Instructors in two- and four-year undergraduate institutions face a variety of challenges in designing and delivering high-quality courses for their students and in creating accurate assessments of student learning. Traditional course planning (a linear, start-to-finish process based on the knowledge and perspective of the instructor) can lead to lack of clarity of learning objectives for students, uncertainty about course priorities for both instructor and students, and poor alignment between course material and assessments. To address these issues, Understanding by Design (UbD), a course-planning protocol widely used in K–12 education, was implemented to redesign a one-semester, nonmajors “Sensation & Perception” course at a four-year liberal arts college. This implementation improved the instructor's understanding of desired student learning outcomes, allowed core concepts and science competencies to be prioritized as recommended by the “Vision and Change” reform initiative, and led to decreased lecture time in favor of greater lab and student-driven discussion time. In addition, this process allowed components of evidence-based reasoning and scientific process to be incorporated authentically into assessments. Despite the increasing rigor of assessments, there was a statistically significant increase in students earning an A or B on the final exam after UbD implementation.
Homework is an integral component of most science courses but can have an impact on student learning only when students actually complete the assignment. Low completion rate of homework, then, is an impediment to student success in science courses, and a source of frustration for instructor and students alike. Here, we outline a set of design principles supported by research in how students learn, intended to streamline outside-of-class assignments to address course goals, improve student buy-in and motivation, and provide instructors better formative assessment data. We also share examples of outside-of-class assignments aligned to these principles to aid instructors in shortening and focusing the homework they choose to assign in their courses.
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