HOW BLINKNOW BUILT NEPAL’S GREENEST SCHOOL
THE BASIC FORMULA TO AN EDUCATION OF GOOD QUALITY
IMPERIAL COLLEGE BUSINESS SCHOOL, LONDON
8th DECEMBER 2019, REIMAGINE EDUCATION CONFERENCE
Mary Ellen Wiltrout
MITx Curriculum Development Specialist
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
“I oversee the execution and evolution of MIT Department of Biology’s digital learning strategy with my group of two postdoctoral scholars along with several graduate and undergraduate student contributors to projects. We develop digital learning content for MIT students and advise evidence-based teaching practices. We also implement these practices in the creation of world-wide bound MITx on edX courses. My group completes research on the design of digital learning content as well.”
ABSTRACT
STEM instruction is essential to providing learners with reasoning, problem-solving and creative thinking skills. Too often students lose interest in STEM career paths due to traditional instruction that focuses on information delivery and promoting rote memorization driven by current assessments. Learners are rarely exposed to scientific thinking that occurs in STEM research on a daily basis. There is a movement for instructors to foster the development of these power skills by leveraging learning design principles to effectively employ emergent technologies. The online or blended learning models provide students with increased structure for formative and summative assessments while providing new opportunities for authentic and engaging learning experiences. In this interactive workshop, learn how to incorporate learning design to lift your students’ online learning experiences from ones that require factual recall to those that involve real-world applications and development of transferable skills. We will focus specifically on STEM examples, but the principles of the design can apply to other disciples.
IN THIS WORKSHOP, YOU WILL:
- Analyze the challenges to online assessment.
- Delve into a range of assessment examples that span from formative versus summative applications.
- Explore ways to create assessment that is relevant and trains for higher order cognitive skills.
- Attempt to map some of the findings from the learning sciences to best practices in creating assessments.
WORKSHOP FORMAT
We plan to set the stage of the workshop by presenting some common challenges to online assessment: creating assessments for increased learner engagement, learners reaching higher levels of cognitive processes, and alignment with the learning sciences. For each of these points, we will introduce the context with participant input, then provide specific examples from our experiences in what we or our colleagues created at MIT for on-campus and online (MOOC) learners. If time permits, we will have the participants begin to develop ideas in how they can apply the workshop information in the learning experience that they design with group feedback.