Evaluation and Assessment | Teaching Practices |Teaching with Technology| Sample Course Evaluation Forms
Teaching Tools
2. Teaching Practices
2.5. Scope and Content
Research-driven Course Design & Redesign
A systematic process for course design or revision
Your Students
Research on learners tells us a lot about how students acquire, organize, and retrieve information. It also indicates the special needs of particular groups
- First year undergraduates
- Women in non-traditional fields
- Non-native speakers of English
Scope and Content
Many faculty fall into the "coverage trap," believing that students will learn what we teach, no matter the amount or pace. Coverage is an illusion; no one can cover their entire field even given several semesters.
The most we can do is provide students with a sampling of information, techniques, issues, and the skill to continue to learn throughout their lives.
Objectives
Most faculty are quite effective at outlining their teaching objectives (what it is they want to cover in the course).
However, faculty are less experienced when writing objectives that identify what students should be able to do at the end of the course.
Student-centered objectives enable the faculty member and students to more easily monitor progress.
Appropriate Learning Activities to Meet Objectives
Teaching does not cause learning; instead, information is transformed into knowledge when a learner has to do something with it.
Different learning activities (ways to select, acquire, and maintain information) are appropriated depending on faculty objectives and student needs.
Type, Amount and Timing of Feedback
Frequent, timely and constructive feedback is key to the learning process; often, however, a lack of resources (i.e. time, graders, reliance on traditional means) may make providing feedback challenging.
One of students' biggest complaints is that grading is often not fair or consistent, and that they did not know what the instructor expected.
Monitoring Your Teaching
Effective instructors are effective because they constantly monitor what is working in a course and try to determine what isn't working and why.
Adapted from the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University
