Planning teaching and assessment

A teacher's didactic task begins some time before the semester starts (ideally when the previous semester ends), with teaching preparation. This planning phase -- used to develop a new course or revise an existing one -- is a permanent, continual process of didactic concept development and/or redesign which is important to ensuring pedagogical quality. During teaching preparation, objectives are formulated or revised, and teaching materials and activities are developed. From the didactic perspective it is essential to work from the student's point of view ("What will I be able to do when the course finishes?") and, as in project management, plan backwards from the desired end scenario (Backward Course Design).

Backward Course Design (BCD)

BCD means "beginning with the end in mind": first designing and formulating the learning objectives which characterise the level of knowledge and the skills to be achieved by the end of the course from the student perspective.

More about Backward Course Design

Constructive alignment

After the objectives of the course have been clearly formulated and assigned to their respective levels in a taxonomy, the scenario for checking whether these course objectives have been reached can be planned.

More on constructive alignment

Orientation aid

Taxonomie Lernziele

Visualising the classification of learning objectives, aligned well with assessments and activities

Handout: Download Formulation of competence-based learning objectives (PDF, 101 KB)

Anderson, L. W. & Krathwohl, D. R., eds. (2001). Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Addison Wesley Longman

constructive alignment

Handout: Download Constructive Alignment (PDF, 151 KB) (in German and English)

Biggs, J. (1999). Aligning Teaching for Constructing Learning: Constructive Alignment. In: Teaching for Quality Learning at University, pp. 10-32

dossier unididaktik

University of Zurich Center for University Teaching and Learning "dossier" on external page formulating learning objectives (in German)

interaktive sequenz

Develop an interactive sequence for your course which gets all of your students involved: Download Manual for creating interactive sequences (PDF, 151 KB)

Contact

Dr. Claudia Merki

Abt. für Lehre und Lernen
Haldenbachstr. 44
8006 Zürich
Switzerland

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