For a presentation at the 2019 D2L Connection: Minnesota, by Karen Laplant and Zala Fashant. Held at Normandale CC on Friday, April 5, 2019.

1. D2L Connection:
Minnesota Edition
April 5, 2019
Normandale Community College

2. The Art of Designing Effective
Teaching and Significant Learning

3. D2L Connection Session Description
Many new full-time, adjunct faculty and early-career faculty have gaps
in their abilities to teach well so students can benefit from significant
learning. Understanding the art and science of teaching usually takes
semesters as faculty learn from their successes.

4. D2L Connection Session Description-continued
The purpose of this session is to shorten the time it takes you to design
your teaching so that it is effective and delivers significant learning. We
will cover practices and tools that have been successful and an action
plan outline to help you implement that content into your practice.

5. Preparing for Your Course Design: Situational Factors
Specific Context of the Situation
Expectations of Others
These factors frame the course:
• Time the course is scheduled
• Way the course is delivered (online, face-to-face)
• Technology requirements
• Physical classroom arrangement (lecture, lab)
• Where this course is offered within the curriculum.
Stakeholders: students, other faculty, department, dean, advisory board, etc.
• Is this a required course or elective course?
• How are students prepared for this course?
• How does this course prepare them for what they take next and take away for use in their
professional careers?

6. Preparing for Your Course Design: Situational Factors
Nature of the Subject
Characteristics of Learners
What are the discipline-specific demands? Science, English, Nursing, and Business each have
different ways of thinking, writing, explaining and creating meaning.
• What does the discipline or field require of students upon completion?
• Is the course centered on physical or mental skill sets?
• Will there be safety considerations in lab or working areas?
Are your students ready for the course level—introductory or advanced?
• Do they have online learning experience if course is delivered online?
• Do you have students with learning challenges?
• What do you know about the learners who tend to take this course will help its design.

7. Preparing for Your Course Design: Situational Factors
Characteristics of the Teacher
A self-analysis of what you bring to the course.
• Level of teaching experience; are you a newer or veteran faculty?
• Is this the first time you are teaching this course, or teaching this course differently –
perhaps online for the first time?
• Do you feel confident in teaching the course?
• Are you feeling any internal or external pressures in teaching this course?

8. Situational Factors
What can you control?
What is beyond your
control?

9. Pedagogical Challenge

10. Integrating Your Course Design: Your Big Dream
Focus on your Big Dream for students. Consider the following:
• How will taking your course influence students for the rest of their
lives?
• In what ways will taking your course make a difference in the way they
will be successful?
• What insights will your course provide in students’ professional and
personal achievements?
By thinking about your Big Dream for this course you can communicate
what you want the students to learn and how this learning will impact
their lives beyond the classroom upon completion.

11. Integrating Your Course Design: Taxonomy of Significant Learning

12. Integrating Your Course Design: Taxonomy of Significant Learning

13. Outcomes

14. Integrating Your Course Design:
Alignment of Outcomes, Assessments & Activities
Developing Learning Outcomes
• Foundational Knowledge
• Application
• Integration
• Human Dimension (Self/Others)
• Caring (Value)
• Learning How to Learn

15. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Foundational Knowledge
The common verbs used in Foundational Knowledge outcomes include
define, describe, explain, find, identify, label, list, match, name, outline,
recite, select and state. All of these verbs stress gaining information.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will be able to...
• list the 5 steps involved in the scientific process.
• describe the meaning of “plate tectonics.”
• identify the four main factors that are listed in the course textbook as
tools to use when analyzing a novel.

16. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Application
The common verbs used in Application outcomes include analyze, assess,
critique, demonstrate, design, develop, modify, organize, and solve. All of
these verbs stress using information.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will be able to
design (or develop, test, document) custom Windows computer
applications.

17. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Integration
The common verbs used in Integration outcomes include align, balance,
compare, contrast, identify interactions or similarities between, integrate,
organize, relate, and support. All of these verbs stress blending
information.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will able to align
computer programming solutions to business and personal interests.

18. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Human Dimension - Self
The common verbs used in Human Dimension outcomes include act, argue,
control, convince, debate, discern, discuss, display, express, follow, interact,
participate, organize, manage, share, and volunteer. All of these verbs stress
observing and applying course information to themselves and others.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will be able to…
• gain confidence that they can do something well.
• gain a new self-ideal, e.g., “I want students to view themselves as a
professional in the field [an engineer, journalist, writer, or ____].”
• express a sense of personal responsibility for doing excellent work in ___.

19. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Human Dimension - Others
The common verbs used in Human Dimension outcomes include act, argue,
control, convince, debate, discern, discuss, display, express, follow, interact,
participate, organize, manage, share, and volunteer. All of these verbs stress
observing and applying course information to themselves and others.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will be able to…
• work with team members effectively.
• interact well with people who have different ideas and who are different
from themselves, by age, race, religion, nationality, language, sexual
orientation, gender, etc.

20. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Caring (Value)
The common verbs used in Caring outcomes include act, comply, discern,
display, express, manage, share, value, and volunteer. All of these verbs
stress expressing values discovered during course learning.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will be able to…
• develop an interest in engaging with art and value its role in
communicating abstract concepts about religion in society.
• value the cultures and contributions of other immigrant groups as vital to
their own human experience (i.e. their own personal, social and national
experience).

21. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Learning How to Learn
The common verbs used in Learning-How-to-Learn outcomes include
create, decide, define, develop, formulate, and select. All of these verbs
stress planning for future learning.
My hope is that, by the end of the course, all students will be able to…
• create a future learning plan to continue to grow as a professionally in
the work place or personally if the topic is more of an interest than a
work position.

22. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Outcomes
Five Greatest Challenges for Faculty Developing Outcomes
1. Outcomes are not linked to the dream
2. Writing content rather than developing outcomes
3. Writing learning activities rather than learning outcomes
4. Choosing appropriate verbs for learning outcomes
5. Writing outcomes appropriate for each domain of Significant Learning
Let’s use Fink’s 3-Column Table to begin the alignment process and be sure
we have an outcomes for each of the domains.

25. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Assessments
Types of Assessments - Formative and Summative
Formative assessments are those which occur along the learning pathway of the
course.
• lower-stakes assessments (lower weight on final grade)
• “form” or guide the direction of learning,
• offer feedback to faculty about how students are progressing
• provide benchmarks for students to measure their learning progress.
Unit or concept assessments: tests, quizzes, online discussions, assignments
that measure unit objectives on the way to measuring a specific course
outcome. Show is more practice or additional teaching is needed.

26. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Assessments
Types of Assessments - Formative and Summative
Summative assessments are those which occur at the conclusion learning a
concept or outcome.
• final, higher-stakes assessments that measure the degree a student has
mastered the course outcomes.
• assessments can be designed to measure more than one outcome.
Summative assessments include capstone projects, student portfolios, a
comprehensive project or paper can be ways of using one summative
assessment to measure learning which meets course outcomes.

27. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Assessments
Backward-Looking & Forward-Looking Assessments
Backward-looking examples of test questions:
• What is the definition of race relations?
• Who invented the Xerox copying machine?
• What were the dates of the Civil War?
Backward-looking assessments:
• Answers to these questions require memorization.
• Include tests that use multiple-choice, true/false and matching sets of questions.
• Best measure Foundational Knowledge.
• Many learning platforms can automatically grade these kinds of tests and provide
immediate feedback to students.
• Can help students develop the foundation for extended learning.

28. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Assessments
Forward-looking assessment questions could include:
• Discuss how you can use what you read this week in your current or future job?
• What will be the greatest reward for you as you enter the position for which you are
training?
• How would you respond to a customer or colleague that has a concern about the
service they received?
• What do you want to accomplish in this course?
Forward-looking assessments
• Include case-studies, role playing, student research, inquiry method, debate, and
problem- and team-based learning.
• Provide richer experiences and develops higher-level thinking.

29. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Assessments
Assessment Design:
• Backward-looking for Foundational Knowledge, forward-looking for the
rest of the taxonomy.
• As a result, the balance between backward- and forward-looking
assessments may not be 50-50.
• Assessments should be considered learning experiences.
• Map out the use of formative and summative assessments.
• Develop rubrics to communicate expectations to students and measure
student achievement in mastering outcomes.
In order to align your assessments to your outcomes add them to the 3-Column
Table.

31. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Activities
Learning Activities provide practice for the measurement of student mastery of
outcomes.
Activities need to be designed carefully as they:
• Need to be aligned to link outcomes with assessments.
• Use a great majority of the course time/energy and are the most visible
part of the course.
• Tell students what they want to know, “What do I need to do?”
• Should be active. Learning activities are “active;” that is why they aren’t
called learning “passivities.”
• Should practice the skills and model the work for a students’ future career.

32. Integrating Your Course Design: Developing Activities
Learning Activities considerations:
• Determine the level of your outcome.
✓ Lower level foundational knowledge outcomes may need fewer activities.
✓ Higher level outcomes application/integration/analysis may need two or more.
• Identify the complexity and purpose of the activity.
• Predict the amount of practice a student needs to master outcomes.
• Will the activity meet one outcome or serve as practice for several?
• Is the activity part of a set of learning practice → scaffolds to higher level outcomes?
• What time and equipment is needed to complete the activity.
✓ Will students have full access to what they need to complete the activity
effectively?
✓ Is the time or equipment limited so the activity may need to be broken into
chunks?
• Assess activity effectiveness having former students examine and provide feedback.

35. Integrated Course Design 2.0
1000s of faculty participated in workshops and courses to redesign courses.
What have we learned?
• Faculty feel empowered once they have used ICD to create the courses
they have always wanted to teach.
• A greater confidence is developed knowing you have an alignment and
the framework of the course is solid.
• Faculty spend more time with students, engaged in learning.
• Transforming students’ course learning to lifelong learning.
• Faculty experienced learning in a way that their students are learning:
they move from course design novices to a level of expertise.
• They move from a teacher-centered to student-centered course.

36. Integrated Course Design 2.0
Since Fink revised the ICD in 2013, broader considerations are needed in the
course design blueprint.
• Student success and retention initiatives demonstrate the need for better-
designed courses.
• Communicating in Your Course, Course Accessibility, Integrating Learning
Technologies, Assessing Course Quality and blending your course into the
Assessing of Your Program and Institution are critical design considerations
to make your course relevant for all learners and at all levels.
• Designing Effective Teaching and Significant Learning (Fall, 2019) covers all
of these topics in greater detail sharing the stories of faculty designing
courses.
✓ For more information: http://encoreprodev.com/

37. Learn more about Course Design
Ways Brightspace Can Make Your Course Communication Even Better
25 minute afternoon lightning session in P0838 from 1:30-1:55 pm
Assessing the Quality of Your Course
25 minute afternoon lightening session P0838 from 2:00-2:25 pm
Designing Effective Teaching and Significant Learning (Fall, 2019) covers all
these topics in greater detail sharing the stories of faculty designing courses. Get
more information about the book and workshops at Encore Professional
Development: http://encoreprodev.com/

38. Contact Us
Karen LaPlant – retired HTC
Karen.LaPlant@metrostate.edu
Zala Fashant – retired MN State
Zala.Fashant@encoreprodev.com
Bookmark Us:
For more information http://encoreprodev.com/
(Book, Campus Workshops, Blog Articles on Teaching)