Course Design Institute for Active and Adaptive Learning

Back by popular demand, L. Dee Fink will return to UofL to lead a three-day intensive course design opportunity for faculty.

Most teachers would like their courses to be an experience in which their students achieve some kind of significant learning that lasts. But we feel frustrated and uncertain about how to get that to happen – for more students, more of the time.

This three-day institute will help you expand your vision of the kinds of learning that are possible and provide you with support as you walk through a process of designing courses for Significant Learning (i.e., learning that truly makes a difference in the way students think, act and feel after college).

Space is limited to the first 55 registrants.

Register For Waitlist

What to Expect

Join national and international expert Dee Fink as he facilitates this interactive and practical course design experience where you will have structured opportunities to:

• Examine the place of instructional design in the “big picture” of teaching
• Take a close look at what you really want your students to learn
• Work through the model of Integrated Course Design that enables systematic design for significant learning into your courses, including:
• • Writing focused statements of your desired learning outcomes
  • Identifying learning and assessment activities that are aligned with the desired learning outcomes, and
  • Putting course activities together in a dynamic sequence that build toward one or more authentic, culminating projects
• Gather ideas on designing a learning-centered online course, using newly available instructional technology more effectively even in face-to-face courses, and/or how to incorporate ideas about adaptive learning into your course
• Conclude by looking at some case studies that address the question of whether this more intentional way of designing courses really makes a difference in the way students respond

Program Details

• Facilitator

  Facilitator

  

  L. Dee Fink is a nationally and internationally recognized consultant on college teaching and faculty development.

  After receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1976, Dee accepted a faculty position at the University of Oklahoma. In 1979, he founded the Instructional Development Program at the University of Oklahoma and served as its director until his retirement from Oklahoma in 2005. From 2004-2005, he served as president of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, the primary professional organization for faculty developers in the United States.

  Dee is the author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses (Jossey-Bass, orig. ed. 2003; updated ed., 2013) and co-editor of Designing Courses for Significant Learning, Issue #119 in the quarterly series New Directions for Teaching and Learning (Jossey-Bass, Fall 2009).

  More information about Dee can be found on his website: www.finkconsulting.info

• Location

  Location

  The Institute will take place in the Teaching Innovation Learning Lab (TILL), 3rd Floor, Ekstrom Library. Lunch will be provided for participants.

  >> Learn more about the TILL.

• What will be the key “take aways” for me as an institute attendee?

  What will be the key “take aways” for me as an institute attendee?

  By the end of the workshop, you will have finished one-half to two-thirds of a new, learning-centered design for one of your courses. This will include:

  • Writing out several (probably new) kinds of desired learning outcomes (DLO’s) for your students
  • Appropriate learning and assessment activities for each of those learning outcomes,
  • Specific ideas for how to build active learning and educative assessment into your course
  • Focused opportunities to explore designing learning-centered courses using adaptive learning, technological tools, active learning classrooms, online learning, critical thinking, and assessment
  • Learning activities for important new kinds of learning (e.g., learning how to learn)
  • A newly created dynamic sequence of activities for one unit of your course
  • A learning-centered grading system and alternative ideas for your course syllabus
• Topic-Based Workgroups

  Topic-Based Workgroups

  On the morning of Day 2, you will have the opportunity to select and attend two of five working sessions from among the following topics:

  • Adaptive and Personalized Learning – Dale Johnson, national expert in adaptive learning and course design, will discuss best practices for the use of adaptive courseware. He will describe its impact on student success at Arizona State University and answer your questions
  • Technology and Face-to-Face Teaching – In this interactive session, you will have the opportunity to experience several free technological tools to enhance student learning and engagement
  • Active Learning Classrooms – Gain hands on experience in the TILL’s active learning classroom! Whether you teach in a traditional classroom or Active Learning Classroom, this session will help you explore, create, and plan active learning activities to support you and your course goals
  • Integrating Critical Thinking - How can you emphasize the thinking you want students to do in your course, not just the content to be covered? How can you use critical thinking approaches to help students intellectually engage with your content? Spend time in this workgroup exploring strategies and tools to help you focus on the thinking you value most and engage students in that thinking process.
  • Online Teaching – Engaging students in an online class can be a challenge. Work with experts in instructional design to explore ways to enhance your online course delivery
• Who should attend?

  Who should attend?

  The Institute is open to UofL faculty across all disciplines with special consideration given to small groups of faculty who will be collaboratively designing new courses. Faculty interested in online learning, use of instructional technology in face-to-face courses, and adaptive courseware solutions will have unique opportunities to interact with others who share these interests while applying institute concepts to these instructional contexts.

  I attended the two-hour Course Design Institute that Dee Fink led at UofL in February. Should I attend the three-day institute?

  Yes! This three-day hands-on institute will provide you with an opportunity to “go deep” on the concepts that were introduced, and you will have finished one-half to two-thirds of a new, learning-centered design for one of your courses.

• Eligibility

  Eligibility

  The Course Design Institute welcomes all UofL faculty members, including tenured, tenure-track, term, full- and part-time. Graduate students are also welcome to register. In the case of too many applicants, priority will be given to small groups of faculty who will be collaboratively designing new courses. We ask that you be available and willing to attend three full days of the Institute. If you have a recurring teaching or meeting conflict during the institute time, we invite you to consider participating in a future offering of this program so that those who are able to attend the full institute are able to do so.