1. Creating Significant Learning Experiences L. Dee Fink

2. Significant Learning (It’s more than just the course material.) 1. Foundational Knowledge • Basic understanding • Necessary for other kinds of learning 2. Application • Knowledge and how it’s applied • Skills 3. Integration • Making connections (other courses, work, life) • Power: the wholemore than the sum of the parts

3. Significant Learning (It’s more than just the course material.) 4. Human Dimension • Human significance of topic • Learning about self, others 5. Caring • Caring engenders energy for learning • Nothing significant happens without caring 6. Learning How to Learn • Learning more effectively • Life-long learning

4. Creating Significant Learning Experiences (How?) • Learning Goals • Feedback and Assessment • Teaching and Learning Activities

5. Learning Goals (In terms of significant learning outcomes.) • Backward Design • What’s important now & years after the course? • What should students do in the course to succeed? • Example (CS 705) • Learning Outcomes • Activities support learning outcomes • Class activities • Out-of-class activities • (Suggestions for improvement)

6. Feedback and Assessment • Forward looking assessment • Imagine students in a situation where they would use knowledge K, could they? • Focus learning on realistic meaningful tasks. • Ask: “What am I preparing students to do?” • Good assessment needs a rubric. • Criteria and standards • Communicated and used consistently

7. Feedback and Assessment • Opportunities to engage in self assessment • Can they define their own rubric for quality work? • Can they use their rubric on their own and other students’ work? • Reflection: on the subject matter, on the learning process

8. Teaching and Learning Activities • Doing Experience • Direct: Real doing, in authentic settings • Indirect: case studies, simulations, … • Observing Experience • Direct: seeing the phenomena to be observed • Indirect: stories, film, …

9. Teaching and Learning Activities • Getting Information and Ideas • (To be most effective, students must want to get …) • Sources • Direct: original information & data • Indirect: lectures & textbooks • Reflecting • Classroom discussion • Term papers • In-depth reflective dialogue and writing on the learning process

10. Good courses are courses that … • Challenge students to significant kinds of learning. • Use active forms of learning. • Have teachers who care  • about the subject, • their students, and • about teaching and learning. • Have teachers who interact well with students. • Have a good system of feedback, assessment, and grading. -- L.D. Fink