[ED-Low] 'Optional' throughout

[iadawn]

Throughout the resources in the Teaching Ideas, Ideas to Assess Knowledge and Ideas to Assess Knowledge sections there is an opening sentence of the form:

Optional ideas to teach the learning outcomes

or

Optional ideas to support assessment

I was wondering what the point of these were. The only thing they seemed to add was that these were 'optional' - which is more to say that instructors could pick and chose how they might use the various different items. However, I am not sure that it does it that well.

Also, it struck me as peculiar that everything is optional. If there are learning outcomes that students should attain then surely there are things that should be delivered for them to attain those outcomes.

[daniel-montalvo]

Hi @iadawn

A while ago we had a paragraph just below the "Topics to Teach" section saying:

The following topics help achieve the learning outcomes. You might choose to adapt the sequence of these topics, the activities you carry out, and the homework you provide according to the particular audience and context.
Which aim was to communicate what you said: instructors could pick what they need or find useful.

That was taken out because the majority thought it was too worthy and did not add much.

We could discuss this again for future iterations, anyway.

Some proposals:

Teaching Ideas

Choose the ones needed to deliver the learning outcomes.

Include the most appropriate to deliver the learning outcomes.

Ideas to Assess Knowledge

Choose the ones needed to assess the learning outcomes.

Include the most appropriate to assess the learning outcomes.

[iadawn]

Agreed that the original is too long for not enough info. The alternative proposals seem to work better. They make it clearer that this is a pick and mix.

[daniel-montalvo]

Good to know that they sound better for you @iadawn

We discussed the title of these sections, especially "Ideas to Assess Knowledge" in EOWG 27 September call so changing these sentences might be not a good idea before bringing it back to the group for discussion.

Changed in 7f44125 and in 3600d2a to come back to this later.

[iadawn]

Wasn't so much the title as the opening line :)

[nitedog]

I feel that wording like "chose" or "include" seem too restrictive. Depending on the particular course and instructor, maybe none of the suggested ideas apply. Maybe not even variations of these ideas, and instructors need to come up with their own ideas to teach a particular learning outcome. So maybe @iadawn's understanding of "pick and mix" is different. It is more "get inspired and mix".

[iadawn]

I might be missing your point @nitedog but I feel that if there are learning outcomes that none of the teaching ideas relate to then there is a gap. This might be a more involved debate :)

[daniel-montalvo]

Just pressed Enter too soon.

I think we do have teaching ideas that relate to at least one learning outcome, so hopefully we might not have that gap. Do you agree with this @iadawn

So to balance and not be so restrictive, we could have:

Teaching Ideas

Base on the below to deliver the learning outcomes.

Ideas to Assess Knowledge

Base on the below to assess the learning outcomes.

1. We are removing the "optional", which could lead the reader to think we are providing learning outcomes but we are not providing methods to deliver them appropriately.
2. We leave room for somebody who might feel none of the ideas we are providing fit into their context.

[daniel-montalvo]

Please have a look at #716 for an edited version of the previous comment, which was uncompleted.