Transform Your Teaching

Rob McDole and Jared Pyles start a new series on active learning and active learning spaces. They begin by setting a foundation by defining key terms (or at least attempting to) and previewing what’s coming up in the series.

Transform Your Teaching is launching a monthly newsletter in August where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our August issue!

Connect with us!

• Join us on Flip to discuss this series!
• Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.
• You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Resources
Uncommon Sense Teaching - Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Beth Rogowsky & Dr. Terrence J. Sejnowski

What should be done when you build a rubric?  How can you start building better rubrics? Rob McDole and Jared Pyles start a mini-series to discuss ways to build better educational staples. 

What is a servant teacher? How does someone practice servant teaching? Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with two professors at Cedarville University—Dr. Jeff Guernsey who teaches in the School of Business and Dr. Kyung-Hwa (Christine) Kim who teaches in the History and Government Department—about their professional development through multiple sessions on servant teaching.

Transform Your Teaching is launching a monthly newsletter in August where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our August issue!

Resources

Servant Teaching: Listening and Learning - Dr. Haisong Ye

Servant Teaching: Practices for Renewing Christian Higher Education - Dr. Quentin Schultze

Connect with us!

• Join us on Flip to discuss our last series on Competency-Based Education!
• Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.
• You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

What does it take to get rid of the crazy things that Jared and Rob say? In this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Ryan Liming chat with Jacob Lashuay, podcast editor.

Transform Your Teaching is launching a monthly newsletter in August where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our August issue!

Connect with us!

• Join us on Flip to discuss our last series on Competency-Based Education!
• Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.
• Visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

What did Rob and Jared learn about Competency-Based Education? Is Jared fully on board with it? What questions remain? Listen to hear their lessons learned as they wrap up the series.

Transform Your Teaching is launching a monthly newsletter in August where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our August issue!

Resources 

Acton Academy

Connect with us!

• Join us on Flip to discuss this series! 
• Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. 
• Visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

What impact is competency-based education currently having in the pharmacy education world? Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with Dr. Aleda Chen—Associate Dean and Professor in the School of Pharmacy at Cedarville University—about the possibilities of CBE curriculum in training future pharmacists.

Resources

Join us on Flip to discuss this series!

Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.

You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

What does Competency-Based Education look like in theological education? What does CBE look like in a hybrid format? What are some of the ground-floor decisions that need to be made when starting a CBE program? Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles cover this and more with Dr. David Croteau, the Dean of the Seminary and School of Counseling at Columbia International University, as they talk about the origins of CIU’s Competency-Based Theological Education program.

Resources 

Join us on Flip to discuss this series! 

Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. 

You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Genny McDole who has an MEd in Instructional Design from Western Governors University. She gives a student perspective on competency-based education and shares how CBE has influenced her teaching practice.

Join us on Flip with all your questions and reflections on the topics we cover. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Genny was drawn to CBE courses because of the flexibility it provided. During that season of her life, she needed a flexible option that fit their family, could be done quickly, and would fit within their budget. CBE allowed her to take as many courses as she wanted, access all the resources she needed, and show mastery of assignments at her own pace – unlike her experience in traditional education in undergrad.

Even though she was able to move at her own pace through the course, Genny noticed that she received feedback very quickly – sometimes within a few hours of turning in an assignment. Her coursework contained a lot of papers and research, and the feedback was detailed, filled with suggestions on how to improve and look at the content differently.  In addition to the quick feedback, she noticed specifically the quality of the rubrics because they were clear, easy to understand, and provided her with exactly what she needed to help her demonstrate mastery.

Having experienced both traditional educational models and CBE, Genny suggests that the approach to education needs to be student-oriented and able to meet students where they are. It may involve a shift away from traditional models to something more supportive of student needs, like CBE.

In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Nate Brock, Lead Evaluator in the Science Education Department at Western Governors University. They discuss WGU’s approach to Competency-Based Education and the key features that make WGU’s programs distinct.

Join us on Flip with all your questions and reflections on the topics we cover. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Western Governors University is a fully competency-based institution that designs their courses with a student-centered mindset. If a student can complete a course in a shorter amount of time, that benefits the student as they progress through the degree. This competency-based approach enables a student to progress at their own rate while ensuring they have mastered the course's competencies.

 In order to evaluate if students are meeting competencies, WGU uses two types of assessments that are both evaluated based on rubrics. For some students, they are able to meet the competencies quickly. This is quite a shift from other higher ed institutions, but he extends a helpful reminder that the instructor's mindset for CBE needs to be different than for more traditional educational models. Homework: Follow backward design and consider how competency-based education can help students gain mastery of a portion of your course.

Resources

WGU’s Guide for Implementing a CBE Program

Nate recently posted more thoughts on CBE on our Flip. Discuss this series with him!

In this episode, Rob and Jared continue talking about Competency-Based Education, specifically what the design process looks like in developing a CBE course. They discuss the different considerations instructors need to consider when creating a CBE course and how that affects design.

Join us on Flip with all your questions and reflections on the topics we cover. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Designing a Competency-Based Education (CBE) course is similar to designing a traditional course. The goal is still to design with the end in mind—paying close attention to the course objectives and module objectives, how the assessments give students the opportunity to show mastery of the objectives, and the course content that prepares them for those assessments. The difference, however, lies in how an instructor creates the modules within the course. The course design is based on content rather than on time.

Another difference is that CBE curriculum is not as concerned about the prior knowledge of students as traditional curriculum is. Instead, CBE curriculum focuses on identifying the learner's knowledge when they begin the course (through a pretest or placement exam) and providing resources to help them at their level of understanding. This does require more work at the beginning because the instructor must consider the kinds of resources necessary to meet the needs of all learners.

Because CBE curriculum aims at mastery of content, the assessments rely on key performance indicators.  CBE courses could be designed so that assessments and content unlock for students once they demonstrate mastery of existing content and assessments to allow for a structured, learning path.

Challenges: An implicit desire to fit things into a time-bound system.

Homework: Take one module of a course and redesign it in a CBE format. Use technology to lock materials until the student shows mastery of previous content.

Resources

How to Write Learning Objectives – Dr. Haisong Ye

Back to the Basics - Objectives

Join us on Flip to discuss this series!