Writing objectives

Assignment 2
After you have seen the critique of your paper in DB 2c, you are to submit one well written (observable) learning objective for the course you are planning to teach. Identify its level on (the new) Bloom's Taxonomy and explain why you think so. Describe the way you propose to assess the attainment of this objective and explain why. At the end, please note who served as your critique partner for this assignment.
Points to be assigned as follows:
Objective meets all four criteria listed in this week's lecture materials  0-5 points
Identification of level on Bloom's and explanation 0-3 points
Description and alignment of the assessment 0-4 points
Professional level, clear writing 0-3 points



Name of the Course-ABC’s of Chemistry

Chapter 3- Atomic number and mass number

Objective:  At the end of this chapter the students will be able to define, inter-relate and determine atomic number and mass number of an atom.
Bloom’s Taxonomy: This above stated objective falls into different categories within Bloom’s Taxonomy-Remembering (define), Understanding (interrelate) and Applying (determine). Remembering is a low level of critical thinking only in the sense that it comes first but it provides the basis for all higher cognitive activity. Only after a learner is able to recall information, is it possible to move on to the next level. Thus, defining the terms atomic number and mass number would help them retrieve the relevant knowledge from long-term memory and find the relation between atomic number and mass number (understanding). As a part of assessment, the students will also label the diagram of an atom to represent the electrons and neutrons using mass number and atomic number. This question requires students to show more in-depth understanding of the terms atomic number and mass number.

The learner at the third level, Application, solves practical problems by applying information comprehended at the previous level. Students will determine the atomic number and mass number of given atoms in the assignment. The given assessment will also help students to infer (analyze)  that, in order to calculate the number of neutrons in a given atom, both -mass number and atomic number- must be known. Analysis includes the ability to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant information. Thus, according to the Bloom’s taxonomy, they will break material into its constituent parts and determine how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure.


Assessment: The students are required to answer the following questions. Each question is worth 2 points and a score of 8 or greater indicates the student has met the objective.
Question No Question Bloom’s taxonomy level
1) Define atomic number and mass number.(one point  for each definition)
Remembering.
2) Show neutrons and electrons in the given diagram of Carbon atom. (2 points)



 12C6

Remembering.
3) What is the relation between atomic number and mass number? (2 points) Demonstrate understanding by finding relation between the two terms.
4) From the information given, can you determine the number of neutrons in following atoms (Choose the right answer): (2 points)
a)  24 12 A                                                                
i) 12
ii) 24
iii) Can’t be determined

b) 42X                                        (2 points)                                                                    
i. 42
ii. 25
iii. Can’t be determined Application as it requires participants to know how to determine the atomic number.



Analysis because thinking about the parts of an idea and their functionality in the whole is involved (The number of neutrons can’t be calculated because atomic number is not given in the question).




There is some excellent thinking here, and some fine evaluation. The objective is rather large and probably should be divided up. You have two general Understanding level objectives and one more specific Application level objective. For example:
Define atomic number and mass number.
Describe the relationship between atomic number and mass number.
Diagram the neutrons and electrons in a given atom.
The simpler the better when it comes to objectives. The rest of what you have said is quite good and your assessment is really excellent.

Using various learning styles and intelligences in Online learning

Assignment 1
You are to submit a couple of paragraphs which describe the course you are planning to teach and the audience for which it is intended. Describe any ways you will plan to address the various learning styles and intelligences of your students and/or make an argument for why this may not be necessary.
Points to be assigned as follows:
Description of course and audience: 0-5 points
Specific ideas for meeting the learning styles and intelligence of students: 0-7 points
Professional level, clear writing: 0-3 points


ABC’s of Chemistry: Chemistry on fingertips
Introduction: A general Chemistry course is a prerequisite sequence for students in a variety of  science and health-related fields including pharmacy, chemical, biological and environmental engineering, exercise, nutrition, nursing and natural resources. There is a strong need to introduce online interdisciplinary courses so that, students can earn the required college credits saving time, money, and resources. Other online chemistry courses offer general chemistry and organic chemistry as two separate courses. But the course ABC’s of Chemistry: Chemistry on fingertips will serve as one for these two courses. This course is designed to help students learn basic concepts in chemistry entirely online and will be delivered through the university extension program utilizing the Blackboard learning system. This asynchronous and instructor led eight-week long course would help learners to learn a new skill or enhance the existing ones. Learners are expected to spend roughly six to seven hours each week to complete two course lessons, released every Tuesday and Friday. In order to monitor the progress of students in meeting course objectives and professional standards, classroom participation in discussion forum, assignments and final self-reflection using evaluation tools (rubrics) will be used. Each lesson has an assignment at the end.
Target Audience and pre-requisites: This course will attract leaners who are interested in learning that can be done at home and fitted around work, family, and social obligations. The high school juniors and seniors, looking for a jump start on taking college courses, will find this course extremely useful. This is also a bridge course for refreshing the students who wish to pursue for a degree in Chemistry. This is an excellent college prep course and requires a solid foundation in 10th grade level of reading and math.
Course content: In this Chemistry course, learners will gain an understanding of origin of chemistry, explore the nature of matter and analyze the properties of liquids, solids, and gasses. Learners will be introduced to atomic structure, quantum theory and chemical bonding. They will further examine the concept of solutions, solubility, and the colligative properties of solutions; chemical reactions, and chemical periodicity. But that’s not all:  learners will also study organic chemistry, laws of thermodynamics, and even electrochemistry. ABC’s of Chemistry is transferable for 3-credits. In this course learners can be certain of quality instruction, personalized assessment, and tracked progress.
Plans for meeting the learning styles and intelligence of students
In an online course the instructor can have learners with different learning styles and multiple intelligences. Thus, it becomes important that the instructors adequately invest time in preparing and structuring course material, assignments and other tasks. One of the biggest advantages of the online environment is that a learner centered course material can be designed to match individuals’ learning styles. The constructivist model recognizes learners as active individuals, constructing knowledge as a result of a variety of interactions: learner-text; instructor-learner; learner-learner, etc.
The aim of this course is to provide an optimal and user-friendly format for students with differing intelligence and learning styles. Thus, the course will reach more students effectively because it would provide access to a larger variety of quality resource, teaching important concepts in multiple ways. Assessment criteria would be such that it would let students use their stronger intelligences.
For visual learners- The course will contain videos, interactive flash tutors, activities with fall back scaffolding, virtual labs, pictures, tables, demonstrations, handouts, and mind maps.
Auditory learners: The students who learn best through hearing (aurally) will find video clips, virtual lectures, interviews, seminars, giving of reports and speeches, power point w/audio component and video conferences useful.

Tactile and kinesthetic learners- Learners will have the virtual lab using drag and drop technology, some interactive flash animations and 3D graphics. Discussion boards and collaborative learning will help them build the community and give them real world experience. I also plan to use some kind of haptic technology.
Assessment: Various learning styles and MI will be taken into account while designing exercises for assessment. The exercises will include fill in the blank, multiple-choice questions, identification of terms, variety of short answer and essay questions, diagrams, flow charts, drag and drop exercises, writing assignments and self-reflection. Peer editing, where students examine each other’s work and reflect upon their own learning, will be an integrated part of the course.


References:
1. Levenburg, N. Implementing the Constructivist Learning Environment. Mini lecture 5, EDUI6701.
2. Bravemann, S. (2004, December). Two, Four, Six, Eight, Let’s All Differentiate
            Differential Education: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. New Horizons for               Learning Retrieved June 29, 2006, from http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/differentiated/bravmann.htm

Assessments in online courses

What are some of the challenges we face when we prepare assessments in online courses? What are some ways of dealing with those?


In my opinion,before an instructor designs an assessment, she/he must be sure that it is warranted. Unless the instructor’s reason for testing is clear, the test will fail. Thus, the real challenge that instructors face when preparing assessments in online courses is to actually find the purpose for assessment itself. Jeanne P. Sewell's mentions clearly in  "Online Assessment Strategies: A Primer’  that, ‘Assessments should be tightly connected to the objectives’. Does instructor designed the test to let learner apply what they have been learning and thereby, learning it more and deeply, or instructor wants to certify that learners have mastered certain knowledge or skills. There may be a few other reasons for assessing the learners, one of them is to emphasis what is important to learn and then motivate the participants to focus on it and another one is using assessment as an ‘ motivational tool’(Sewell). The primray aim of assessment should be very clear. The instructor may focus on either or both of the following points:
 Will this test enhance learning?
Or/and
Am I more interested in  measuring learner’s abilities?
The instructor must consider the assessment carefully because the knowledge required for completing a course may not be sufficient for doing a job. If the learning objectives of the course are clear, then it shouldn’t be a problem. Clear and measurable objectives make everything go better.Once the purpose of assessment is clear, instructor can make strategic decisions on what kind of activities/ task will serve as evaluating tools.



You are right before we write the clear, measurable and observable objectives for a given lecture/lesson, the assessment can’t be prepared.  A well-written objective will assist in aligning the objective to activities and assessment. The objectives provide basis and guidance for the selection of instructional content and procedures. They help in evaluating the success of the instruction. The success of  instruction can only be determined if students have done well in assessment. Thus, an instructor should provide students with the opportunities to learn problem solving skills and  “good grades” will automatically translate into “good learning”. Consider the ‘magic triangle’ in the image below:


Assessment for learning usually involves both teacher and learners in review and reflection. If students are engaged in some kind of reflection of their own work or the work of their peer, the assessment will enhance learning. Moreover, if the questions/ assignments/tasks are chosen from the higher level of thinking from Bloom’s taxonomy, assessment will help learners to learn more. These kind of activities/assignment will discourage students to cheat because they will be required to produce original answers/responses.
I think that  an assessment for learning is much more than marking and grading. It should rather provide guidance for improvement. An instructor should aim at assessing quantity rather than quality.