Conquering the Content—and Student Learning—in Just Nine Weeks

As the fall term begins to wind down, many of us are already thinking about ways to adjust our courses to the nine week winter quarter. This modification can seem daunting to those of us who may already struggle to accomplish student learning goals in ten weeks. Luckily, many of our colleagues have been teaching compressed format courses for decades and we can learn valuable lessons from their experiences. Although the literature on teaching compressed-format courses is not extensive, generally this research suggests that students’ experiences are comparable to when the same subject matter is taught in a longer format—particularly if the instructional quality is high. Below are a few highlights from this literature that may be of help in preparing for the winter term adjustment.

Prioritize Student Learning Goals

Those of us teaching the same courses for several years know that it is common from time to time to add a new reading here or another activity there. But without careful scrutiny of workload requirements, over time our courses may start to demand much more of our students than when they were originally designed. Therefore, it is important every once in a while to step back and reflect on our courses in order to prioritize the most critical aspects of students’ learning. In this process, faculty review their course content in order to distinguish between “must know,” “need to know,” and “nice to know” categories.

These categories are defined below:

• “Must know” content includes prerequisite ideas. These are the objectives that are absolutely necessary for achieving course learning goals.
• “Need to know” content is less critical at the moment, but still necessary for students to know, in order to draw from later. These are less imperative knowledge and skills that may be de-emphasized without placing the learner in immediate jeopardy.
• “Nice to know” content can be put off without jeopardizing baseline knowledge. This is usually information that adds breadth or interest to a subject or a skill.

Instructional strategies should focus on “must know” and “need to know” knowledge. Faculty struggling to remove “nice to know” materials from their courses may consider creating non-required additional resources to provide to students in their Blackboard course.

Revise Course Assessments

The shortened time frame of courses creates a logistical issue for planning, implementing, and evaluating student work—not to mention providing timely feedback. Courses which only utilize high-stakes assessments may not have enough time to prepare students for an exam or provide them important feedback on their learning. One recommendation for these courses is to break-up high-stake exams into shorter, more frequent cumulative quizzes.

On the other hand, in courses which do not give exams, explaining and delivering several unrelated assignments can be hard to do in a short timeframe. Here, the use of one bigger project that is broken down into smaller pieces works well. Focusing on four or five distinct assessments in a condensed course can feel very rushed and fragmented for students. One larger assessment that is broken down into stages is more manageable for students. For example, instead of assigning students Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3, and Paper 4, you might assign Project Milestone 1, Project Milestone 2, Project Milestone 3, Project Milestone 4. Revisions of this work could be assigned to students as a Final Project.

Use Synchronous Class Time More Efficiently

In Teaching Naked, José Bowen makes the case that educational technology is better utilized outside of class as opposed to inside of class. These days, most of us have no choice but to use technology to facilitate synchronous class meetings; however, his advice is still valuable regarding how we might use asynchronous technology in order to make sure that we are maximizing the shortened synchronous time we have with our students.

A simple way to do this is to increase use of communication tools such as Blackboard announcements, Microsoft Teams, or even email to make quick announcements such as changing the date on an assignment or switching out a reading. These same tools or weekly folders in Blackboard can also be used to share class handouts, review learning goals, provide assignment or activity instructions, or even a class agenda. Completing these tasks during a synchronous class is time consuming and ineffective.

Another common suggestion for best utilizing synchronous class meetings is to move toward a flipped or semi-flipped learning model. In a flipped classroom, students’ gain first exposure to new material outside of class, usually via reading or lecture videos, and then use synchronous class time to do the harder work of assimilating that knowledge through problem-solving, discussion, or debates. In order to help students learn from these materials asynchronously, typical recommendations include embedding videos with quiz questions, assigning students to submit notes, or complete a muddiest point paper after watching the video. This work would count towards some of the required hours that students must work out of class. Although faculty are often skeptical about how much content can be “covered” using this model, some suggest that when this model is optimized, students can master skills and concepts more quickly than in traditional lecture courses.