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Assignment Design Some basic principles Ron Sheese Designing a learning environment A general approach to
design is captured in the acronym ADDIE which is meant
to remind one of the components of the design cycle:
The ADDIE design cycle
can be considered with respect to an entire course or to various course
components such as assignments. In
either case, thinking in terms of the learning environment
metaphor can be productive. A good
way to begin the analysis phase is to identify the existing features of your current
learning environment and to consider other features that might enhance that
environment.
Instructors build a learning
environment and seek to facilitate within it student activity that will be
productive relative to the ideas under consideration in the course. Of course, the students themselves,
including their knowledge, beliefs and purposes, constitute an important
aspect of the learning environment.
Thus, an important student activity to consider in the design process
is inter/activity with other students, and this interactivity needs to be as
carefully designed as any other aspect of the learning environment.
Instructors who give special emphasis to this aspect sometimes refer to their
designed environment as a learning community. Alignment When designing an
assignment the most important consideration is the course goals; look to your
purposes and imagine activities within the learning environment that will
serve those purposes well. The
activities and assignments you design, particularly those that will be
evaluated, should each align with one or more of the course goals. The general principle of alignment holds
that an instructor should design assignments that specifically address course
goals and that permit feedback to the students in terms of those goals. Thus, assignments should be designed with
both the course goals and the manner of assessment in mind so that all three
of these features are in alignment. Engagement Even a carefully designed
assignment will fail if it does not engage the students’ attention with the
course ideas, engage the students in interaction with the learning
environment. Students, like all of
us, are busy people constantly making judgments about what priority to give
any particular activity, and we all look for short cuts that will allow us to
complete lower priority items quickly.
In the case of our students this may mean breezing through our
carefully constructed learning environments rather than engaging with
them. When designing assignments, and
learning environments generally, we need to ask how well our design will
encourage students to give high priority to engaging with the environment and
completing the activities productively.
Many instructors opt to
include students in the assignment-design process with the hope that
incorporating their interests and enthusiasms will support engagement in the
work. Some instructors find
inquiry-based designs and problem-based designs effective means of capturing
student engagement. Several of the
characteristics that Jonassen associates with meaningful learning (the
pentagon) are also features of assignments that promote engagement. Assignments that are viewed by the
students as authentic, that allow
an incorporation of the student’s
personal goals and an active manipulation
of important ideas in a constructive,
cooperative environment, can
promote engagement, and eventually success, within the learning environment. Student purpose Just like instructors, students come to the learning
environment with goals in mind.
Unfortunately, these goals may not always be ones that incline them
towards careful attention to the learning possibilities of that
environment. And even when a student is eager to take advantage of the
possibilities, few gains are likely if the only strategy that the student has
mastered is memorization. Many students,
particularly at the first year level, assume that the purpose of their work
is to memorize the important facts.
They expect to be asked to report them back directly or in a narrative
structure. Instructors sometimes find that it is not enough to
provide assignments that permit active learning; often it is necessary to
build a sequence of activities that assist students to develop the critical
skills whose application we seek.
Some instructors find that it helps to create activities to elucidate
the meaning of the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy – analysis, synthesis,
and evaluation in particular. As a
minimum an assignment should state clearly what purpose you wish your
students to adopt in completing it, as well as the level at which you are
expecting them to work. Activities that permit frequent and honest dialogue
among students and the instructor regarding their respective purposes and
expectations should pay off in more meaningful learning for all. Time to completion Make an attempt to complete all the elements of the
assignment yourself as a means of insuring that the time required by students
to complete the assignment is appropriate to the learning to be gained and
the weighting of the assignment in the evaluation system. Chickering’s seven principles for good practice Ask yourself how the activity or assignment will: Encourage
contact with the instructors, Develop
a sense of reciprocity and cooperation among the students, Encourage
active learning, Allow
prompt feedback to the students, Encourage
spending time on tasks that serve the course goals, Effectively
communicate your desire for the students to work at a high level; And consider whether your activities and assignments
across the course as a whole will: Allow
expression of a range of talents and methods of learning. Appropriateness of activity for students’ level Has there been sufficient prior experience, either
in this course or in previous ones, with the concepts and skills required to
complete the assignment? Has sufficient contextualization been given? Is any scaffolding
necessary? Have you given sufficient direction to the students
to guide their activity? Have you specified the degree of collaboration
expected/permitted? Have your students developed the necessary metacognitive strategies to be
able to proceed at the level you seek? Will the assigned activity be within your students’ zone
of proximal development? Some
generic types of activity to be encouraged by assignments Re/presentational Students are asked to re/present the central ideas of the
course in multiple forms and settings Disequilibration Students interact with
information, problems and tasks that facilitate cycles of disequilibrium and
resolution.
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