Category Archives: Assignment Bank

Self-Coding

Assignment URL: http://courses.olblogs.tru.ca/facdev/topic/post-5-self-coding-activity/
Similar to the ‘Showcase’ activity, students are first asked to create a hierarchy of categories and sub-categories in alignment with the phases of critical inquiry (triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution).

Students then categorize their posts as one of the phases of CI, display them in a widget or on a page or post along with some reflections on the cognitive skills they used during the course.

This may be a good activity to do half-way through a course to allow students to make adjustments, if necessary.

Self-Introduction

Assignment URL: http://courses.olblogs.tru.ca/facdev/topic/post-1-getting-started/
The assignment is the initial assignment in a short course on the idea of social presence in online learning which is the process of encouraging Students to express their personalities and identities into a course space. They are asked to publish a post that includes a recording of their voice, an image of themselves, and/or an amiage of something that tells other participants something about themselves.

ISW Pre-Workshop Module-Learning Objectives

Time to complete this module

15 minutes

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module you will be able to

Tailor your learning objective (LO) to engage different domains and depths of learning using the action verbs provided in this module

Reflect

Consider your current teaching practice and courses that you have taken as learner. In your opinion,

What is the advantage of learning objectives from the perspective of your learners?

What is the advantage of learning objectives, from the instructor's perspective?

Read

What are Instructional Objectives?

What are instructional objectives?

Instructional objectives are specific, measurable, short-term, observable student behaviors.

An objective is a description of a performance you want learners to be able to exhibit before you consider them competent.

An objective describes an intended result of instruction, rather than the process of instruction itself.

Why Have Objectives?

Why have objectives?

To provide direction to instruction.

To provide guidelines for assessment.

To convey instructional intent to others.

Tips for writing objectives

How specific and detailed should objectives be?
:It depends on what they are used for! Objectives for sequencing a unit plan will be more general than for specifying a lesson plan.

Don't make writing objectives tedious, trivial, time-consuming, or mechanical. Keep them simple, unambiguous, and clearly focused as a guide to learning

The purpose of objectives is not to restrict spontaneity or constrain the vision of education in the discipline; but to ensure that learning is focused clearly enough that both students and teacher know what is going on.

Express them in terms of student performance, behavior, and achievement, not teacher activity.

Three components of an instructional objective:

Identify the type of activity in which competence is required (e.g., "Dissect...").

Specify the criteria or standards by which competence in the activity will be assessed (e.g., "a frog so that the following organs are clearly displayed...").

List any conditions or circumstances required for students to meet the objective (e.g., "...given two class periods working with the materials at your lab station").

Watch

Please watch the first 5 minutes and 50 seconds of this video to learn about Bloom's Taxonomy of verbs. This will be useful to you as you construct meaningful learning objectives for your course.

Discuss

Review the Objective Tips handout for a concise introduction to writing learning objectives using Bloom's taxonomy . You may also wish to see the list of Bloom's Taxonomy Action Verbs http://www.fresnostate.edu/academics/oie/documents/assesments/Blooms%20Level.pdf

Consider your own teaching practice. Think of a topic you might teach and create three different learning objectives - one for the cognitive domain, another for the affective, and a last for the psycho-motor - and share them below in the reply comment text box. Have a look at the Go Further section for a link to a helpful resource regarding the three domains.

Go Further

Now that you have had a chance to explore Blooms Taxonomy for creating learning objectives, consider the role of online learning and learning technologies in your teaching and learning. Read through the guide to Bloom's Digital Technology https://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/Bloom's+quicksheets.pdf and consider ways that your objectives might include a focus on digital tools.

Wrapping videos with activities

Please see here for the page on which the following is located, which also has the videos!: https://blogs.ubc.ca/phil102/weekly-schedule/week-5/

There are three video lectures on the trolley problem and on Judith Jarvis Thomson’s article called “The Trolley Problem.” You will need to watch them before class on Tuesday, June 9, and do a couple of activities about them.

Before watching these videos, please participate in these two polls (optional; this doesn’t keep track of who has done so or not, but it could be interesting to see the results!)

Do you think it’s permissible for the bystander to flip the switch and move the trolley onto the track with one person instead of five?

Yes
No

Do you think it’s morally permissible for the bystander to push the large person onto the tracks, thereby killing one instead of five?

Yes
No

Online discussions related to the videos:

You need to add your thoughts to at least one of the following discussions on this site. You don’t need to be logged in, but you will have to give a name and email address (the email address is not shown publicly!). If you want to remain anonymous, you can either just give your initials or use a fake name and tell me what your fake name is via email so I know you participated in the discussion.

Your contributions to the discussion can either be new comments or substantive replies to someone else’s comment (not just something like “yeah, I agree”…that doesn’t say much).

Please contribute to either one or both of these discussion questions (click on the titles of each to get to the page to make your comments):

1. Difference between the trolley driver & transplant cases

After watching the video by Christina on Philippa Foot’s trolley driver and transplant cases, please comment on the following:

Do you think the way she explains why the trolley driver may turn the trolley but the surgeon may not transplant the patient’s organs, through negative and positive duties, makes sense? If not, do you think there is some other way to explain the difference between those two cases, that could show why the trolley driver can turn the trolley but the surgeon cannot operate? Of course, if you don’t agree that the trolley driver can turn the trolley, you can also say that too, and why, if you wish (not required!).

Add your thoughts through the comments at the bottom of the page. You can also reply to others’ comments. If you want to get an email notification if someone replied to your comment please check the box in the comment area saying so.

2. Difference between bystander at the switch and the large person

After watching the videos by Christina about Thomson’s trolley examples (the second and third videos by her), including “bystander at the switch” and the one Thomson calls “fat man,” please comment on the following:

Do you think the way that Thomson distinguishes why the bystander may flip the switch to turn the trolley, but may not push a large person onto the tracks, makes sense? If not, do you think there is some other way to explain why it’s okay to kill one person in the switching the trolley track case but not in the pushing the large person case? Of course, if you don’t agree that the bystander can flip the switch and turn the trolley to kill one person, you could also say that and explain why (not required!).

Please add your thoughts by using the comment box, below. You can also reply to others’ comments. If you want to get an email notification if someone replied to your comment please check the box in the comment area saying so.

Fishbone Collaboration

Fishbone diagram

Fishbone diagrams (sometimes called Ishikawa diagrams) are often used in analysis of problems for cause and effect relationships. The basic structure, however, is flexible enough to accommodate a variety of uses. Effects (or problems) may be re-cast as goals and causes as contributers or enablers to achieving goals.

Riffing off an activity that was designed by D’Arcy Norman (U of Calgary) and posted online, we’re asking you to invite collaborators to create a fishbone diagram to think about a teaching challenge or goal that is meaningful to you.

Your challenge

Create a fishbone diagram that addresses a teaching goal (like improving engagement, for example). You can frame this as a problem or challenge if you like (students are not engaged, as an example). You may:

consider main spines or bones as major components of the learning environment: content creation, assessment, learner interactions. You may choose others.
add/ brainstorm as many elements in each of those components as you can think of
draw a line through any you have no control over.

You will need:

an online collaborative drawing tool like Flockdraw or Twiddla
people to collaborate with online

Share your experience:

In the comments below, share the link to your fishbone diagram when you have done as much as you can – along with your collective feedback about the process.
OR post about it on your WordPress site and tag your post with collaboration and whiteboard to have it appear with this post (at least we think that’s what will happen?)

Would you use this with your students? How?

Intended learning outcome:

Collaborative problem analysis for cause/effect relationships.