Build - Planning The Basic Structure

Most courses are structured around units of some kind, whether it’s chapters in the textbook, concepts in the discipline, or thematic topics. And with the structure of the academic quarter, we can’t ignore the calendar as an organizing principle.

The best place to start, as you might expect, is the content and activities you developed in the previous module. Combined with the expectations of how much time students should spend each week on the class, and your analysis of the amount of time students will need to complete the class activities, you should be able to develop a rough weekly schedule for the class.

As you develop the outline and schedule for the class, consider the following organizing principles.

Regular, repeated patterns and routines

Creating a regular, repeated pattern or routine for students interacting with the course material helps students build confidence that they understand how the class works. Routines help students process the work in manageable chunks, and better connect the students to the class through the regular submission/feedback cycle associated with those deadlines. Students spend less time on administrative overhead (when are things due?) and more time on the learning.

In addition, a regular schedule of activities can help you plan your week to stay up on the work associated with the class and manage your workload.

What does this look like in practice? Consider the following patterns:

  • Materials for a new unit are always posted on Friday afternoon
  • Assignments are always due at 5:00pm on Thursday
  • Monday’s class always starts with a reading quiz
  • Papers are due every other Friday

Multiple opportunities for feedback

Many students (and faculty!) struggle with connecting to their classes in a way that supports commitment and completion. One way to support better connection is to build in more formal opportunities for interaction. Assignments do not have to be large projects that are complex to grade; the goal is to engage the student, provide an opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge they’ve learned, and respond with feedback.

Students benefit from multiple feedback opportunities. Feedback provides regular “check-ins” to make sure students are still on track and learning the materials. Like regular routines and patterns, multiple assignments give the students manageable chunks of work instead of large, overwhelming projects.

Multiple, smaller assignments can also be lower stakes, but still give you good feedback on students' understanding and give students good feedback on what they need to do next. For students who are new to college (e.g. first generation students), the smaller assignments provide a smoother on-ramp to learning how to succeed in college, and give them time to get used to the culture of an academic institution. And when life intervenes in a student’s plans, it doesn’t ruin the entire quarter. 

Staff at the Eberly Center (2016) at Carnegie Mellon University write Links to an external site.:

Students’ motivation will increase if they see that their efforts are helping them make progress towards a goal. Hence, it is important to provide opportunities for students to (1) practice using skills and knowledge in a low-stakes environment, (2) receive timely, constructive feedback, and (3) incorporate that feedback into subsequent work. The opportunity to receive feedback and use it to improve subsequent performance can build students’ confidence and work against unproductive beliefs about learning and intelligence —for example, if a student believes he is not good at math but then finds himself improving with practice, he may rethink his beliefs about his own capabilities and even the nature of learning. It is important to note that offering more opportunities for students to practice does not have to create an undue grading burden Links to an external site. for faculty, especially if the performance criteria are clearly spelled out and the feedback is very targeted.

This is not to say that big projects are a problem. However, it's important to help students break that project into manageable chunks, and scaffold them into the work of a larger project. 

References

Eberly Center. (2016). Explore potential strategies. Retrieved December 14, 2018, from https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/strat-lackmotivation/lackmotivation-02.html Links to an external site.

LeMoine, Monica, 2007. “Helping Underprepared Students Become Better Readers and Writers in Any Discipline.” Presented at “Cultivating a Community of Practice: Change Agents for the Future of Higher Education,” Pacific Northwest Higher Education Assessment, Teaching and Learning Conference. Vancouver, WA: 28–30 Apr. 2010. Conference Presentation.