Assessment Plan Design - Graves, pt 1

Assessment is naturally an essential part of UbD and all effective course design. After all, if you do not evaluate the needs of your students, you cannot know how to design the goals and the tasks. And, since in UbD we use backward design, assessment design comes before task design. Over a few short posts, we will consider a chapter from Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers (Graves, K. 2000) The chapter is Designing an Assessment Plan.

According to Graves, assessment has three important roles in course design: assessing needs, assessing students’ learning, and evaluating the course (p. 207). Additionally, assessment has two types, formative, which is ongoing during the course, and summative, which takes place after the course is completed. Graves does not address needs assessment in this article (book chapter), because it is addressed in a separate chapter in the book. 

Do you regularly assess needs and evaluate the course in your classes? What is your experience?

Do you regularly use formative assessment outside achievement assessment? Specifically, I'm asking about assessment that is not included in your grading scheme.

Course Design Morality?

Is there a moral aspect to course design?

I thought of this question as I read the preface to Language Curriculum Design (LCD) (Nation & Macalister, 2009). At the head of the preface they include a quote from The Prince (Machiavelli, 1513):

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain from the new one.

I am no expert on The Prince, but it's my understanding that Machiavelli was not overly concerned about the morality of the claim he made. But, it seems difficult to me to deny the general truth of it. What concerns me is that in the context of the education of young people especially, is that teachers and administrators have a moral duty to do, as much as it is possible, to place the interests of the students among the highest considerations. Yes so rarely, it seems to me, do institutions and even committees of teachers, do more than pay lip service to this duty.

I understand to a certain degree why institutions and their administrators feel the need to consider the bottom line. After all, if students don't enroll and stay enrolled, the very survival, let alone success, of the institution may no longer be possible. And what advantage is it to the student if the institution should fail? Still, administrators must realize that there is a balance to be found as giving students the best possible education and experience can help it to flourish.

However, what really gets me riled up is when teaching committees put first interests that are at odds with the welfare of students. These interests can include easing the workloads of committee members, compensating for the incompetency of teachers/administrators, and job security for either committee members or for a certain class of teacher. In that last category, I'm afraid that TESOL-trained teachers are often seen as a threat to literature teachers, who often occupy these committee seats. And, I am probably missing some other types of self-interest that take priority over  the quality of education.

Let me now say that I am aware that this is not always the case, that many committee members do their best to look out for the interest of the students and that TESOL-trained teachers are not angels. But, TESOL-trained teachers do tend to be more aware of the research and practices that can lead to better course design.

***************

Let me finish this post by quoting from the preface of LCD about curriculum design itself (p. xv):

Curriculum design involves the integration of knowledge from many of the areas in the field of Applied Linguistics, such as language acquisition research, teaching methodology, assessment, language description and materials production.

It is my hope that by sharing what I am learning in LCD side by side with UbD to sharpen my understanding of TESOL course design. I hope it will help you too and that you will share what you are learning and/or have learned that we can design the best courses we can for our students.

I leave with a few questions again:

• Is there a moral aspect to course design?
• How should we cope when the politics of institutions seem to interfere with the best interests of students?
• How important is it for course designers and teachers to be aware of language acquisition research?

And, I invite anyone who would like to make a guest post, or become a co-author of the blog to let me know.

Understanding about skills

One of the complaints I hear a lot in class is how UbD is hard to apply to a language learning context, especially since there are so few examples from language teaching in the book. In the words of Omar from The Wire, "I feel ya." Still, one theme consistently found in the book is the need to think hard and look for understandings to design around.

In Chapter 6 (Crafting Understandings), under the heading Understanding about skills, they address the issues of teaching skills from a UbD perspective and note that, "some teachers believe that UbD is not applicable to the teaching of skills. They believe that learning skills is merely a matter of practice and refinement; that is, there is really nothing to understand (p. 133)." They state their disagreement and then list a few examples of understandings from subjects usually considered to be skills (golf education, poetry, world language, cooking) before giving this exhortation on page 133:

Units and courses that focus on skill development need to explicitly include desired understandings. In other words, the learner should come to understand the skill's underlying concepts, why the skill is important and what it helps accomplish, what strategies and techniques maximize its effectiveness, and when to use them. (emphasis in original)

Here are some questions:

• To what degree do you think this applies in a ELT context? 
• If the learners are beginners or young or both, should these understandings be taught in the L1?
• Do you have examples from your own experience related to the above?

Please leave a comment and please use include your real name when you do. If you leave an anonymous comment, it may be subject to deletion if deemed inappropriate.

Introduction!

The impetus for this blog is to provide a forum for the students at Temple University Japan's TESOL program's Adapting Materials class with Dr Beglar to discuss the course textbook, Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition (UbD) (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). In addition, students might want to discuss their projects and get feedback from each other. As I write this, I (Daniel Beck, a.k.a., GTB) am the sole author. However, if any students taking the course wish to write posts, I will gladly add them as co-authors. And, of course, all students are welcome and encouraged to read and post comments.

It is my hope that the discussion will reach beyond the membership of the classes and include others who are interested in the topic of course design in the context of ELT, especially in Japan or Korea. If you are not a current Temple student and wish to contribute posts, please contact me and your request will be considered.

All topics related to TESOL course design are welcome. My intention is to post mostly about the readings from UbD and Language Curriculum Design (Nation & Macalister, 2009). It would be good for others to bring their own ideas as well as ideas from other published works on the subject. So, please comment, please submit post ideas and please spread the word!