Good Quality criteria and requirements in course design
A vital element of the course design process is that you should prepare up-to-date quality criteria you want or must achieve in your new course design.
In other words, what qualities must be achieved so that you, your colleagues, teachers, students, and management will be satisfied with your design?
According to Wasson and Kirschner (2020), the expert learning designer (or teacher designer) should create effective, efficient, enjoyable learning activities.
- Effective: The learning goals are achieved. The students had good results on the tests;
- Efficient: Optimal time and energy spent on the necessary learning activities.
- Valued: The learners found their learning time and activity worthwhile. The students participate in group activities, follow the lectures and study the subject matter properly;
- Well-liked: The learning experience has been enjoyed and motivated the learner more;
- Feasible: The students, teachers, and the program management can successfully manage the blended course. The teacher has the necessary teaching skills, the organisation arranges the education spaces properly, and the students have the required learning skills.
The quality criteria can be divided into needed or wished qualities. Needed means that the quality criteria cannot be changed (number of study hours, availability of IT, etc.). These qualities can be compared with requirements.
Wished means that a specific quality criterion can be adapted within certain margins.
(from the course Delft Design Approach, DDA691x.
- The IT activities should form a blend of F2F and self-study activities. This blend should be effective, efficient, liked, valued and feasible for you and the students;
- The elements of the diamond diagram support each other, which can be compared with the idea of constructive alignment;
- The course considers the starting level you expect from your students because of the preceding courses. Your course is expected to prepare the students for the following courses;
- Check if you support the formulated competencies mastered sequentially in the curriculum;
- You have to keep in mind that students study in different ways. Some flexibility in the course structure is necessary;
- Have you implemented your pedagogical concepts consistently?
- Do you meet your quality criteria (hard: non-adjustable qualities or requirements; soft: adaptable qualities)?
- If you want to use new learning activities and materials in your route map, you should take time to design and practice them. You need extra time to develop teaching and learning situations and materials that are new to you;
- You can consider organising pilot experiments with your new course components and how you and the students experience the newly designed education. Carefully evaluate to improve your course and what you are teaching;
- Still, it is always possible that you need additional information, which must be incorporated into the various design results;
- Take a moment to check whether the pedagogical design and the diamond diagram still match your design results. It is often helpful to summarise your decisions and considerations in a document. This document can be used to explain your design to your colleagues and management; it can be used to prepare the accreditation papers, etc.;
- The final quality of a design depends on the students and teachers willing to use the product in the way you have envisioned the designed product. In educational terms, the final course design result must be that the students follow the lectures, study the literature, complete the assignments and have adequate test results. The involved teachers should agree on their teaching duties.
Some examples::
- Classrooms and necessary audio-visual IT- equipment;
- IT infrastructure, availability of computers for students and teachers;
- Availability of learning materials (hardcopy, virtual);
- Pedagogical principles formulated by your institute;
- Do-ability activities for students and teachers, individual study and learning in small and large groups;
- Expectations from the professional field.
- Organisational matters (support for teachers and students on using it, time for teachers to redesign);
- Possibilities to meet other teachers’ concerns to discuss concerns and options.
There are two types of requirements. Compulsory requirements of your organisation or government and requirements you have formulated for your redesigned course.
During the design process, you select the essential requirements for successfully implementing the new course program. Then, clarify the requirements: Define their meaning and the implications for your course.
Meanwhile, the list of requirements must be continuously updated throughout the design process. Consult with management and peers about how you will integrate the requirements into the curriculum. If this is not feasible, consider alternatives.
In the meantime, find also a good moment to assess your institute’s IT infrastructure capabilities. Teachers and IT technicians should work together to optimise the IT technical environments because the pedagogical possibilities and costs of ITedu tools develop over time. Also, during the implementation period, the teachers and IT technicians may discover new opportunities for using IT in their education.
All kinds of problems will arise when using the IT technical environment. These problems must be solved without delay. Teachers will need ad hoc practical advice about using ITedu tools.
Teachers often opt for the incorrect solution tooily, overlooking certain qualities. This approach to problem is overly simplistic; a more effective strategy would be to explore whether a different, more innovative solution is available.
(1) Does your design still meet the qualities you formulated? What should you adjust: the design or your quality criteria? and
(2) Can you make the formulation of the quality criteria more concrete and applicable?
The relevant evaluation activities in the 8-stage course design and development process are
- Start with the Evaluation of your current course. You may have an evaluation report. Ask your colleagues for feedback about their experiences as teachers in this course.
- Evaluate the route map: Does it reflect the diamond diagram, pedagogical concept, quality criteria and requirements?
- Evaluate the blueprint: Does it reflect the diamond diagram, the pedagogical concept, the route map and the qualities?
- Organise pilot projects and small tryouts.
- Prepare an evaluation plan for implementing the redesigned course in the formal curriculum.
