Incorporating Bloom's Revised Taxonomy into a Syllabus

Many higher education institutions recommend that instructors use Bloom's Revised Taxonomy when creating a syllabus. Here are a few examples: Chicago State University, Duquense University, University of Illinois - Champaign-Urbana, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina - Greensboro and University of West Florida.

Incorporating Bloom's Revised into a syllabus is very easy with the open source syllabus authoring tool Salsa. Action verbs grouped by Bloom's Revised are built into the product:

Instructors can select a level of Bloom's:

And when they click on the verb, it is added to the text editor:

What are your thoughts on Bloom's Revised in the syllabus?

Salsa tool helps create effective Learning Outcomes

OER Salsa: an open source syllabus builder

Thanks to Geoff Cain for featuring Salsa on his blog Brainstorm in Progress!

opensource.com article on Salsa

Salsa: an open source syllabus creator for educators

Thanks to the folks at opensource.com for an awesome write-up!

Salsa is up and running!

We'll be launching version 1.0 of Salsa shortly, but in the meantime, the open-source application is up and running.

Follow Salsa on Twitter: Follow @Salsa4HE

What are SALSAs?

SALSAs are styled & accessible learning service agreements for contemporary higher-education students, particularly those participating in some form of asynchronous learning delivered online.

SALSAs are:

• accessible to all students regardless of physical or sensory impairment
• styled to provide clarity and consistency
• organized into six parts: information, outcomes, resources, activities, policies and grades

The Center for Innovative Design & Instruction at Utah State University is developing an open-source, web application named Salsa. Building on the design of the PDF Syllabus Builder, this authoring tool generates online documents in PDF and HTML format.

Merrill's First Principles of Instruction

If you're not familiar with David Merrill's First Principles of Instruction, I suggest that you check out this classic post from Dr. Joel Gardner. In this post you will find links to two great research articles on applying the First Principles of Instruction.

Joel has been involved with teaching and learning for over a decade, and is currently Program Chair of the Instructional Design and Performance Technology Program at Franklin University. I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Gardner at the Faculty Assistance Center for Teaching (FACT) for a few years, and he co-authored the original article on the OAR model with Tae Jeon and myself.

The Next Version of 8MP

Based on a few conversations with Subject Matter Experts, here is my update visual model for the eight  mathematical practices from the Common Core State Standards:

Mathematical Practices for Common Core State Standards

This is 8MP. It's my first version of a visual model to represent the 8 Mathematical Practices for Common Core State Standards.

Audio Feedback in Online Courses

Providing verbal feedback to students is a great way to overcome the time/space gap inherent in online learning. Feedback that is frequent and personalized (to a degree tailored to the class size), has consistently proven to be an important component of many of the most successful online courses that I have reviewed.

Our institution uses the Canvas Learning Management System, and I encourage instructors to use the built-in audio recording tool for feedback. If your LMS does not have a built-in component, the open-source software program Audacity is very easy to use--and free :)

I think that hearing the instructor's voice creates an opportunity for a student to feel a deeper connection. It is also an efficient way to share feelings--curiosity, concern, empathy, etc.--that are difficult to represent in text. If you haven't used audio feedback in your online course designs, pilot it on a small scale, and see if you like the results.

Effective Instructional Explanations

Thanks to Dyeseka at Open Colleges for sending me Customized Instruction: Four Charateristics of Effective Instructional Explanations by Saga Briggs.  Good stuff!

PDF Syllabus Builder is Need-to-Know News

Thanks to Debbie Morrison at the online learning insights blog for featuring the PDF Syllabus Builder in today's post: Need-to-Know News: The Making of a MOOC, College Scorecard and Syllabus Builder Tool.

Tools and Resources for the Flipped Classroom

Julie Schell at the Turn to Your Neighbor (TTYN) blog has shared a great Annotated List of Flipped Class Tools and Resources featuring rising stars like Educreations, NB, PeerWise and the PDF Syllabus Builder :) Thanks Julie!

Beta version of the PDF Content Blueprinting Tool

Today the beta version of the PDF Content Blueprinting Tool was finished. Academic Partnerships has developed the tool as part of its Faculty eCommons, a social learning community for faculty that will be available soon.

The official release of the tool will take place at an upcoming Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) conference.