Choosing Your Content
Learning to Know: Acquisition + development of skills
Learning to Do: Use of skills in one’s career
Learning to Live Together: Development of values and teamwork skills
Learning to Be: Self-analytical and reflective
When Does Content Go Awry?
The Bloated Content Effect: The content is overwhelming, boring, irrelevant, or misaligned
Alignment
Content should directly help students succeed in their practice and assessments. This is different from including all the content that is related to a particular topic or what someone personally thinks is important or exciting.
Alignment in Course Design
Let your learning goals anchor you
Ensure students can see a direct connection between content & the bigger picture
Reflect upon the following question, “What does this content provide for students?”
Organization
Content should be organized in a manner that highlights important information or helps students draw connections. Consider cognitive load.
Organization in Course Design
Chunk text on the screen with headers
S P A C E, color, and other visual cues / keep videos short
Visually distinguish what’s important and what’s optional
Give alternate mediums or organization for important content
Offer “job aides” if students need it for reference
Essential Questions
Essential questions act as the “hook” for why the content should matter to students. It makes the content engaging by providing the emotion/relevance to your students.
Essential Question Tips
Gives your content meaning
Bridges your content with your big picture learning goals
Sparks inquiry
Provides a lens in which to ingest the content
Choosing Your Pre-Class Work
Start with anything that is essential to seed your in-class discussion or work
Collect anything that might be relevant or interesting to the class’ topic
Select 2 – 3 readings that align with your class
Differentiate between essential and optional readings
Be transparent about what to focus on or how to interact with the pre-class work
Getting Students to Do Readings
Assign small discussion posts or minute papers if you want your students to think critically about the readings
Use check for your understanding quizzes to highlight important concepts if you want to students to read a textbook chapter or review a concept