Effective Unit Design For Higher Education Courses

A clear and concise course design is integral to effective student learning, however designing curriculum can be a daunting task for academics. Effective Unit Design for Higher Education Courses is a practical resource based on theoretical foundations, designed to assist both professional course designers and academics with varied levels of curriculum design and development experience or background in higher education units and courses. This book provides a variety of practical advice, skills and resources to assist academics in designing curriculum that focuses on enhancing student learning. Readers are given a range of evidence based developmental tools that challenge some of the currently accepted conventions behind unit design. Appropriate for any skill level, this book is designed to provide an accessible and structured process to design or revitalise high-quality units of study. Chapters cover a range of topics including developing assessment methods, strategies for providing feedback and evaluating unit design. The book has been structured to follow a design process, but as unit design is non- linear chapters can be read in any order depending on interest or need. An essential guide for curriculum designers of all skill and experience levels, this book will appeal to all higher education academics tasked with an aspect of unit design.

A clear and concise course design is integral to effective student learning in units of study; however, unit design can be a daunting task for academics. Effective Unit Design for Higher Education Courses is a practical resource based on theoretical foundations, designed to assist both professional course designers and academics with varied levels of curriculum design and development experience or background in higher education units and courses. This book provides a variety of practical advice, skills and resources to assist academics in designing curriculum that focuses on enhancing student learning. Readers are given a range of evidence-based developmental tools that challenge some of the currently accepted conventions behind unit design. Appropriate for any skill level, this book is designed to provide an accessible and structured process to design or revitalise high-quality units of study. Chapters cover a range of topics including developing assessment methods, strategies for providing feedback and evaluating unit design. The book has been structured to follow a design process, but as unit design is non-linear, chapters can be read in any order depending on interest or need. An essential guide for curriculum designers of all skill and experience levels, this book will appeal to all higher education academics tasked with an aspect of unit design.

What issues need to be considered in designing a course or unit of study in higher education? Who should be involved in designing a course, and how can they best work together? What should students get out of a course? Susan Toohey focuses not on teaching techniques but on the strategic decisions which must be made before a course begins. She provides realistic advice for university and college teachers on how to design more effective courses without underestimating the complexity of the task facing course developers. In particular, she examines fully the challenges involved in leading course design teams, getting agreement among teaching staff and managing organizational politics. She also explores the key role played by academics' own values and beliefs (often unexamined) in shaping course design and student experience. In doing so, she offers course designers both an understanding and a framework within which to clarify their own teaching purposes. Designing Courses for Higher Education is an accessible, jargon free text, providing practical assistance and enlivened by many examples of innovative practice and interviews with academics involved in course design. It is a key resource for college and university teachers.

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Written in an informative and jargon-free style, this book is guided by principles of good practice and covers the relevant theory to deal with the essential aspects of designing a course. Important areas covered include:learning levels and outcomesaligning learning and teaching strategiesassessment methodscourse managementC&ITresources.In this concise guide, the authors look to the future in terms of integration of computing and technology in course design and consider the promotion of student learni.

Universal Design in Higher Education looks at the design of physical and technological environments at institutions of higher education; at issues pertaining to curriculum and instruction; and at the full array of student services. Universal Design in Higher Education is a comprehensive guide for researchers and practitioners on creating fully accessible college and university programs. It is founded upon, and contributes to, theories of universal design in education that have been gaining increasingly wide attention in recent years. As greater numbers of students with disabilities attend postsecondary educational institutions, administrators have expressed increased interest in making their programs accessible to all students. This book provides both theoretical and practical guidance for schools as they work to turn this admirable goal into a reality. It addresses a comprehensive range of topics on universal design for higher education institutions, thus making a crucial contribution to the growing body of literature on special education and universal design. This book will be of unique value to university and college administrators, and to special education researchers, practitioners, and activists.

Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricula reflects the most current knowledge and practice in course and curriculum design and connects this knowledge with the critical task of assessing learning outcomes at both course and curricular levels. This thoroughly revised and expanded third edition of the best-selling book positions course design as a tool for educational change and contains a wealth of new material including new chapters, case examples, and resources.

Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on student achievement, yet it is difficult to implement productively within the constraints of a mass higher education system. Designing Effective Feedback Processes in Higher Education: A Learning-Focused Approach addresses the challenges of developing effective feedback processes in higher education, combining theory and practice to equip and empower educators. It places less emphasis on what teachers do in terms of providing commentary, and more emphasis on how students generate, make sense of, and use feedback for ongoing improvement. Including discussions on promoting student engagement with feedback, technology-enabled feedback, and effective peer feedback, this book: Contributes to the theory and practice of feedback in higher education by showcasing new paradigm feedback thinking focused on dialogue and student uptake Synthesises the evidence for effective feedback practice Provides contextualised examples of successful innovative feedback designs analysed in relation to relevant literature Highlights the importance of staff and student feedback literacy in developing productive feedback partnerships Supports higher education teachers in further developing their feedback practice. Designing Effective Feedback Processes in Higher Education: A Learning-Focused Approach contributes to the theory and practice of higher education pedagogy by re-evaluating how feedback processes are designed and managed. It is a must-read for educators, researchers, and academic developers in higher education who will benefit from a guide to feedback research and practice that addresses well recognised challenges in relation to assessment and feedback.