I've been teaching for a little over twenty years now and I've created a lot of lesson plans. Today more than ever, it's important to consider all facets of my students' lives in order to offer them an engaging and meaningful experience as they move through curriculum. Recently, I've delved into L.D. Fink's PDF, "A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning". Something that really caught my attention in Fink's guide is how students' situational factors are taken into consideration in a purposeful manner while one is planning a unit or course.
I'm currently working on a disruptive innovation plan that I’ll be using with my learners; it’s the creation and integration of EPortfolios. In building and using EPortfolios, my students will have the license of creative freedom as choice, ownership, voice, and authentic learning opportunities are used. I've recently developed course outcomes, assessments and activities for a unit within this coursework and I've followed Fink's guide.
Fink has broken down the process of designing courses for significant learning into steps.
The first step is to "give careful consideration to variety of situational factors" (Fisk). I've used a structured planning document to help me evaluate my students' situational factors.
In the second step, Fink suggests that using his taxonomy of significant learning whereby he identifies six major types of significant learning with number of sub-categories to be used in backwards unit/course planning (Fink)
My Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for the unit, which is also known as a learning goal is: Learners will create EPortfolios for continued use where they share their work, insights, abilities, experiences, and ultimately their unique voice with the world.
After working through all of the pre-planning, I've created the following chart to help me align my learner outcomes, assessment, and activities for my BHAG:
I have found Fink's guide helpful in creating a unit that is centered around creating significant learning opportunities for my student.
Fink, L. Dee, PhD. (2003). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. [PDF file].1-37. Retrieved from: https://luonline.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-3863516-dt-content-rid-59401589_1/xid-59401589_1
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