If used for formative assessment, in-class tests can be a useful means of helping students check their progress throughout the semester (as long as feedback is provided following the test). The tests can also provide you with rapid feedback about the class’ progress so that you can adapt your teaching focus accordingly. Getting all students – […]

Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) taxonomy of educational objectives (see a useful summary here) classifies cognitive (thinking) tasks into six levels. Remembering and understanding, and to some extent, simpler forms of applying, are lower-order tasks that are less demanding. It is relatively easy to design activities that encourage these thinking levels, for example: Lectures or short videos; Readings; Quizzes; Application […]

When you’re planning learning objectives and activities, or rifling through a plethora of resources, it can be difficult to determine what is absolutely necessary and how much is enough. These generic questions will help you determine whether something is essential or nice-to-know, and the extent to which students need to be able to use it. Essentials should be […]

This template takes you through the process of determine what needs to be covered during a module/week of semester for a unit. It then encourages you to determine how students will use this content according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.  Using the template will also help you construct learning objectives for the module/week, before finalising a sequence […]

Whether you’re designing online activities for your face-to-face students or developing a fully online course, you not only need to think about WHAT you’re asking learners to do, but HOW you’re telling them to do it. The words and sentence structures you choose really do make a difference to the way that your students interact […]

Dr Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Lecturer at Kansas State University (USA), presents an interesting perspective on the traditional lecture environment and its suitability for modern students in this TED talk. The original video of students in a lecture theatre (that Dr Wesch mentions in the video) is included below. What do […]

Tell your students how to get started. When students enter your MyLO unit, the latest Announcement is the first thing that they are likely to see. This Announcement should briefly explain how to get started. This post explains how to create a simple welcome Announcement based on a template. The template includes an image directing students to click on the Content tool […]

Are you planning to use group assessment tasks in your unit? A list of useful links are provided below to help you create your chosen Assignment type (and an associated Survey if you need one). Useful resources Setting up a Group Assignment Submission for submission of group work Provides step-by-step instructions to help you create a Group Assignment […]

When setting up Discussion activities, it is important to make the purpose of the discussion and the rules of engagement very clear. Include clear instructions, a purpose for the discussion and some rules in the Description of your Discussion Topic. Here is an example of a Description for a Discussion Topic. It was used by […]

You may have heard the term ‘flipped’ used in relation to unit delivery. The flipped approach seeks to reduce cognitive load, and increase student motivation and engagement (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2014).  Abeysekera and Dawson (2014, p. 3) define the flipped method as: a set of pedagogical approaches that: move most information-transmission teaching out of class […]