Time to Reflect on The Summer Term

At the end of each term students respond to a few of my questions to help me gauge their impression of the course activities, work load, and genera level of satisfaction.

According to my informal survey, the most effective aspect of the course was that they had choices in terms of the questions they could answer in the assignments. They also suggested that I provide more opportunities to explore in some depth topics that interest them personally.

Because my course was a survey of art history the scope of the class is very broad, many students feel a little disappointed when they cannot delve into Impressionism or understand better the distinction between modern and postmodern art.

These students’ comments point to the notion that learning is particularly effective when information is personalized. The instructional designer William Horton refers to this idea when he writes about “connect activities," which help learners "connect what they are learning to their work, their lives, or their prior learning."
In my courses these activities could be addressed by adding more topic choices and allowing learners some freedom to explore the themes they want.

I see now that my course as a bit too structured. Following Constructivist/Interpretivism principles, I think that knowledge does not exist in the world independently, waiting to be communicated, but that it is constructed by the individual based on what he or she already knows about the world.

It should be easy to try to make some adjustments to my fall courses. I will have to see if by the end of the term I can get a higher level of satisfaction in this regard.

~Carol