DESIGNING COURSES THAT PROMOTE SIGNIFICANT LEARNING

If professors want to create courses in which students have “significant learning experiences,” they need to design that quality into their courses. How can they do that? By following the five basic steps of the instructional design process, as laid out below:

Step 1. Give careful consideration to a variety of SITUATIONAL FACTORS

What is the special instructional challenge of this particular course?
What is expected of the course by students? By the department, the institution, the profession, society at large?
How does this course fit into the larger curricular context?

Use the “BACKWARD DESIGN” Process
This process starts at the “end” of the learning process and works “back” toward the beginning. Use information about the Situational Factors (Step 1, above), as you make the following key decisions:

Step 2. Learning Goals What do you want students to learn by the end of the course, that will still be with them several years later?

Think expansively, beyond “understand and remember” kinds of learning.
Suggestion: Use the taxonomy of “Significant Learning” (Table 1) as a framework.

Table 1 A Taxonomy of Significant Learning.JPG

Step 3. Feedback & Assessment Procedures What will the students have to do, to demonstrate that they have achieved the learning goals (as identified in Step “A” above)?

Think about what you can do that will help sudents learn, as well as give you a basis for issuing a course grade.
Suggestion: Consider ideas of “Educative Assessment.”

Step 4. Teaching/Learning Activities What would have to happen during the course for students to do well on the Feedback & Assessment activities?

Think creatively for ways of involving students that will support your more expansive learning goals.
Suggestion: Use “Active Learning” activities, especially those related to:

“Rich Learning Experiences” in which students achieve several kinds of significant learning simultaneously
“In-depth Reflective Dialogue” opportunities for students to think and reflect on what they are learning, how they are learning, and the significance of what they are learning.

Suggestion: Assemble these activities into an effective instructional strategy, i.e., an interdependent sequence of learning activities, and a coherent course structure.

Step 5. Make sure that the Key Components are all INTEGRATED

Check to ensure that the key components (Steps 1-4) are all consistent with, and support each other.

Fink, L. Dee, A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning, page 5