Jessica,
That is a good idea. It really is a type of pretest of knowledge.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Ruby,
You make great points. That is so important particularly in your field. Students need to know the importance of boundaries!
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Nate,
You are correct and it is also dependent on the objectives. Not every type of assessment assesses all objectives.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Berrie,
You make a great point. It is important to give students proper feedback from a pretest to prevent discouragement and frustration at the beginning.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
In most cases, I don't think students really know what they want to learn, especially in a new class pertaining to their profession. Of course this may be different with the level of the class. Perhaps it would work best for graduate classes where the student has some knowledge of the profession.
Jean Rise
Jean,
You make a great point; but I think with undergrads, we have to walk them through the experience first. I know when I first started using case studies, it was a disaster because students did not know how to "break the problems down" . I now help them develop their tools for doing that.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Depends on the subject of the course and the student's experience level. Although rare some students would be better suited to take an assessment of skills exam. Upon successful completion they can advance to a next class rather than waste weeks covering material they already know.
Steven ,
Great point. You also must evaluate the course to make sure it covers what the objectives demand.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I can understand why this may be be beneficial but students often do not know what they want to learn in the beginning of the course because of their lack of knowledge of the subject. They may have a general idea but I think their expectations may depend upon what knowledge they already have of the subject and it also depends upon their ability to grasp and retain the content.
Paula
Paula,
That is true. Students don't even know what they don't know. Also, learning is built on a foundation of learning. The foundation has to be there first.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
This would be interesting to the facilitator in that he/she would know what the studeents want to achieve from the class. This could be compared to the listed course outcomes/objectives.
Any significant differences should initiate a review to determine if the class needs to be modified or if the students need to exposed to the reasons for some different objectives/outcomes from what they bring to the class.
Alan,
You are right. It is a good way to keep the student need in the loop for course design.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
This would be helpful for students to get a 'big picture' view of the upcoming course and for instructors to have a beginning knowledge of what students may already know or don't know. It would also be useful to identify those students who may have a pre-conceived view of the course and may be sedentary in their view of the upcoming material. "What I want to learn" from a course sounds very "consumer-based" but in the educational exchange course offerings are best built from a quality assessment of industry/real worlds standards and the need to communicate why these industry/real world standards need to be met should not be secondary.
Don,
You make several good points. I find it interesting your statement about sounding consumer-based. I think you can ask students opinions without sounding consumerish.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Don,
You make several good points. I find it interesting your statement about sounding consumer-based. I think you can ask students opinions without sounding consumerish.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I would think not. If you take this approach you could open a can of worms that you might not be able to control. If we allow the students to control content before a class even starts it puts me as an instructor at a great disadvantage when teaching. If you are going to take this type of approach you need to do this after the course is completed and then make modifications to your class.
Elie,
I think you still must have control of the content but I do think it may effect subsequent courses. You still have to be in control.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
While I agree that asking students what they want to learn can be dangerous, I don't think it's a bad option.
Many will not "know what he/she doesn't know" but the responses may provide insight into the type of student body you're dealing with and can also give you a heads up about content that may be of interest to this particular group. That content may already be part of the course, and you may be able to focus more attention on it and make it an enjoyable learning experience (more so than normal, of course).
Sue,
You make a great point. It may get them to think about gaps in their own knowledge. You want them to think about the content more than the grade. That isn't always easy in our educational culture.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Asking students what they want to learn to me is not a good idea. At my former institution we had an adult learning department (CLIMB). Some students argued that it is waste of their time to learn basic maths and English because they will not need it at their jobs. It was quite an interesting dialogue that students will pick and chose what they will learn or not. There is a standard and a reason for courses being offered to students. Each course/learning leads to another course and understanding.
