstrated in broader contexts beyond your mini-course. The objectives are about the competencies to be demonstrated.

2) Your curriculum map means to lay out how the unit level objectives will build on one another to enable the end of course target objectives, and what activities will be used in each unit aligned with the unit's objectives. In your task analysis and map, a few of your unit-level objectives are about activities in the units only (e.g. read...) instead of the objectives.

3) You currently plan out 5 units, which may be a lot of work. Your unit 3 and 5 are both about assessment. Does it make sense to combine these two into one unit?

Updated Course Level Objectives -- JRobinWard (talk) 10:30, 12 April 2015 (EDT)

I've made a revision to the course level objectives, and I think I'm closer to what you're looking for here. They now describe take-away skills rather than specific activities.

I want to wait until you see these and have a chance to comment on them before I revise the other elements of the curriculum map that you suggested. However, I do agree that five units might be a bit much. I'll take a look at combining the assessment sections, as you suggest.

Further observation on combining assessment units -- JRobinWard (talk) 11:42, 12 April 2015 (EDT)

You suggested that I look at combining units 3 and 5, as they both relate to assessment. However, unit 3 relates to assessing students, while unit 5 relates to the instructor performing reflective self-assessment. These are two very different types of assessment.

In the interest of keeping my course manageable, I will remove unit 5, but possibly give the idea of self-reflective narrative a brief nod in unit 3, as a suggestion rather than as a topic of study for the course.