Walk in Their Shoes
Part of what spoke to me in these chapters was the essential reminder that learning is first and foremost about the learners, the students. In other words, it is student-centered. Part of what this means is that we as teachers need to try to look at all we do or plan from the student’s point of view, or wearing a “student hat” as the book says. I’d call it, “walking in a student’s shoes.”
For this portion of the book, we were challenged to look at how a syllabus would make students feel or how they would read it. How could we develop a syllabus (and thus a whole course, really) that made sense to a student, that was helpful? We often design them from behind a teacher’s podium, when we should work them out while sitting out at a student’s desk. That fundamental perspective makes a tremendous impact on all we design and do. I want to make sure that I try to do this, because it is so easy to fall back into my own world as a teacher.
BIG Questions
I was also reminded again (following up on Bain) of a very effective way to teach and to also design learning outcomes is starting with a BIG question you want to help students ask and then begin to answer (see page 140). Once you know that question (which isn’t an easy thing to always determine), then learning outcomes almost naturally seem to suggest themselves. It helps to focus your attention and efforts as well as the students. I think it’s a powerful way to go about teaching/learning.
“Make Sense”
I found it also very helpful to read about connecting the learning outcomes to what we are actually asking the students to do. Sometimes I have been in classes in which we were given assignments in which it was not clear to me how they were connected to the subject. It seemed that some were only there because the teacher found them of interest, but did not help bridge them to course. So the idea of designing even a syllabus that shows how the outcomes and various activities (like readings) are connected (page 141) is a very helpful. It gives students a rationale for what they are doing. Students do not like for their time and energy to be wasted. If they can connect it to the topic or subject at hand, if it “makes sense” to them, they are much more likely to engage in more energetic and meaningful ways.
Content Priorities (the best ways to get us to the destination)
One very important thing the above would do is make us think through the whole course how anything we want to do fits in with the learning outcomes. In other words, it helps us in choosing activities, reading materials, etc. For example, one of the things I am struggling with in deciding the course I want to teach on the Bible as literature is what text (if any) other than the Bible I would like to use. If I have a clear understanding of the learning outcomes, that task becomes a little easier, as it helps me in choosing resources that will best help achieve those outcomes. There are so many choices we can make. Some perhaps we prefer more than others. But the question ever before us is, “But will this help our students achieve the learning outcomes?” Using my favorite language about teaching, the learning outcomes would be the sites along the journey and especially the destination to which I would hope to guide students. Once I know these, then they become for me a map for determining the best routes to get there. I might have some fantastic rabbit trails I’d like to go down, but would they really help them reach their destination? We only have so much time with students. What this is telling me is to make the best use of it, to maximize that time with only the content or activities that hold the most potential for producing deeper learning for students.
Much Is At Stake
The book makes an arresting point in that the learning outcomes we present for students have significant consequences in helping them find their place in the world. These are promises we make to them even before they take our classes about what they can expect if they do take them. These outcomes can help them in discovering their own gifts, in helping them learn more about who they are and what they wish to do with their lives. Many young adults (older ones, too) really struggle with what they want to be “when they grow up.” By being very clear about our outcomes, we give them extremely helpful information to use in these deeply personal decisions, especially in mapping out the path they would take in terms of college classes. I had never really thought about this in this way. It places a pretty heavy responsibility on our shoulders (as it well should).
Follow Through
When I played baseball, one of the key things to be a good hitter was follow through in our swing. You had to keep your eye on the ball and get a good start to the swing. That was one thing. But you also had to continue to keep your eye on the ball and make sure to follow through with the swing – to roll over your wrists (where the power really comes from) in order to be a good hitter/batter.
I thought about this as I read chapter 8 because it said the same thing to me. It’s good and important to have a good start, to spend that time in developing meaningful learning outcomes. But follow through is also essential. A good start without a good finish doesn’t do you much good. In other words, do your follow through or connect what you are doing each class session with the learning outcomes, or are they just sitting there looking good on the syllabus but aren’t really being followed through in class? I found Professor Guidry’s daily practice of beginning each class with a reminder of the learning outcome for that session to be helpful (even though even she did not always, to her surprise, also follow through or connect it in the way she thought she was).
I have often helped churches and other groups in doing what we call “visioning.” In a way this is helping them set goals (kind-of learning outcomes). We took great pain and effort in determining their BIG question, in discovering what they were all about, of seeing where they wanted to go, and then setting goals to help them get there. But I discovered that if they were not careful, all that work went for naught. Why? Because they lost sight of the goals. They never really made action plans to see that the goals were reached. And what this chapter is telling me is to always keep those learning outcomes in mind daily and make sure that my actions are related to them, that is, that I am following through or that there is real “alignment” as it is called in the book. It also tells me that even if I think I am doing this, the students might have a very different perspective and that I need to find ways to determine how they are seeing the class in terms of follow through.
What appeals to me also is developing a syllabus that helps chart this. A syllabus can really be a meaningful working tool for students and teachers. One way to do this is showing the connections for each class session for the activities and how they are related to the outcomes. One might even have a system whereby a record or method of some kind is made for students and teachers to check often to see that this is happening. It might be as simple as if you begin a class with a reminder of the outcome for it, then have the students give feedback or show evidence that the outcome was reached or at least progress made toward it.
