Integration and Alignment (aka: finishing my assignment)

My previous post got me through question 1 of our assignment, forcing me to review my situational factors and how they integrate with my course goals. The rest of the questions stumped me, so I skipped ahead and moved through the worksheet that actually designs the course and gets down to the nitty gritty. I thought I would hate it. Turns out, the designers of THIS course knew what they were doing, because the worksheet was meaningful, applicable, and involved higher level thinking about the details of my learning module. I think part of my issue is that I am building from scratch, so thinking about learning activities, assignments and assessments was incredibly necessary, and in reality, takes a lot of time and intentional thought.  It was overwhelming to break down a library session into manageable pieces because I tend to think of it as a giant pie, instead of all the ingredients separately.


Learning Goals, Assessments, and Learning Activities

I am lumping questions 2 and 3 together because that is how I worked through the design sheet. So far, I have 14 activities for students to work through in the online environment and since many of them  are skills-based, it is fairly straightforward to assess if they have  accomplished the goal, or not. What has been the most helpful about this process is realizing that the online environment gives students time to reflect on their learning. This will require the other librarian and I to add feedback into our workflow, when these classes come up, but I think we will be able to provide immediate comments and positive reinforcement. The reflective assessments also accomplish the goals of students thinking about their learning, and allowing the librarians and content instructors see where students are struggling.

The primary challenge was breaking down my vague learning goals into manageable parts. The helpful process there was reviewing situational factors. Because this online class is to be completed before students receive face-to-face instruction, I thought "what do we want them to know and be comfortable with, by the time they physically come and meet with a librarian?" I had many answers to that question, and then I began parsing out what activities would help students get to that point.

As I moved through the learning goals and activities, I realize the curriculum coordinator and I will need to place this module strategically within the adult education programs. If students have two weeks to complete this, for example, and then have a paper assignment or have their face-to-face library session, it provides the opportunity for immediate reinforcement and application of the skills they learned in the online class.

Our professors for this class were right- the material for week two has been hard to work through, but also very satisfying. And you can't beat that.