Are you looking for assessment education or resources? Or how about structured professional development?
What if you could get both of those (and more) for free?!
January 21, 2019 marks the third start of our free, MOOC on assessment. With each run, we’ve made improvements by way of edits, adding content, and smoothing content flow. That said, this upcoming course marks a number of exciting changes worth highlighting:
-
More videos: Past students commented how all modules would benefit from some form of video, as some modules did not have videos. We made sure all modules have at least one integrated video.
-
Made it personal: While students found the videos informative, students said videos felt stiff, mechanical, or too scripted. We adjusted some videos, but since folks appreciated the educational content, we largely added some talking-head style videos of the instructors giving their “personal take” on the topic.
-
Gave more examples: Past students indicated they would have appreciated more templates and examples of concepts in practice from institutions. Working with and using SAAL’s Resource Repository, we integrated more campus-specific examples and templates into the course.
-
Added live sessions: Beyond discussion boards, students wished for opportunities to engage live with instructors and fellow students. Instructors worked with SAAL to plan YouTube Live sessions. These will be advertised within the course, as well as recorded and shared in case students cannot attend but want to see what was covered.
-
Truly self-paced: Past students wished they could access any and all course content whenever they wanted, instead of us releasing content each week. So, we decided to open the course so everything is accessible from day one. Know the instructors will go through the course one week at a time, so anyone who flies through the course may not interact as much with the instructors or fellow classmates, but they’ll complete when they want.
This course is new and improved all due to the feedback we received from students. Direct communication with instructors, content from discussion boards, and – of course – data from the end of course evaluation/survey were all important drivers for changes made for this section.
We did our best to respect student voice and prioritize changes in hopes of improving the learning environment. We saw these revisions as an opportunity to practice taking data-informed action and we hope future students benefit from these changes!
We’d like to give a huge thanks to past 4,000+ students for their participation and feedback, not to mention SAAL volunteers helping review information and shape content added to the course. We appreciate you all and hope this is the best course run yet! Click here to register for the course.
Joe Levy, Professional Development Committee Chair