Assignments

 Throughout this course you will work towards designing and producing an instructional unit by completing a series of projects. Depending on the size of the unit, you will produce all or part of the unit and evaluate it on a group of learners. While the instructional approach that you take will depend on the learners, content, and learning environment, you are strongly encouraged to find ways to apply constructivist learning strategies and activity theory in your project.


The final project will include the following components:

• Description of Learners
• Educational Context / Activity System(s)
• Instructional Goals
• Task Analysis
• Instructional Strategies/ Scaffolding
• Assessment
• Instructional Content

Formative (and optionally summative) Evaluation

You will work on these components by completing the following projects:

Project 1- Project Proposal: (5%)

Describe the unit that you plan to teach. Give a brief description of the learners, content, learning goals and learning context. (5 double-spaced pages).

Project 2 -Learner, Context & Task Analysis: (15%)

Description of learners, learning environment, and initial task analysis. (About 12 double-spaced pages.)

Project 3 - Goals, Strategies, Assessments, and Formative Analysis Design: (20 %)

Revised Project 2, Instructional Goals, Strategies and Assessments (About 12 additional double-spaced pages).

Description of formative analysis design. Include a description of how you will use the results in your revision process. (5 double-spaced)

Project 4 - Content Sample: (5%)

Turn in a sample of your content for feedback.

Project 5- Formative Evaluation: (10%)

Results of your formative evaluation. (5 double-spaced pages)

Final Project: (30%)

For the final project you will compile all the components that you have been working on into a cohesive report. This report should take into consideration the feedback that you receive from me, your classmates, your formative evaluators and your own reflection and evaluation. The final project should be double-spaced and use a 10-point serif font like Times or Times New Roman.

The report should be divided into the following sections:

1) Cover page - Include your project title, name, email address, date, and course number and title.

2) Table of contents - Include the sections below with the page number of the first page of each section.

3) Introduction - Provide a brief 1-2 page introduction to your design including the general learning goal(s), description of learners, educational context, strategies, and assessments.

4) Description of learners - Make certain that this section is consistent with the rest of your design. Make certain that everything that you include is relevant to your design. Some items that you should consider incorporating include:

1) General Characteristics - Age, grade level, reading level, gender, race, history, cognitive characteristics, linguistic capacities.
2) Knowledge of the topic, attitudes towards the topic, attitudes towards learning, learning style, etc.

Are there things that you didn't consider about your learners that you realized during later parts of the project?

5) Description of the educational context/Activity System(s) - Make certain that this section is consistent with the rest of your design and that everything that you include is relevant to your design. This section could include descriptions of the physical environment and culture of the class, school and/or community, as well as constraints like time.

Are there things that you didn't consider about your learning environment that you realized during later parts of the project?

6) Instructional goals / Objectives - You should have a clear idea of the goals and objectives of your project at this point. Note how these changed during the course of your design.

7) Task analysis - Use this section to break down your goals and objectives into enabling and terminal goals and objectives. Make certain that you include a description of the prerequisite skills that pertain to each goal and objective.

8) Instructional Sequencing, Strategies and Scaffolding - State what kind of learning is being addressed in each of your objectives (i.e. declarative, problem solving, procedural, etc.). Use this section to talk about how you plan to teach your design. Include a discussion of appropriate technologies that you plan to use (if at all) and justifications of why you plan to use them.

9) Assessment with samples of your instruments - Discuss how you plan to determine how students have learned what you intended them to learn. If you plan to use traditional assessments then provide sample tests. If you are doing non-traditional and/or authentic assessments then provide the rubrics that will guide your assessment.

10) Instructional content - The level of detail will depend on the scope of your design. If you are designing an entire course, then you will not need to supply all of your content, only provide general descriptions of each section. If you are teaching a shorter unit then include more detail in terms of the content that you provide.

11) Formative and (optional) summative evaluation - Include a description of your formative evaluation design and the results of your formative evaluation. If you have completed your summative evaluation include a description of the results here, as well. The important part of this section is to discuss what you learned from evaluating your design in the middle of the process.


12) Reflection - This is one of the most important parts of your final project. In this section I would like you to reflect on the design process. Include such things as what the design process helped you to see/consider and where it failed you. What were your greatest challenges in completing your design and how did you overcome them? Tie this section into the readings in the course. For example, address how your project related (or didn't relate) to the readings on constructivism and activity theory. Make references to specific articles.


13) References - List any books or articles that you refer to in your design. You need to cite at least ten (10) of the articles from the online reader in addition to the Gay & Hembrooke book in your final project. Please use APA style for your citations.

In-text references: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPACitations.html

Reference page: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPAReferences.html

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