Read the book, its really good. If you don’t have time, you can always try the 37 page Self-Directed Guide (SDG) to Designing Courses for Significant Learning.
I am in the Initial Design Phase otherwise known as Building Strong Primary Components. There are three phases Initial, Intermediate, and Final. there are 12 total steps to the design process, 5 in the Initial Phase.
Step 1 Identify important situational factors (Page 6/37 SDG)
p7/37 even has a Worksheet! to help gather this material into one location. Although right now, taking the time to fill in the list is not my natural style, I’ll give it a try. (Of course, you the reader realize I am using this blog to actually conduct the work, an external motivator, hmm… not very advanced of me). However, my tendency is to get distracted, so back to the list
1. Specific Context –
- How many students? 48
- Is the course lower division, upper division, or graduate level? junior level, 3credit hour
- How long and frequent are the class meetings? two 55 minute lecture and one two hour lab for “15 week” semester, really 14 weeks.
- How will the course be delivered: live, online, in classroom, in lab? in classroom for lecture as one large group and in lab with groups of nominally 16, so three lab sections
- What physical elements of the environment will affect the class? for group work in class, the desk arrangement is not easy; the room setup is for lecture delivery, with teaching station at front and lots of linearly lined up tables and chairs. There is a overhead mounted projector and computer support for the room. The stations in the lab are excellent and working in eight groups of 2 for hands-on is my preference.
2. General context –
- What learning expectations are placed on this course or curriculum by: the university, college and/or department? Ok, this is a ME major course only, so answering on behalf of the university and college is not really required. I do have the ME Dept ABET style syllabus for the course; I understand the particular content expected. But I would love to address the “critical thinking” initiative on campus, since assessing mechanical measurements is a great place to practice critical thinking. There are university needs to be met with such a course. Recently we were encouraged as faculty to really think about how we can use the IDEA course evaluation to garner feedback concerning how our course “stacks up” in helping the university meet these goals.
- What learning expectations are placed on this course or curriculum by the profession? good question hmm… perhaps I can ask the students what they think.
- What learning expectations are placed on this course or curriculum by society? ditto
3. Nature of the subject –
- Is the subject primarily theoretical, practical, or a combination? I say practical, as is all engineering. Yet theory is indeed a significant portion, so reviewing the syllabus , I would say 40% is theory and 60% is practical.
- Is the subject primarily convergent or divergent? Yeah right…ok, need to go to the book on this one for more explanation of the question
- Are there important changes or controversies occurring in the field? MEM and nano level devices for measuring are new developments. Also, the primary use of digital when much of what is still presented in traditional measurements is analog based means i can indeed see some areas to provide discussion of “changes”. Controversies, not really.
4. Characteristics of the Learners –
- What is the life situation of the learners (e.g. working, family, professional goals)? A good portion, 40%, of the undergraduates do work. this number may be low. Some do have families. By this point they are committed to graduating with an ME degree. How many will actually obtain ME jobs, perhaps 85%? We do have some students go on to graduate school, many do have jobs prior to graduation, and I sometimes hear about degrees in business, law, medicine.
- What prior knowledge, experiences, and initial feelings do the students usually have about this subject? We do not require a physics lab, so some of the actual measurements may be the first time use of some transducers. 25% or so seem to have good experience via HS or co-op regarding taking measurements and reporting them out. I do not think the initial feelings are “bad” regarding this course. Now if we were talking about Dynamic Modeling and Control (a combo of vibrations and control) that answer would change.
- What are their learning goals, expectations, and preferred learning styles? hard to avoid a flippant answer here… I do not know the answer to this one based on data, only biased intuition. so I will refrain from answering at the moment.
5. Characteristics of the Teacher –
- What beliefs and values does the teacher have about teaching and learning? LOL, no really I did! I immediately thought about my teaching philosophy I wrote in 1999 when I applied for this position. I will find that one and link to it. I’ll be working on framing my answer succinctly in another post.
- What is her attitude toward the subject? I really like this subject and I sought out teaching the course.
- What is her attitude toward the students? I like their energy and I want to enable their growth as thinkers
- What level of knowledge or familiarity does she have with this subject? High level, I consider myself to be an “experimentalist” in my research of random vibrations and diagnostics. I feel competent to teach this course.
- What are her strengths in teaching? flexible, willing to try new methods, techniques to convey the content, never satisfied with the status quo, always seeking to improve.
- SJP NEW QUESTION (not in Fink’s list)- What are her weaknesses? unable to clearly communicate expectations, tends to over-challenge the students without providing sufficient framework for developing new skills, can get frustrated and when under stress easily reverts to lecture mode of instruction.