Self-assessing my work as a course designer

I am really liking the re-designed DMA course. As noted in previous posts, what I've tried to do is DO some of the key things that I've only been able to talk about in previous years --and thus far I think I've been successful. It is quite a bit of work to "build the airplane while it is flying" but so far it seems worth the effort to have re-designed the course, even though I have had to unfold or unfurl the design on a week-by-week basis.

One of the new things is to ask participants to do some self-assessment. This weekend is the first practice with this. I created a rubric, in the form of a fill-in form, that is based on conversations we had in class and online about what constitutes a good blog. And I've now asked participants to use the rubric as an armature or job-aid to assist them in assessing their work as "bloggers". They will use this form again at mid-term.

I'm taking this opportunity in parallel to assess my own work as a course designer, and I will re-assess at mid-term as well. What I'm going to do for starters is just go through the list of course goals and objectives and comment on them re: how I think we are doing in meeting the goals set for the course. Since the goals and objectives may not capture everything that I would want to happen in the course, I will also offer a closing comment on elements of the course that may exist outside of the goals-and-objectives framework (which of course means that I may need to bring these 'outsiders' into the list of goals-and-objectives for next time). Here goes.

There are five goals for the course, so I will comment on each in its turn, and refer to specific objectives associated with each goal in my commentary.

Goal 1: Learners will enhance their 21st century thinking skills
Objective 1.1: Learners will be able to advance their thinking skills via practice, referenced to an assessment rubric, evidenced in online blog postings, and done in response to the five key/essential questions for the course. 
Objective 1.2: Learners will be able to categorize their thinking as transactional, transformational, or transcendent, by using these terms appropriately in reflective blog postings. 
 
Assessment commentary: The blogs have turned out to be the centerpiece of the course, so I feel pretty sure thinking is being practiced via engagement in online writing (which I consider to be a 21st century way to approach both thinking and writing, primarily because it is active). Also, I've used the terms cited in 1.2 fairly extensively, so I think learners have at least been given a good chance to assimilate them into their own vocabulary and use them. 


Goal 2: Learners will improve their 21st century talking skills
Objective 2.1: Learners will be able to advance their talking skills via practice, referenced to an assessment rubric, evidenced in online discussion forum exchanges, and done in response to the five key/essential questions for the course. 
Objective 2.2: Learners will be able to work conversationally, online and F2F, in in small groups, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion.
 
Assessment commentary: I have not yet finalized the discussion forum rubric but I have the data to assemble it (again its based on learners' ideas as to what constitutes a good conversation, which I gathered via discussion). Also, for now discussion forum work has had a somewhat less important role than blogging, so I figured it was better to start with the blogging rubric. Plus, overload can be a risk: two self-assessment tasks at one time may have been a bit much. A different timing will also enable a separate practice. Other than that, I think there have been many opportunities for conversation-based collaborative work, and as usual learners at UNCSA, who are often involved in collaborative activity all the time in their arts area, are quite adept at it.

Goal 3: Learners will hone their 21st century expert-perspective gathering skills
Objective 3.1: Learners will be able to choose from and appropriately use a variety of search engines to gather expert perspectives from the open-web, evidenced in research citations that identify search tools and website sources, and done in response to the five key/essential questions of the course. 
Objective 3.2: Learners will be able to choose from and appropriately use expert perspectives including including those of Walter Ong, Marshall McLuhan, Lev Manovich, Sherry Turkle, Marcos Novak, Donna Haraway, George Lakoff, Bruce Mazlish, and Mimi Ito, as evidenced in research citations that identify sources. 
Objective 3.3: Learners will be able to access, choose from, and appropriately use online library databases to gather expert perspectives, as evidenced in research citations that identify sources. 
Objective 3.4: Learners will be able to differentiate among high, medium, and low reliability/confidence sources on the open-web, as evidenced in research citations that include source identification and assignment of level referenced to an evaluative filter. 
Objective 3.5: Learners will be able to save, tag, and retrieve bookmarks from Delicious, as evidenced in research citations that identify platforms. 
 
Assessment commentary: Participants have been introduced to prominent Media Studies theorists and have been encouraged to refer to these theorists in blog and discussion forum posts. We have not yet worked with "a variety" of search engines --at least not a wide variety. We have talked about the difference between Google-style search engines, which cast a broad net, and StumbleUpon-style search engines, which in effect allow users to 'educate' and refine searching at the front end of the process so to speak. So we've begun to introduce variety. We've accessed the online Lexis database that our campus library provides access to, so again we have a start on meeting this objective. And we have used Delicious bookmarks to tag and store research finds. We have not yet talked about ways to evaluate web sources, nor how to properly cite internet resources, so these objectives remain untouched at this point in the term.
 

Goal 4: Learners will develop their 21st century knowledge constructing skills
Objective 4.1: Learners will be able to enact 21st century literacy, evidenced in the assembly of information and perspectives into knowledge-products, done in a variety of media (text, image, audio, and video), in ways that are relevant and responsive to the five key/essential questions of the course. 
Objective 4.2: Learners will be able to use the term ‘cloud computing’ appropriately, in relation to the advent of an era in which intellectual and creative work will transpire as easily online as socializing does, in blog and online discussion postings. 
Objective 4.3: Learners will be able to work effectively and appropriately in the Moodle learning management software work environment, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion. 
Objective 4.4: Learners will able to use the Google Apps environment (including iGoogle, Sites, and Docs) as evidenced in their ability to carry out assigned tasks in a timely fashion. 
Objective 4.5: Learners will be able to perform a variety of image creation and editing tasks using Photoshop Elements and other web-based image tools, as evidenced in their ability to carry out assigned tasks in a timely fashion. 
Objective 4.6: Learners will be able to create and edit audio content using Audacity, Garageband, and other web-based audio tools, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion. 
Objective 4.7: Learners will be able to create and edit video content using iMovie, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion. 
Objective 4.8: Learners will be able to create avatars and attend meetings in a UNCSA online classroom within Second Life, as evidenced in their ability to carry out a variety of assigned tasks in a timely fashion. 
 
Assessment commentary: We have completed one challenge cycle at this point in the term, and have successfully IMO explored the use of image-collage as a way to explore themes in a non-linguistic manner, in response to our first essential question. 'Cloud computing' has been introduced in relation to Delicious bookmarks, and has been mentioned several times in other contexts as well (i.e., in talking about Google Apps). We've also used Moodle fairly extensively already, and Photoshop Elements has been worked with as well. We have not yet begun our involvement in audio and video learning, nor have we ventured into Second Life yet.
 
Goal 5: Learners will extend their 21st century reflecting (and assessing) skills
Objective 5.1: Learners will be able to reflect on, manage, and assess their group and individual learning processes, as evidenced in reflective writing done as part of completing challenge cycles on key/essential questions. 
Objective 5.2: Learners will be able to take part in the construction and use of rubrics to self-assess the quality of blog posts, discussion forum posts, and other work products. 
 
Assessment commentary: Learners have already taken part in the co-construction of rubrics for self-assessment, and are presently doing their first self assessment.
 

OVERALL ASSESSMENT COMMENTARY AND LETTER-GRADE

This has been a good term thus far in my estimation. I feel that 'the mood in the room' is great, the spirit of exploration is strong, and participants are being very considerate of one another. All of this is more important to me than matters of content. If learners complete this course successfully and are open to learning more, and wanting to learn more, or even just more likely to be in such states because they've had a positive experience, then I'm satisfied that a big part of my overall goal for the course is met. This is not to say that relaying content and skills is unimportant, it's more to say that I think these things hinge on the affective elements.

In terms of meeting the course goals, I think significant progress has been made --to the extent that I feel we're actually ahead right now of where I would have thought we might be. Room for improvement exists particularly in the area of providing individual feedback. This has been difficult for me to do given all of the in-course design work I am doing. Yet I also feel that I have been very responsive to discussions, and with general feedback. For example I posted summary comments in the first online discussion forum that I think were fairly extensive and responsive to what participants were bringing to the conversation. In the syllabus I have signed on for providing individual comments as part of mid-term proceedings, so this present gap will begin to get addressed soon.

Overall I'd assign myself a letter-grade of A for the first challenge cycle. I hope I can keep up with things as the new challenge cycles unfold. Having gone through the first cycle, I can see that the form will change in subtle ways (i.e., I am introducing the second cycle with a short reading rather than an assignment to just think about the given essential question). This may be a case where the structure/form can indeed kind of recede or fade to a more background position or layer as we all become more familiar with it.