Peer Review

Designing and Evaluating Curriculum

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Reviewed:: Jan 26, 2018 by Teacher Education

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Overview:: This online course was created as part of a series of education courses by Rick Lumadue, Assistant Professor at Texas A & M for his EDU students. He then shared the course in it’s entirety for remix or reuse via Creative Commons licensing. Both overall and daily course goals and objectives are included and cover topics involving creating learning outcomes and assessments. A link to the free ebook that includes these topics is provided. The course itself is a template for an online course and includes seven days of learning activities and the schedule for the activities, rubrics for the overall course grading and for individual activities, and narrated video lectures. The course provides teachers with knowledge and skills needed for designing, developing, and evaluating curricula. You must download the iBook is which available for free from the iTunes bookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/building-blocks-effective/id675028269?mt=11" target="_blank
Type of Material:: Online Course or course template
Recommended Uses:: This online course can be implemented as is for users of the Moodle learning management system or could easily be modified for another LMS as it is shared under the Creative Commons license “Share Alike”. Teachers who want to create an online, hybrid or web-enhanced course of their own, could take the course on their own and tweak the materials provided to suit their purposes.
Technical Requirements:: The website is created with the MERLOT Content Builder so it functions well within all major browsers. A flash player plug-in is required in order to view the videos. To view the book, individuals must have an iPad with iBooks 2 or later and iOS 5 or later, or an iPhone with iOS 8.4 or later, or a Mac with OS X 10.9 or later.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: • Teachers will be able to create syllabi through a step-by-step process using a scaffolding instructional method • Teachers will improve online courses by gaining skills needed for designing, developing, and evaluating curricula by intentionally designing their syllabus • Teachers will enhance their online courses
Target Student Population:: Higher Education teachers; Pre-service K-12 Teacher Education students, Graduate Students
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Basic computer skills would be helpful plus the user would be involved in education in some way.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: • Has application to instructors who teach online • Instructional step-by-step videos are engaging and easy to follow along • Is a step-by-step process that helps instructors create their online syllabus by working in individual modules rather than being overwhelmed with a large amount of information The videos allow the student the opportunity to replay lecture material over when necessary in order to understand the information provided.
Concerns:: If another teacher wants to use the course videos they would have to provide a transcript for the content in order for their course to be ADA compliant. The course is not supported by research.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: • Learning objectives for each module are apparent • Teachers have the ability to stop and start each module which will increase their flexibility in learning • This iBook is time efficient; a lot can be learned in a short amount of time – Rick Lumadue’s videos were informative and easy to listen to
Concerns:: • No prerequisite knowledge is needed for this iBook; however, it might be helpful to state that “no prior knowledge of syllabi creation is needed before reading this iBook”.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: The site is very easy to navigate and navigation is consistent throughout the course. There were no errors in the video.
Concerns:: • The app is used strictly with Apple products. This app does not work on Microsoft or other Android products which may limit users.

Other Issues and Comments:: Although the companion eBook is provided free, this course requires the purchase of a McGraw-Hill eBook that is not free.
Creative Commons: