General thoughts about the new web design certificate
james....@tafensw.edu.au
certificate course outline. We are now trying to figure out how to
implement it. There is a suggested clustering of modules included with
the course outline.
Currently we deliver subjects using the following clusters:
Design
HTML/Tools
User Focus
Scripting
Client Requirements
Multimedia
These will probably need to change to reflect a shift in the module
focus. The course in general seems to have lost a little bit of
substance, and there are things that I think need to be delivered that
aren't really addressed.
One idea was to deliver using a series of case studies/major project.
Michael, I know that you have done this in the past at Blue Mountains.
Do you feel it is worthwhile?
Anyone got any thoughts on the new course or how they plan to deliver?
Michael Nelson
I've certainly found it worthwhile to base the student learning around simulated and real client projects (and as many as possible). The biggest benefit is that students complete the course with a portfolio of 2 or 3 real clients - and the confidence to continue new projects with new clients. One of our struggles has been how to do this while still ensuring that everything is "covered" :)
But here in the mountains, our biggest issue is the variety of student needs (and this will continue with the new course) - some students have little background knowledge, others have lots, some can come fulltime, others have a business to run and can only make certain days/times. Do other peopele struggle with this? Or is it just specific to our situation here in the mountains?
Our solution has been to allow people to work through the course at their own pace - and wherever possible, basing their learning and assessment around real client projects.
What we're currently doing to support flexible learning with real client projects
When people start, the first project is a simulated one based on Sarahs Notecards from Castro's Creating a Web Page with HTML (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=032127847X/ ), just because it's a really simple and visual intro to HTML/CSS the right way. We also simulate an interview with Sarah for this project, and do some very minimal documentation.
While students are working through this (for some it takes a week, for others a few hours), we start organising individual learning agreements (See the attached Example Learning agreement). These give students individual deadlines to work towards which we've found really important when offering a self-paced program.
Learning agreements are usually made up from available online resources, but students seem to mostly enjoy practical challenges that they can directly apply to their work, so we've contributed to the following resources:
- Javascript Challenges - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_Design/JavaScript:JavaScript_Challenges
- CSS Challenges -
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_Design/CSS_Challenges
- XML Challenges -
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_Design/XML_Challenges
- PHP Challenges - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_Design/Dynamic_Websites/PHP_Challenges
To speed up the process of creating individual learning agreements, I'm trying to create a template for Learning Agreement levels, but it's still under construction (see http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Web_Design/New_Structure)
The progression/cycle of mini-projects
Once students finish their first mini-project, we try to have a second project "Sarah's Notecards Redesign", which involves another simulated interview, and technically, involves some more complicated CSS layout etc. From there we encourage students to do a real client project for a family member or someone they know (who'll be forgiving), and gradually remove the scaffolding and using real clients (that the students find themselves... there seems to be no shortage up here). Gradually, more IA, documentation, usability, accessibility etc is introduced and applied to projects.
Gathering evidence for assessment
Once the students are well underway building their portfolio of skills and sites (eg, see http://rob.learningwebdesign.net/ or http://adrienne.learningwebdesign.net/), we can begin collecting (and documenting) evidence that demonstrates their competence. To do so, we use " Evidence Sheets", which are basically the units of competency along with some credit/distinction criteria where required. The important thing about the evidence sheets is that they allow a number of different projects, events or contexts for assessment to be used against the one competency. (See the attached Example Evidence Sheet).
Hope that helps! What experiences, struggles and successess have others had?
-Michael
Shaggy
resources, there's some great stuff here. For the design challenges you
could do worse than look through the article:
http://www.ontoinfo.com/2006/09/13/current-trends-in-web-design/ and
challenge students to re-create one or more of the 'trends' for
themselves.
Gollan, James
Hey Michael,
Thanks for that incredibly detailed account of your processes.
As far as flexible delivery is concerned you are definitely not the only college that had to address a whole range of student abilities. At Ultimo we have a similar situation, with some students never having touched HTML, other students having built ecommerce sites. Our current approach doesn’t take into account the varying student needs to the extent that your learning contracts do.
My biggest question with learning contracts is how do you structure skills delivery when each student is encountering problems at a different stage in the semester? I can see how the online skills tests can provide a lot of guidance, but there are some concepts or topics that really benefit from being delivered in a classroom environment.
I really like the idea of making the entire course project based, and in the past have considered the use of practice firms. The feedback I get from those who have gone down this path is that they are a mixed bag.
As for the current course, we do a major project for a real client, but as you said it is difficult to ensure that all competencies will be met in one project (not to mention that is undesirable to force everything into a project that doesn’t need it) so we tend to assess other competencies in more traditional ways.
The other thing about learning contracts/project based delivery involves the coordination of teaching. How many teachers are involved in the course that you deliver, and how tight does the delivery integration need to be?
Thanks again for sharing – implementing new courses is always difficult but exciting.
James
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Michael Nelson
I'll answer in context below.
Thanks for that incredibly detailed account of your processes.
As far as flexible delivery is concerned you are definitely not the only college that had to address a whole range of student abilities. At Ultimo we have a similar situation, with some students never having touched HTML, other students having built ecommerce sites. Our current approach doesn't take into account the varying student needs to the extent that your learning contracts do.
What approaches do you (and others) use to cope with the variety of students? I'd be keen to find out different approaches so I can pick the raisins!
My biggest question with learning contracts is how do you structure skills delivery when each student is encountering problems at a different stage in the semester? I can see how the online skills tests can provide a lot of guidance, but there are some concepts or topics that really benefit from being delivered in a classroom environment.
Generally we've found that students work in groups naturally... when we're in the lab, I'm regularly saying things like "OK, can I get everyone who's currently learning PHP over here for 10 minutes" - and we'll either sit at a computer or go into a call-off room for a longer group activity. Because learning together as a social group is _SO_ important, we also try to come together regularly as a whole group to discuss things that are relevant to all (like the impact of IE7's release, or other news items generally from our blogroll of professional developers).
Basically, whereever possible, I prefer group activities over individual activities (like your IA activity James!). Encouraging the students to learn together and help each other helps when individuals are learning at different paces, but that being said, I do feel like I'm often running the same activity, or teaching the same thing to different people.
I really like the idea of making the entire course project based, and in the past have considered the use of practice firms. The feedback I get from those who have gone down this path is that they are a mixed bag.
It would be great to have a few made-up firms with projects and specs... perhaps that's something we could collaboratively develop? I don't reckon everything can be project based - some skills need focused time to learn (programming, JS, PHP - hence the different Challenges that we're using), but projects are still great these areas to apply the skills once a learner is up and running.
I'd be interested to know the pros and cons others who have gone down the project-based course have found (if you've got time)?
As for the current course, we do a major project for a real client, but as you said it is difficult to ensure that all competencies will be met in one project (not to mention that is undesirable to force everything into a project that doesn't need it) so we tend to assess other competencies in more traditional ways.
The other thing about learning contracts/project based delivery involves the coordination of teaching. How many teachers are involved in the course that you deliver, and how tight does the delivery integration need to be?
This is hard. We've got three facilitators (me for technical/programming, Genie Melone for communications component, and Jude Cooke for Multimedia/Design). Genie and I are able to integrate lots of things (and are both present for the weekly team meeting), but Jude's quite busy atm. We're all trying to contribute to the learning agreements, but it's a bit hard (especially when it's in a word document - considering using BaseCamp for this...)
Most of my time in class is spent (1) coaching (2) updating learning agreements (3) adding evidence to the evidence sheets with students. But I think we three each do different things in class (I know Genie spends a lot of her time being interviewed by students for different projects).
Hope that helps. I'm aware that I'm only talking here about the things that are working - there's lots of problems too. For example, I think running the course this way makes it incredibly frustrating (for me and some students) where students "just want to pass" or "just do the assessment". Other issues are the creation of fun challenges etc - huge task initially... still a long way to go.
Generally though, students really appreciate being able to move at a pace that suits them (at both ends of the spectrum), as well as the opportunity to participate in real projects with the support of a class (and facilitators).
Cheers,
Michael
Thanks again for sharing – implementing new courses is always difficult but exciting.
James
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Michael Nelson
http://liveandletlearn.net/