I am taking a break for the mechanics and technology of content creation in order to present some ideas on one of the more controversial aspects of online education. Nearly every authority in the field agrees that classes should be broken up into units based on content and, to a lesser degree, time. For simplicity sake we will call these units Modules, although the name matters little. However, no one can seem to agree on an exact structure or design method or template. What makes up a good module? How can we tell a good design from a bad? What are some things that must be included and what things are optional? Today’s post will attempt to answer some of these questions, specifically for the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS), however the design principles should be applicable to any online system of similar type.
When designing anything it is best to use a consistent and reproducible approach. The general work flow involves four stages: Planning, Producing, Presenting, and Evaluating. This workflow applies to any design project and should be intuitive, however, often times we ignore one or more steps in our rush to get content up and online. Another very useful technique for module and lesson design in general is Backwards Design; starting from the results and working back to the content creation. This process is not so intuitive and requires a bit of explanation.
In their book Understanding by Design, originally published in 1998, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe introduced the concept of Backward Design. In a nutshell, the process involves determining the expected and desired student outcomes, developing an assessment tool to measure the success of achieving those goals, and then creating content to prepare the student for the assessment. By following this model, only the material that the students need to reach their learning goals will be presented because the pattern for creating the learning content is the exam that will measure those goals.
The Backwards Design Principle depends on the presence of specific learning goals or outcomes. These outcomes are dependent on concrete standards provided to the instructor. In the State of Texas, standards for K-12 learning are provided by a list of requirements created for each grade and subject called Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Given this list of standards, it is easy to develop assessment tools to measure a student’s success in reaching the goals. Knowing the standards is vital to successful education. Then the Backwards Design principle makes creating content easy.
It is very easy to spend valuable class time on material that is not, in any way, tied to the standards. This is the flaw in designing curriculum forward. Often instructors begin to build lessons without a clear picture of what they need to teach. They begin building lesson content. Once they have created the content, they build an assessment to measure the student’s level of success. Without actively consulting the end results first, all too often the curriculum they build has only a cursory relationship to the goals they are trying to reach.
It is often helpful to build a rubric to contain the standards. Once this is accomplished, creating an assessment is easy. At this point, the only remaining concern is the gathering of content to support the student’s investigation of the subject.
So, tools we can use to effectively design curriculum: the four phases of the design model, the Principle of Backward Design, and the use of Rubrics to organize our standards. These are some of the best tools an instructor can use to design effective and successful modules.
We didn’t get to far into Canvas on this post. However, next time we will look at how the Canvas LMS makes the entire design process easier to accomplish.
Technology In Education 