Meeting Abstract
Many of us work diligently to incorporate the recommendations of Vision & Change into our courses. For most topics, it is not possible to address all of the Core Concepts and Core Competencies. However, thoughtful mapping of course outcomes onto those concepts and competencies can help us identify and emphasize the most important aspects of the courses. Moreover, aligning the outcomes to Bloom’s Taxonomy is meant to more explicitly link our expectations of student performance to the ways we assess student content understanding and the ability of students to accurately apply scientific principles. I will share a framework developed for the outcomes-based redesign of an upper-division majors biology lecture course to incorporate engaging case studies and active learning using mobile technology. By initially mapping student learning outcomes to Vision & Change and to Bloom’s, generic summative assessment items were developed and shared with students at the start of the term. As backward design suggests, the class activities and case studies were explicitly tied to expectations of student performance, which helped students understand what and how to study. These changes led to several beneficial results, including improved attendance and in-class question-asking by students, and ultimately course improvements in student attitudes and grades.
