design & planning of learning activities in the performing arts cordelia bryan...
TRANSCRIPT
At the end of this presentation (and active engagement with the resources) you should
be able to:
….you should be able to:
– articulate some issues that arise for performing arts practitioners when implementing learning outcomes in the curriculum
– demonstrate an understanding of constructive alignment
– relate & apply Biggs’ SOLO Taxonomy* in your selected teaching context
* Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome
Learning Outcomes (LOs)
‘To set the students off in pursuit of an un-named quarry may be merely wasteful, but to grade them on whether they catch it or not is positively mischievous.’
Rowntree, D. (1977), Assessing Students (Kogan Page). Revised
edition, 1987.
What elements need to be aligned in Constructive Alignment?
What elements need to be aligned in Constructive Alignment?
The key is that the components in the curriculum, the teaching methods used and the assessment tasks, are aligned to the learning activities assumed in the intended outcomes.
The three elements that need to be aligned in Constructive Alignment
Reflective Prompt:
Write down an example of one of your sessions and describe / illustrate/ record how the three components are constructively aligned
• teaching methods used • learning activities assumed in the
intended outcomes• assessment tasks
Why are LOs so important?
• make our expectations clear to students and outside agencies
• set the objectives for syllabus design and assessment
Why are LOs so important?
• provide greater congruence between the teacher’s and the learner’s intentions
• promote criterion-referenced learning
• underpin the values of a learning paradigm
What are Learning Outcomes
They are the clear articulation of what learners are expected
to:
1. understand2. be able to do
in order to complete a project/unit/module successfully
LOs should.......
• cover the range of cognitive and practical abilities that are deemed to be essential in order to successfully complete the project
• relate directly to the aims of the project
• relate directly to the assessment tasks of the project
PG Cert. L & T example of LOs
Participants who successfully complete Module 1 will be able to:
1.Critically analyse and evaluate their own practice in relation to contemporary pedagogic theory
2.Apply theoretical principles to the development of workshop/course design, project planning and assessment
How do we Assess Learning Outcomes?
How do we assess Learning Outcomes?
RP: Here are a few questions to grapple with and ideally share in your critical learning group.
• how do students demonstrate that they have achieved the range of learning outcomes - how do they provide the evidence?
• learning outcomes can be achieved at any time. How, if at all, are they tracked?
• is the selected assessment mode appropriate for the learning outcome?
Some issues with LOs
Hussey & Smith argue that LOs can be valuable BUT have been misappropriated and adopted widely to facilitate the managerial process. This, they argue, has lead to their distortion mainly through overblown claims that LOs can be made precise by being written with a prescribed vocabulary of special descriptors so as to serve as objective, measurable devices for monitoring performance.
Hussey, T. & Smith, P. (2002) The Trouble with Learning Outcomes in Active Learning in higher education, Sage, Vol 2 (3) 220 – 233
A few more issues with LOs
LOs can be insensitive to the requirements of different disciplines. Sequences identified by the descriptors ‘describe’, ‘understand’ and ‘analyse’ may well represent a seamless progression in cognitive terms, but is at odds with practitioners’ experience.
Nevertheless...............
A Learning Outcomes approach is here to stay for the foreseeable future so.......
Reflection Prompts
Try to rephrase or refine what you most want your students to ‘get’ as one or two clearly defined Learning Outcomes.
Begin with: By the end of this session, students will.... Then list your LOs
Reflective Prompt (1 of 2)Utilising Biggs’ SOLO
Taxonomy, think about yourself as a student or learner
a. when you have been operating at the Uni-structural (Level 1)
b. when you have been performing or operating at the Extended Abstract (Level 4)
Reflective Prompt (2 of 2)
Now describe these qualitative distinctions of your own learning in your Reflective Journal and/or in your Critical Learning Group
Conclusion
A Learning Outcomes Approach is definitely here to stay for the foreseeable future.
How this sits within the wider context of a Higher Education agenda which espouses the importance of developing Critical Learning Communities is...... interesting.
Conclusion
The following slide from Mile Leycock’s presentation shows a table of some of the challenges of developing and maininting Critical Learning Communities in a contemporary Neo-liberal Higher Education.
Neo Liberal HEIs Critical Learning Communities
Individualism Community
Focus on outcomes learning Focus on process of learning
Efficiency Justice (Paulo Frere et al)
Competition Cooperation
Territoriality Teamwork
Isolation/fragmentation Networking
Defensive Responsive
Closed working environment Open working environment
Further Reading
In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.
Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)
Further Reading
Biggs, J. (2003) Teaching for Quality Learning at University, The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University
Dall’Alba, G. (2005) Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers, Higher Education research & Development, Vol. 24, pp 361 – 372
Gordon, J (2004) The ‘wow’ factors: the assessment of practical media and creative arts subjects, in Art Design & Communication in Higher Education Volume 3 Number 1.
Haggis, T. (2003) Constructing Images of Ourselves? A Critical Investigation into ‘Approaches to Learning’ Research in Higher Education, British Educational research Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1.
Hussey, T. & Smith, P. (2002) The trouble with learning outcomes, Active Learning in Higher Education, Sage, pp 220 – 233.
Further Reading (cont.)
Laycock, M. (2009) CPD and Critical Learning Communities: you can’t have one without the other, in Laycock, M. & Shrives, L. (Eds) Embedding CPD in Higher Education, SEDA Paper 123. (Slide with grid contrasting Neo-liberal HEIs with Critical Learning Communities)
Richards, John, T.E. (2005) Students’ Approaches to Learning and teachers’ Approaches to Teaching in Higher Education, Educational Psychology Vol. 25, No. 6, Open University Press, pp 673 - 680.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press
Whitehead, J. (1989) Creating a Living Educational Theory from questions of the kind ‘How do I improve my Practice?’ Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 19, No. 1 pp 41 – 52