Week 2 Integration Post

1. Situational Factors

I think that my outcomes and assessments fit many of my situational factors well. It's a one-shot class, and I am developing an assessment strategy and outcomes that will fit the small amount of time I have with the students. The outcomes involve lower level Bloom's terms and the assessment will be a quick check of student learning and opportunity for reflection. I think that the discipline-specific outcomes match the profile of the students in the course (mostly Political Science majors).

The biggest potential conflict I can identify is the possibility that I'm being too ambitious with my learning outcomes given the constraints of a one-shot session.

2. Learning Goals and Feedback & Assessment

My proposed assessments (found in my Educative Assessment post) mostly reflect the "Foundational Knowledge" and "Learning How to Learn" goals from my Week 1 Post. Here is a quick recap of those goals:

In the types of assignments the students are completing for Political Inquiry, it will be important for them to have a working knowledge of different resource types -- texts on political theory, case studies, data and government information, etc -- and the format that each type of information is likely to take. What types of information are most likely to be found in journal articles? What is likely to be found in books?  (Foundational Knowledge Goal)

Ideally the Political Science majors in the course will learn the basic research methods and resource types for their field of study, and this knowledge will help the students be successful in future classes. The underlying ability to understand the processes and purposes behind different information formats will serve them well in other classes and their everyday lives. (Learning How to Learn Goals)

A focus on self-reflection and self-assessment could help me achieve my Application and Integration goals, too. I would consider the two outcomes quoted above to be the goals that their professor is most concerned with, so I think it's appropriate to focus on assessing their learning on these goals (at least initially).

3. Learning Goals and Teaching/Learning Activities

My teaching and learning activities haven't fully taken shape yet. One approach I'm considering is providing the students with asynchronous instruction before the class (a short instructional video or brief handout/reading) to help them get familiar with some of the content before the one-shot takes place. If the students could arrive at the library class session having watched a short video on how to navigate the library website, an overview of how databases work, and some basic material on different types of Political Science resources, then I could devote more of the class time to giving them active experiences like working in groups to explore these resources more in depth and evaluate what they've found.  That extra hands-on time in class would help me achieve the goals mentioned above.

4. Teaching/Learning Activities and Assessment

Ideally, if I can implement the learning activities I described in my answer above, then I can provide the students with an opportunity to critically consider their information needs and the most appropriate resources. Doing so would prepare them for the forward-looking assessment, bringing the activities and assessment into alignment.

Here is a draft of my Worksheet for Designing a Course from Page 23 of the Fink reading.