Course Design: Focus on Development and Evaluation of Active Learning
FTCP Capstone Project Summary
Kathy Bertsch, Ph.D.
Spring 2012
Introduction
Effective course design is integral in ensuring significant learning for students. Key components of effective courses
include an integration of learning goals, teaching and learning activities and feedback and assessment (Fink, 2003). In
development of strong courses, learning goals should focus on significant learning including foundational knowledge,
application, integration of ideas, as well as goals stretching student values and understanding about themselves. Teaching
and learning activities should include active learning with opportunities for reflective dialogue and feedback and assessment
should be “educative.” That is, assessment should incorporate real-life contexts and provide students with frequent high
quality feedback (Fink, 2003).
This year I have had the opportunity to develop two new courses for the School Psychology Doctoral program. The
purpose of this project is to analyze the degree to which active learning has been incorporated into the, teaching and learning
activities of one of these courses: Psyc 720 Academic Problem Solving (Currently Psyc 790 Special Topics: Academic Problem
Solving).
Methods
To evaluate the degree to which active learning has been incorporated into Psyc 720, two learning goals were selected
from the list of 6 learning goals for the course. The syllabus was reviewed to identify the course dates associated with the
learning goals and permanent products from teaching and learning (hand-outs, powerpoints, assignments etc.) from the
course requirements.
The degree of active learning associated with the teaching and learning was evaluated using a tool developed to assess
the rigor and relevance of authentic instruction and assessment in teaching academic subjects (Newman et al., 2007). This
tool assesses not specific teaching techniques, but the quality of the intellectual work that students produce. The tool’s
headings were modified slightly to align with vocabulary associated with course design. Tools rated the quality of learning on
a scale usually between 1 (low quality) to 5 (high quality).
Results
Teaching and learning activities as well as assignments related to the following course goals were rated on the
authentic instruction rubric:
Course Goals.
 Explain methods of problem analysis related to reading.
 Link problem analysis to instructional design for the areas of reading.
Kathy Bertsch, Ph.D.
FTCP Capstone Project Spring 2012
Standards for Teaching & Learning Activities. Teaching and learning activities were rated on authentic instruction
standards. Each standard is scored on a rubric from low quality (score of 1) to high quality (score of 5). Rubrics are
anchored at each point with descriptions of the quality of learning. The following are brief definitions of each standard
for teaching and learning. See Newmann et al., (2007) for detailed rubrics.




Higher Order Thinking: Instruction involves students in manipulating information and ideas by synthesizing, generalizing
explaining, hypothesizing, or arriving at conclusions that produce new meaning and understandings for them.
Deep Knowledge: Instruction addresses central ideas of a topic or discipline with enough thoroughness to explore connections
and relationships and to produce relatively complex understandings.
Substantive Conversation: Students engage in extended conversational exchanges with the teacher and/or their peers about
subject matter in a way that builds an improved and shared understanding of ideas or topics.
Connection to the World Beyond the Classroom: Students make connections between substantive knowledge and public problems
or personal experiences they are likely to have faced or will face in the future.
Teaching & Learning Activities (1 = low quality; 5 = high quality)
Standard
Higher Order Thinking
Deep Knowledge
Substantive Conversation
Connections to the World
Beyond the Classroom
Active Learning
Examples
Date 2/14/12
2/28/12
3/13/12
3/20/12
3
4
5
5
3
4
4
5
3
4
5
5
4
5
5
5
Total %
Obtained
65%
85%
95%
100%
100%
5
5
5
5
*How is phonemic awareness
different from alphabetic
principle?
* If a student performs poorly
on ORF accuracy what does
that tell you about their
reading skills?
* When you read a book
for fun and read a book
for class, how do you
change how you read?
What do you do different?
*What is a flaw you
see in this research?
*Students
demonstrate reading
assessments
* Using a case study,
determine how to
complete a
screening
Standards for Assignments. Assignments were rated on authentic instruction standards. Each standard is scored on
a rubric from low quality (score of 1) to high quality (score of 3-5 depending on the standard). The following are brief
definitions of each standard for quality of assignment. See Newmann et al., (2007) for detailed rubrics.


Construction of Knowledge: The assignment asks students to organize and interpret information in addressing a concept,
problem, or issue relevant to the discipline.
Elaborated Written Communication: The assignment asks students to elaborate on their understanding, explanations, or
conclusions through extended writing in the relevant discipline.
Kathy Bertsch, Ph.D.
FTCP Capstone Project Spring 2012

Connection to Students’ Lives: The assignment asks students to address a concept, problem, or issue in the relevant discipline
that is similar to one that they have encountered or are likely to encounter in their daily lives outside of school.
Assignments (1 = low quality; 3 or 4 = high quality)
Targeted
Instruction
Construction of
Knowledge (1-3)
Elaborated Written
Communication (1-4)
Connections to Students’
Lives (1-3)
Explanation
Reading Problem
Analysis and
Intervention
Design
3
Reading
Intervention
Planning &
Implementing
3
Final Exam: Case
Presentation
3
Problem
Analysis
Discussion
Board
3
3
Total %
Obtained
100%
4
4
4
4
4
100%
3
3
3
3
3
100%
Analyze data
and select an
intervention to
match the
assessment.
Then
demonstrate
the
intervention
Analyze a problem
and develop a set
of assessment
questions to
narrow down a
problem.
Questions must be
supported with a
connection to the
Big Ideas of
reading.
Complete a reading
problem-analysis with
a student and use
their data to develop
instructional
recommendations.
Students demonstrate
links between
assessment and
intervention.
Use a problem-analysis
to develop a matched
and detailed
intervention plan while
considering the
complexities of a school
system.
Share their problemanalysis and
intervention design
while defending their
assessment to
instruction match.
Discussion
Quality of Assignments. The purpose of this project was to analyze the quality of active learning incorporated into the
course design for Psyc 720. While the results are tentative as reliability of the measures has not been collected, results
indicate that the quality of assignments is consistently high as assignments require students to analyze and synthesize data
and other information, demonstrate their understanding by linking to research and or their problem-solving process and
connect students to concepts relevant to the discipline as most assignments include interpretation of student cases or casestudies.
Quality of Teaching & Learning. Including high quality authentic learning in instruction and learning activities was a
bit more inconsistent. I had many opportunities for active learning built into instruction and students connected with content
as much of it was related to cases they encounter in practice. However, while I had higher-order thinking activities embedded
into the lessons, I often reduced these activities so as to ensure we were able to cover new concepts sufficiently. It seems as
though high-order thinking activities such as synthesizing, generalizing, explaining and hypothesizing may take more
substantial time during class than I currently devote. Having students generate their own predictions, solutions and
Kathy Bertsch, Ph.D.
FTCP Capstone Project Spring 2012
explanations is important in deepening their understanding of concepts. This will be an area that I continue to work on in
ensuring students are actively engaged in significant learning.
Next Steps. This opportunity has given me more awareness of the variables that impact significant learning as I plan
course goals, teaching and learning activities, assignments and feedback. My courses have a good foundation for active
learning and are currently under review by Graduate Course Design. I look forward to continue using these rubrics to plan
significant learning activities to meet course goals. I look forward to sharing these tools with my graduate students and
engaging them in providing feedback related to the quality of learning activities as well. For example, the rubrics are brief
enough to have students quickly score each standard for quality of teaching and learning right at the end of class. As many of
the graduate students will be working in schools as consultants to teachers or in academia, we can utilize these tools as both
learning tools and feedback to ensure high quality significant learning.
References
Fink, L.D. (2003). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. University of Oklahoma.
Newmann, F. (1993). Crafting authentic instruction. Educational Leadership, 50(7), 8-12.
Newmann, King, Carmichael (2007). Authentic instruction and assessment: Common standards for rigor and relevance in
teaching academic subjects. Prepared for the Iowa Department of Education, 2007.
Kathy Bertsch, Ph.D.
FTCP Capstone Project Spring 2012