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Task :
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Project on aims and content for a subject
taught within your discipline. The subject chosen must be one with which
you have some important personal connection and investment (eg one you
teach, will teach, have taught, might have to teach , would like to
teach, etc)
- Choose your subject:
- Locate and examine a
key, formal statement of its aims and content.
From that statement,
- in what way is the student, and the
student's future approach to learning this subject, recognised in
the statement?
- does the statement indicate anything
whatever about the kinds of learning, or the approach to learning,
expected from the student?
- from this statement, does anything in
particular appear to follow regarding how the learning experience
will be organised or how the subject will be taught?
- does anything directly follow from it,
regarding precisely what will be assessed?
- does anything follow regarding how
it will be assessed?
- does it suggest or imply anything to
you whatever regarding how you might want to evaluate your teaching
after the subject is over?
- how typical would this statement be
of the overall approach to stating aims and content used across your
department or in the disciplinary field in which you teach?
- what do you feel are its greatest strengths
and worst weaknesses, just as it stands, as an expression of what
is aimed for in this kind of subject?
- Put the formal statement aside, and write out - without reference to it or to any other documents
- informally and in your own words what you would be trying to achieve
if you were going to teach this subject. Don't be constrained in any
way by the previous formal statement. Use any format, style or structure
you wish for your writing - make it suit what is in your mind, your
own intentions: "If
teaching this subject, what would I want to have it
achieve?"
- Show your statement to someone else
if you can, to see if they think it communicates its message clearly
and adequately.
- Examine your written statement and try
to develop it further so that - if it needs it - the students and
their learning are placed as conspicuously as you can within it. One
way to shift the focus is to write a short statement representing
a key understanding you want students to develop. Show it to others
if you can and get their opinion again.
- What direct implications do you think
this statement has for either (i) how you would teach the subject
or (ii) how you would assess it?
- Imagine that you had written this statement
as the first stage of proposing a new subject, and you had to justify
your approach to a committee of colleagues, or maybe someone such
as your head of department. Make notes for how you would justify and
argue your case, particularly the student learning aspects of your
statement.
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