Assignments for EDEC 575 / COMP 598
Over the course of EDEC 575 / COMP 598,
you will be asked to design, justify, and reflect upon a variety of
different teaching artifacts used for teaching CS/CT to an audience
of your choice. The different assignments build upon each other, so
that you can get feedback on earlier stages before you begin later
stages.
Assignment 1: Course Outline Design (In Groups)
Due: Start of class, Sept 18
Hand in: three documents (course outline, justification
document, marking scheme), the group submits four identical hard
copies (to be used for peer feedback)
Worth: 5% of final grade
Goal of the assignment: to design and justify a course
outline for a CS or CS-adjacent course, which is both realistic and
useful for its intended audience
In our Sept 11 class we will assemble into groups to design a course
outline. The outline should be for a class on computer science,
computational thinking, or contain a substantial CS/CT element. The
members of the group will act as co-instructors of the fictional
course.
The course outline should be designed to be offered in a particular
institution (for university/college/CEGEP) or a particular school
district (for primary/secondary), and aligned with the policies of
that institution/district. No two groups may use the same
institution or school district.
Along with the course outline your group will also hand in a 1-3
page document containing:
- an explicit statement of who the intended audience is for the
course outline (students? parents? etc)
- description and justification of how you designed your course
outline
- why your course outline has internal legitimacy (i.e.
alignment with institutional/district policies)
- why your course outline has external legitimacy (e.g.
alignment with accreditation standards, alignment with mandated
curricula)
- how your design process relates to at least two of the four
readings we have had as of Sept 11
- how your group worked together as a team
- what you learnt from the exercise and how you would do things
differently if you could do it again
The third and final artifact to hand in is a marking rubric for your
course outline and the justification document. Your marking rubric
should add up to 100 points, with the following constraints:
- 25 points for the course outline, which should include points
for
- usefulness to intended audience
- 65 points for the justification document, which should include
points for
- the seven elements listed above
- clarity of writing
- 10 points for the quality of your marking scheme, with:
- 5 points for the clarity of the marking scheme, and
- 5 points for how well the marking scheme aligns with the
goal of the assignment.
Note: If you miss the Sept 11 class, you should complete
this activity solo, or with other students who were absent that day.
I recommend using Piazza to find other students to work with.
Assignment 2: Learning Goal Selection (In
Groups)
Due: Start of class, Sept 25
Hand in: as hard copy, 4 identical copies: your group's
learning goals, plan & justification, marking scheme
Worth: 5% of final grade
Goals: to identify PCK for your group's course, to select
& coordinate what each member of your group will teach their
demonstration lesson on
In the last assignment, we created groups formed each formed around
a CS(-ish) course that they designed a course outline for. For the
rest of term, your assignments will be based on that imaginary
course. (Note: if you missed the Sept 11 class, you should
join one of the larger groups for the rest of term.)
Near the end of term, you will individually give a short (10 minute)
lesson intended to be an example lesson of your group's course, with
1-2 learning goals for the lesson. The purpose of this assignment is
for you to identify which learning goal(s) your lesson will have, so
that there is synergy with the other members of your group.
Your choice of learning goals should reflect pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK) about the material. For example, a lesson might
target a common misconception, or target a topic that isn't
obviously hard to students but is surprisingly difficult for them. I
highly encourage you to talk to at least one person who has taught a
course like the one your group is working on. I also highly
encourage you to search the literature for any PCK research on your
chosen content.
You are to submit as a group a 1-3 page document containing:
- A list of the learning goals you collectively will cover in
your individual lessons
- The order your lessons will appear in
- A justification for why you collectively chose the learning
goals and ordering that you did, including evidence for your
justification (e.g. consulting educators, academic literature)
- What you learnt from this exercise and how you would do it
differently if you could do it again
And with the document you should also submit a marking scheme for
the document. You have the choice of grades being individual,
collective, or a mix of the two. Your marking rubric should add up
to 100 points, with the following constraints:
- The four elements listed above should represented in the
marking scheme
- There should be marks for demonstrating pedagogical content
knowledge
- There should be marks for the evidence for their
justification, such as through describing talking to experienced
educators or a literature search
- There should be marks for clarity of writing
- 10 points for the quality of your marking scheme, with:
- 5 points for the clarity of the marking scheme, and
- 5 points for how well the marking scheme aligns with the
goals of the assignment.
Assignment 3: Lesson Plan
Due: Start of class, Oct 2
Hand in: as hard copy, 4 copies
Worth: 5% of final grade
Goals: to design and justify a lesson plan
In the previous assignment you identified a topic for you to teach a
10 minute lesson on. In this assignment, your goal is to draft a
lesson plan for your lesson.
You are to submit:
- A lesson plan.
- A 1-3 page justification for your lesson plan. Why did you
plan the lesson the way you did? What are the trade-offs of your
decisions? You should relate your justifications to the readings
where appropriate.
- A marking rubric for your lesson plan.
Your marking rubric should add up to 100, with the following
constraints:
- There should be marks for clarity of writing
- There should be marks for the goal(s) of your lesson being
evident
- There should be marks on whether your lesson plan is likely to
achieve your goal(s)
- There should be marks on whether your lesson plan is
appropriate for a 10 minute lesson
- There should be marks for discussing the trade-offs of the
design decisions
- There should be marks for relating your work to the readings
- 15 points for the quality of your marking scheme, with:
- 5 points for the clarity of the marking scheme, and
- 5 points for how well the marking scheme aligns with the
goals of the assignment.
- 5 points for how consistently people will grade using your
marking scheme (will be determined by Elizabeth by looking at
your peer feedback)
Assignment 4: Quiz (In Groups)
Due: Start of class, Oct 16 Oct 23
Hand in: as hard copy, four copies
Worth: 7% of final grade (5% individual, 2% group)
Goals: to write a quiz question to assess student
understanding of your demonstration lesson, to practice
(semi-)collaborative quiz-writing
In Assignment 3, you developed a lesson plan for your demonstration
lesson. In this assignment, you will develop a quiz that you and
your group will administer to the class immediately after you and
your group members perform your demonstration lessons. The amount of
time allocated to the quiz will be 5 minutes per group member.
Each member of your group will independently write one quiz question
and a marking scheme for your quiz question. Your quiz question may
have multiple sub-questions. Your quiz question should be doable by
a typical student in five minutes, and assess what you taught in
your lesson. The marking scheme for your quiz question should be
markable in under 2 minutes by a typical grader assessing a typical
student.
Then, as a group you will merge your quiz questions into one quiz
document, and the marking schemes into one quiz marking scheme
document. As a group you should think over the order of questions.
The quiz document should be formatted according to the protocols and
norms of the institution in which your demonstration lesson is set.
For example, some places will expect a cover page on a quiz, and may
require that certain text be on the cover page.
As a group you will hand in:
- The quiz packet
- The quiz marking scheme packet
- A justification document which contains:
- A clear mapping of which group member is responsible for
which quiz question
- Each group member's individual justification for their quiz
question & quiz marking scheme
- The group's justification for the ordering of quiz questions
and formatting of the entire document & marking scheme for
this assignment
- A marking scheme for this assignment (note: each member will
receive a different grade, but the same marking scheme will be
used for all group members)
As you will be deploying your quiz when you give your demonstration
lesson, this assignment gives you a chance to get feedback on your
quiz and revise it before you administer the quiz.
Your marking rubric should add up to 70, with the following
constraints:
- 20 points for the group portions of the assignment
- there should be points for the quality of your marking
scheme, with:
- points for the clarity of the marking scheme, and
- points for how well the marking scheme aligns with the
goals of the assignment.
- points for how consistently people will grade using your
marking scheme (will be determined by Elizabeth by looking
at your peer feedback)
- there should be points for how well the quiz has been put
together
- there should be points for the justification for how the
quiz was put together
- 50 points for the individual portions of the assignment
- there should be points for the usuals: clarity of writing,
justification of design decisions, consideration of
trade-offs, relating work to the readings, individual marking
scheme's clarity
- there should be points for the likelihood that you will
reliably assess what you want to assess
- there should be points for the likelihood that you will
validly assess what you want to assess
- there should be points for the likelihood that a student
will complete the question in the allotted time
- there should be points for the likelihood that a grader will
mark the question in the allotted time
Assignment 5: Lesson
Due: Nov 6 or 13 depending on group
Hand in: 15 copies of your group's quiz packet
Worth: 15% of final grade
Goals: to teach a short lesson
You and your group will have five minutes to introduce what your
group is doing and what background/context the class should know for
your group's lessons. During this time, or beforehand, you should
each write your learning goals on one of the whiteboards in the
room.
You'll then have 10 minutes each to teach your demonstration lesson.
The lesson will be videotaped for you and Elizabeth to review
afterwards.
After everybody in your group presents, you'll administer a quiz to
the class on your lessons.
Your peers will give you feedback on your lesson: what went well,
and what could be improved.
You'll be marked by Elizabeth out of 100 on:
- Pre-lesson
- 5 pts - Did your group contextualize the lessons?
- 5 pts - Is your learning goal(s) written somewhere the whole
class can see?
- Lesson (80 pts)
- 10 pts - Organization
- 10 pts - Clarity of materials and communication
- 10 pts - Accessibility of lesson
- 10 pts - Students are engaged
- 10 pts - Awareness of students
- 10 pts - Interactivity with class
- 10 pts - Demonstration of pedagogical content knowledge
- 10 pts - Did you achieve your stated learning goal(s)?
- Quiz
- 5 pts - Invigilation skills: organization handing out of
quizzes, time warnings, collecting quizzes, etc.
- Peer feedback
- 5 pts - you gave quality feedback to other students
Assignment 6: Teaching Log
Due: start of class, the week after you teach your
mini-lesson
Hand in: one hard copy
Worth: 5% of final grade
Goals: to practice maintaining a teaching log
In assignment 5, you taught a 10 minute lesson, and then
co-administered a quiz to assess learning of your lesson. An
important practice in teaching is to keep a log of your teaching
activity: how did your lesson go? What would you do next time?
These logs are especially useful if you teach the same content
again, and are best written while the experience is fresh in your
head. Since Assignment 8 is to produce a report on your lesson
experience, I am asking you to submit a teaching log one week after
you teach your lesson, to ensure you write down your experience
while it is fresh in your mind. (Some example
teaching logs are on Piazza)
Your log entry will only be read by me (Elizabeth). It should
address:
- How did the lesson go in terms of content/curriculum?
- How did the lesson go in terms of pedagogy?
- How did you feel about it, personally?
- How are your students doing? Was there any student behaviour
of note?
- How did your lesson compare to your lesson plan?
- What, if any, changes would you make to lessons downstream?
- Any TODO items for yourself resulting from the lesson (e.g. a
student wants you to send them some information, website needs
updating)
- What would you change if you taught this lesson again?
Assignment 7: Marking
Due: end of class, Nov 20
Hand in: one hard copy
Worth: 3% of final grade
Goals: to practice marking, to practice managing a TA/grader,
to reflect upon the marking process
In assignment 5, you gave a quiz to the class. In this assignment we
will mark this quiz. This assignment will be completed entirely
during class time on Nov 20.
In your groups, you will pick a group-mate to be your grader for the
quiz question that you were responsible for in A5. You will then
manage them as they grade the quiz for you. After they finish
grading the quiz question for you, you will write a short reflection
about the experience: what you expected / didn't expect, what you
learnt, what you would do differently next time, etc.
At the same time, one of your group-mates will be doing the same to
you: you will be grading their quiz question. As you mark
their quiz question, you will annotate and amend their quiz marking
scheme, and then at the end write comments about your observations
and feedback for them.
You will hand in two items:
- Reflection/feedback as a grader
- Reflection as an instructor
Assignment 8: Lesson Report
Due: "Dec 4", but I within reason will give any and all
requests for extension (e.g. not due in the summer) - note that any
requests past the end of term will require a K contract
Hand in: one hard copy in my mailbox at the School
of Computer Science office in McConnell
Worth: 50% of final grade
Goals: to reflect upon all the prior assignments, to
synthesize the prior assignments, to evaluate your own teaching and
learning about teaching, to synthesize the readings and vocabulary
from this class with your assignments, to enumerate and assess your
design decisions
You are to submit a report about the teaching experience you
developed through this class, with the following sections:
- Introduction (max 2 pages, min 1 page)
- what were you trying to achieve in your lesson and why?
- who are you and how would who you are shape this document?
(e.g. your teaching experience, your social identities)
- what is your teaching philosophy?
- why does teaching CS/CT matter to you?
- Course context (max 1 page, min 1/2 page)
- what was the course that your lesson fell into?
- what context does the reader need to know about this course?
(can be written as a group or independently, as
desired)
- Lesson (max 2 pages, min 1 page)
- give a short summary of your lesson plan & motivations
for it, and then attach the lesson plan as Appendix A
- how the lesson went in practice
- Quiz (max 2 pages, min 1/2 page)
- give a short summary of your quiz question & motivations
for it, and then refer to appendices for the quiz question
(Appendix B) and its original marking scheme (Appendix C)
- how the quiz delivery went in practice
- Design Decisions (max 6 pages, min 3 pages)
- a table of design decisions that you made, with the format:
-
Design decision
|
Advantages
|
Disadvantages
|
Why you made this choice
|
Reflection of your choice
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Examples of rows would be design decisions in your lesson
and quiz. Examples would be decisions such as "use of
powerpoint", "use of lecture", "use of peer instruction",
"assigning group work", "having group roles",
"multiple-choice question", "short-answer question",
"additive marking scheme for quiz", "subtractive marking
scheme for quiz", "formative assessment", etc.
- There should be at least 30 rows. I am
looking to see that you can identify the design decisions
you made, however "obvious".
- Reflection (max 4 pages, min 2 pages)
- reflect on your experiences of envisioning a course, picking
a learning goal, teaching a lesson, assessing the lesson, and
managing a grader
- I'm looking for a reflection that is more general/"high
level" than what you did in the previous section, but is not
as "big picture" as what you do in the next section
- at what SOLO level(s) did you aim your lesson/quiz, and what
SOLO level(s) did your students demonstrate?
- what did you learn? what went to plan vs did not go to plan?
what would you do differently if you did it again?
- for each of these, consider:
- curriculum
- pedagogy
- assessment
- Discussion (max 4 pages, min 2 pages)
- if you were to do the whole thing over again from A1 to A8,
what would you do differently?
- how did your approach to curriculum compare to other
educators who teach the same content or in a similar context?
- how did your approach to pedagogy compare to other educators
who teach the same content or in a similar context?
- how did your approach to assessment compare to other
educators who teach the same content or in a similar context?
- had you done your lesson and assessment in its envisioned
real world context, who would benefit from it? who would not
benefit?
- how does the way that you taught a computer science topic
fit into the wider social and historical patterns of computer
science education?
- Conclusion (max 1 page, min 1/4 page)
- References
- Appendices
- lesson plan (sans justification document or marking scheme)
- quiz question (sans justification document or marking
scheme)
- quiz question's marking scheme (sans justification document
or meta-marking scheme)
Without appendices or references, your report should be 10-16
pages. Including references and appendices, your report should
be at most 20 pages. I will not read anything past 20
pages.
In your report, you should additionally:
- Explicitly use at least six of the concepts from our class glossary. (Edit Nov 27:
note that a "concept" here means one bullet point in the
glossary. E.g. "validity vs. reliability" is one concept.)
- Explicitly relate to at least eight of the readings
from this term. (Optional readings may be used!)
- Explicitly use relevant research literature not covered in our
course and/or refer to the experiences of educators who teach
relevant content/contexts.
Your template must have on each page the page number along with
the total number of pages, e.g. (2 / 15). The appendices should be
included in the page count and should have page numbers on them.