Talk:PHI-130: Critical Reasoning/ Course outline
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| Thread title | Replies | Last modified |
|---|---|---|
| General feedback on the current draft of the PHI-130 course in the wiki. | 2 | 22:11, 24 June 2016 |
By way of introduction, in my opinion, the published version looks an order of magnitude better than the Google sites version. Thanks for taking time and effort to work on a wiki version - it now has the added benefits of being entirely open source and will considerably improve reuse and alternative delivery options, theming etc.
Introduction to philosophy / critical reasoning is potentially going to be a very popular offering within the OERu 1st year of study. I would strongly urge TESU to consider structuring the course that it could be offered as a cohort-based self-study open online course using MOOC-like approaches for learner interactions and networked learning. Assuming a micro-course format, 20 notional learner hours could be allocated to the first block of 10 working days of cohort based interactions and the remaining 20 hours focusing on self-directed assessment preparation. (Most of the OERu courses have been assembled in this way which doubles the value because they can also be taken as independent self study courses. That said, it is more fun and rewarding to be interacting with your peers in a cohort offering.) Note - our model does not require tutorial support.
Overall - I think the "teaching component" of the course is a little "thin" for a 3 credit undergraduate course. That said, the journal assignments are good and the practice of providing detailed rubrics is great. Well done. (Although in an online environment - it would be better to have the rubrics in close proximity to the actual journal activity imo.)
The course looks like a traditional print-based approach copied over to the web. For example, the approach of providing answer keys in the course guide where you could use immediate interactive feedback in context is a wasted opportunity ;-). Why not use the multiple choice quiz options with the advantage of providing immediate feedback on formative assessment for correct and incorrect answers?
A major shortcoming of the course is the lack of P2P interaction - we have the technologies to design an amazing peer-learning experience, including WENotes microblog posts and the live course feed, forums.oeru.org and the ability to harvest personal course blog posts. I thing a good number of the journal activities could be converted into course blog posts inviting learners to share their experiences and support each other.
Herewith some general feedback on the course draft of PHI130 as requested.
- For OERu MVP, the partners are assembling courses using the micro-course format. As far as I can tell from the current list of courses being developed, PHI-130 will be the only course which has not implemented the micro-course format :-(.
- The course has not adopted the nomenclature agreed by the network, specifically that learning sequences will be called learning pathways (rather than modules, study units etc.) These concepts mean different things in different jurisdictions. For example, a module at UHI is what TESU would call a course. So to be consistent with all the other OERu courses being assembled for MVP - you should change these to learning pathways.
- The course guide, in particular the current Basic course outline page should be broken up into sub-pages to improve reading and navigation on mobile devices and to be similar to the other OERu courses. So for example, that page could be divided into subpages as follows in the course guide:
- Overview
- Course aims and objectives
- Assessment
- Course resources
- Acknowledgements (Where you can do the license attributions for the derivative work.
- Personally I think the course structure section is redundant (however this could be automatically generated as a sitemap subpage which would then link through the the individual pages within the learning pathways.
- Note that this proposed structure for the course guide section was discussed by partners and we have being deploying our decision across the MVP courses.
- Is the term "Lecture" appropriate for an open online course? - I would recommend breaking these "lectures" into sub-pages within a learning pathway.
- Have you searched or considered incorporating a "video signpost" for each main component? - I would imagine there are many open access videos that cover the topics of the course.
- The course pages need images to liven up the pages and trigger ideas and thoughts for the learners.
- Note that the script uses the label text in the outline as the heading in the published site. Therefore, there is no need to insert the heading on the wiki page generating the published version. At the moment the heading is being duplicated, see for example this Overview page.
PHI130 has the makings of becoming feature OERu course - but its going to need a little more effort :-). For example, take a peek at the 1st micro course of Creating sustainable futures currently under development taking note of the structure and teaching approach. (As this is a development site - the landing page links will not be operational.) Does teaching and presentation quality of PHI103 compare?
Hi Wayne,
Thanks again for taking a look at our course and providing feedback. I agree that much of what you suggested would make for a stronger course, and potentially, a better experience for students. That being said, this course was modified from a UNISA OERu course almost two years ago, before the new standards were in place. In terms of the structure of the course, there is no easy way to modify this into three micro courses without adding/changing substantial course content. Similarly, elements of P2P learning, video signposts, and more graphics were all outside of the development goals for this particular course.
This course was more of a product of the initial mission of OERu, which as we understood it, was to modify contributed courses to fit local needs and provide methods of assessments. The course, as it stands (abet with slight assessment modifications), is now being offered at TESU for three credits, and we have developed a challenge exam which mirrors the course content. Students can go through the open version hosted on TESU.edu, or the new OERu version.
Given the new MVP standards, and the technological improvements OERu has leveraged, we would be willing to work with other OERu partners (or to contribute resources to hire third-party consultants) to bring PHI-130 into a format that could be used more broadly. However, given the limited resources and time we can bring to the work of OERu, I think we would sooner devote our efforts to developing new projects, rather than reworking this course yet again. What would you suggest?
Steve
Hi Steve,
I understand the challenges of allocating scarce resources. Managing a non-profit, I have first hand knowledge of these challenges ;-).
Given that you already have a robust assessment in place for PHI-130 for 3 credits, my feeling is that it wouldn't require much to hire third-party consultants to get the course to a level that would attract a large number of students to choose TESU for this assessment. We do have consultants in the network who could assist. Let me take this conversation offline to explore options and creative solutions.
What new projects do you have in mind?
W
