Designing

learning
environments
for science and
engineering
Aditi Kothiyal

Lectures 4 & 5: August 14 and 17

2024
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Each one say one: What did we learn last
time?

● Challenges faced in learning science and engineering

○ Outdated knowledge of teachers
○ Inaccessible instruments
○ Teacher centricity
○ Teachers expectation and students learning are mismatched
● Learning outcome
○ Specific and measurable
● Bloom’s taxonomy
○ classifying different kinds of learning activities

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 Backwards Design

Learning Assessment
Teaching Learning
objectives: What questions: How will
Topic Strategies and
should students be they show they can
Activities
able to do? do it?
Reflection Spot: What do you see as the problem with
assessment in the courses you have experienced?
● Questions are not clear
● Questions are tougher than expected +1
● Not enough time to answer the questions
● Rote learning questions like facts, recalling from memory
● Concepts are not clearly taught
● Exams rather than hands-on assessments
● Nonuniformity in grading
● Weightage of each assessment is more than it deserves
● Solutions are available on the internet - take home exam or assignments
● Distribution of scores across exams
● Old questions
● Environmental factors can impact performance
● Out of syllabus
● Changing course grading policy in between
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Assessment

1. Process of collecting evidence about how well students have learned

2. Formative Assessments - Assessment for learning
a. Before
i. Baseline what students already know
ii. Identify their alternate conceptions
b. During
i. Make students thinking visible to both teachers and students
ii. Provide opportunities to monitor their own thinking and revise it
iii. Identify issues that need remediation
iv. Motivate students
3. Summative assessment - Assessment of individual achievement
a. Student attainment of a certain level of competency after completing the module
Goals of learning design: Constructive
alignment
Students should be able to
Learning explain the meaning of m
objectives
Align what and c in y=mx+c.
learners have to
do in the question
and the LO

Assessment Teaching learning

questions strategies

What is the slope and the

y-intercept in the linear
equation 3y = 2x - 6
Types of Assessment

● Should reveal how well students have learned what we want them to learn
● Design assessment tasks/activities/questions such that they provide evidence of
achieving a particular learning objective
● Recall and Understand level: MCQs, short answers, definitions, match the
following, fill in the blanks
● Apply, Analyse and Evaluate level: solving problems, assessing cases to make
decisions, critiquing papers, summarizing papers, commenting on a discussion
● Create level: project, portfolio, paper/essay, Wiki
● When aligning Assessment and LO think about what the students need to do as per
the LO and what are you asking them to do in the assessment task.

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Identifying the cognitive level of
assessment questions
1) If I increase the value of a in the equation y=ax+b, what will happen to the line?
a) Become steeper
Understand
b) Become gentler
c) Shift upwards
d) Shift downwards Apply
2) What is the value of x when the line y=2x+7 intersects the x-axis?
3) What is the slope of the line with the equation y= 4x+3?
Recall

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Identify the cognitive level of
questions
● Compose a poem that expresses your feelings about a current event. Create

● How do the different theories of economics apply to this case study? Analyse

● How would you rate this character's decisions throughout the story? Evaluate

● What do you think about the author's point of view? Evaluate

● Can you devise a way to ensure clean water access in developing countries? Create

● What are the similarities and differences between two political systems? Analyse

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 Aligning questions and objectives

Is this question aligned with its learning objective?

LO: Students should be able to draw a free body diagram of the forces on an object.

Qn: Calculate the force required to accelerate a 6kg mass at a rate of 2.4m/s^2 on a smooth
surface.

Not Aligned
LO requires drawing, Qn can be solved without
drawing

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 Aligning questions and objectives

Is this question aligned with its learning objective?

LO: Students should be able to identify the main causes for world war 2.

Qn: Explain how the Britain’s policy of appeasement led to world war 2.

Not Aligned
LO requires recalling all causes, Qn requires
explaining one cause in detail

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 Aligning questions and objectives

Is this question aligned with its learning objective?

LO: Students should be able to write a poem of 8 lines.

Qn: What is the difference between a sonnet and a haiku.

Not Aligned
LO requires creating a new poem, Qn is about the
difference between two kinds of poems

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Project Work
Write assessment questions aligned to the learning objectives for your
project topic.
https://padlet.com/sameerss/discussion-topic-goes-here-b3abm
m6p20j0p68w

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 Reflection Spot
If you want to create a lesson plan for a course, what are some of the fundamental
questions that you would ask before you start?
1. who is my audience?
2. prior knowledge?
3. what am I going to teach?
4. do i understand what i am going to teach?
5. how much time am I going to teach?
6. why am I going to teach?
7. Primary resources - what kind of materials do I have access to?
8. whether students will understand?
9. what will be the final outcome?
10. how do learners learn?
11. what are the conceptual words that i will be using?
12. what is the practical application of what I am going to teach?
13. are these students actually interested in what I am teaching?
14. honor code
15. Difficulty of course 14
Before you get started ask…

● Why am I going to teach this?

If you want to create a lesson plan for a course, what are some of the fundamental questions
that you would ask before you start?
● Who all would want to learn this?

● What am I going to teach?

○
● How am I going to teach this?

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 Fundamental pre-design considerations
▪ Why do we need to teach this content? (performance gaps, problem
statement, analysis of need)
▪ Who are we teaching this content to ? (learner analysis)
▪ What are the existing conditions? (resource and constraint analysis)
▪ What is the nature of the content? (content analysis)
▪ How should I teach this content? (teaching and learning strategies)

Instructional Design

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Instructional Design

What is Instructional Design?

Systematic process of translating general principles of learning & teaching into plans for
instructional materials and training programs

What is Instructional Design Model?

Instructional design model is a visual or verbal representations of the instructional
design process that are used to guide and complete design in many training and
educational settings.

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 Process of ID: ADDIE Model

• Analysis of learners’ needs and goals of

content development
• Design and Development of content and
delivery platform
• Pilot study on the developed content
• Implementation
• Evaluation and refinement of the material

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 Analysis phase of ADDIE

Need Analysis: Why do we need to teach this content?

Learner Analysis: Who are we teaching this content to ?

Context Analysis: What are the existing conditions?

Content Analysis: What is the nature of the content?

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 Process of Need Analysis
▪ Is there a gap between actual performance and desired performance?
▪ WhatWhy do possible
are we need to reasons
teach this content?
for the gap?
▪ What is a proposed solution?

How will you get the answers for this questions?

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Process of Need Analysis

How will you get the answers for this questions?

● Literature analysis
● Tests, surveys conducted for the sample learners
● Instructor interviews

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