First Words

Designing courses and modules

3.4
Designing and sequencing learning activities, content and assessment methods

`Introduction`

We should apply the relentlessly learner-centred and learning-centred view that (I hope) underpins all of these "first words" to the design and the sequencing of learning and assessment.

The underlying idea is simple and powerful: focus always on learning, and on what you as teacher can do to support and stimulate learning. Like most simple and powerful ideas, this has huge implications for practice, some of which are explored here.

`What will this "first word" do?`

As you would expect, it will help you to design (or select), and then put into an appropriate and effective sequence, activities which will aid the learning of your students.

`From cycle to sequence`

This headline is intended to remind you of, or point you to, "first word" 1.12, on understanding how students learn. I suggest there that learning is an active and a cyclical business. Students learn by repeatedly planning and undertaking activities; receiving feedback on what they have done; making sense of this feedback; and planning what they will do differently next time.

How does this rather general account apply to designing and sequencing learning activities and assessment methods?

`The active learner`

Plan your classes so that students are appropriately active (appropriate, of course, in terms of the intended learning outcome). If the learning outcome is that they should be able to solve problems, then ask them -- alone or in pairs, or maybe threes -- to solve a problem, or to sketch how they would solve it. (You could do this after you have told them how, or after you have shown them an example, or before you show or tell them.)
Plan students work between classes so that they are appropriately active. You may ask them to answer further questions or problems of the kind they have done, and seen you do, in class. These problems may be more sophsiticated, or require the collection of additional infomation.You may ask them to go beyond what you and they did in class, to anticipate or prepare for the work they and you will do in class next week. (This approach is described in" first word" 3.1 on structuring and sequencing a module or course.)
Ensure that students receive feedback on their work.
You could show them a correct or valid way to undertake a task they have just attempted. Then you could give them a few minutes to compare what they did with what you showed them. You could ask them to give each other feedback, again based on a model answer or on clear assessment criteria. (More on this in "first word" 2.5 on self- and peer assessment.)
Help students to take feedback seriously. Of course they’ll be interested in marks and grades. Try to persuade them that, if they go behind marks and grades to see why they obtained the grade they did, they will be more likely to be able to do better next time.
- Ask them to consider feedback on a piece of work, and make some notes on how they would do the task if they were to try it again.
- From the same feedback, ask them to say, in as much detail as they can, how the feedback will inform the way they tackle the next task.

`Sequences of activity and feedback`

The feedback should obviously follow the activity which the student has undertaken, and inform the next activity; no activity without feedback and no feedback unused are two good slogans for effective learning.
Student activity should usually proceed from simple to more complex. This allows most students a reasonable prospect of real success at each activity. This will boost confidence, and hence learning. The trick is to make each activity challenging but attainable for most students.
Alternate between the big picture and detailed work. The trouble with the guidance in the previous paragraph is that it can lead to an almost mindess accumulation of information and techniques, with no clear view of where it will all lead. A useful way to prevent this is to require students to contextualise each piece of work they do, or at any rate each kind of work they do. Ask them to write a sentence or two showing how the work they have just done relates to the big picture, to the topic of which it forms a part or to the overall learning outcome of the course or unit.

`Sequencing content`

Sometimes there is only one possible sequence for content -- where the ideas follow a logical progression, each new step building logically and inevitably on the step before. (This is more often the case in scientific and technical disciplines.) Where this is the case, follow the sequence, and as you do so:
- continue to contextualise each new idea
- remind students where this progression of ideas has come from, and where it is leading.
- remind them at frequent intervals what problem this developing argument or model or technique is intended to solve, what phenomenon it is intended to explain.
If you don't do this, they may follow your every step and still be lost!
Where the content offers a number of possible approaches, refer back to "first word" 1.2 on planning a presentation. The various structures described there for a single class can apply equally well to the structuring of a complete course.
Where there is choice of content sequence, you may consider explaining to the students the choices which are available, and seek their advice on sequencing.

`Concluding comments`

This "first word" has been rather more abstract than most. I have tried to suggest principles for the appropriate sequencing of student activities to increase the chances of good learning.

As you apply these principles to the planning of your teaching, undertake your own learning cycle. See which sequences work better than others; try to identify why; and plan future sequences according to what you have learned. You will develop approaches to sequencing not described here.