Deadlines are really really important, especially for the design industry. Meeting is deadlines a core skills that students need to develop. Maybe all projects could be due on say the third Friday of the month.

As I was reading your post I was wondering if there was away students could set the deadlines, and you have come up with that in your discussions with Genie !!!!

You might want to have a look http://www.ispi.org/pdf/Merrill.pdf

Robin

The idea is to use the ‘levels’ as templates for each individual learning agreement. So when a new student starts, we’ll create a learning agreement based on Level 1 (ie, set deadline at 7 working days, copy-n-paste the activities) then modify it where required before signing the agreement. People who are already half-way through the course will need to cut-n-paste a bit more liberally (and contribute a bit too!)

Hopefully this’ll allow us to learn at our own pace, still having deadlines and a structured pathway through the course – while at the sametime providing a sustainable way for us to evolve and improve the learning pathway together.

One of the other issues has been sticking to the contracts/agreements… so to help us with this, we’re thinking that Thursday mornings might be a good time to set aside to review our agreements individually.

It won’t be perfect, but it will allow us to keep improving the course incrementally without burning out! If you’re keen to have a look at the levels to get a better idea, take a look at the New Structure page of the Web Design wiki.

Anyway, I think it’s a great idea, I think with someone like myself who is struggling with javascript this would be perfect, for example when saving my work I would label what level that is, and each time I felt like I was forgetting what I had just learnt, I could always refer back to that level.

I think it saves a lot of problems, I know you and I have had a couple of discussions on how I can go back and accomplish things without forgetting it, and these levels would defintely be an answer to that not just for me, but for others who might be struggling.

Again sorry for the late reply, but better late then never… I was even losing track of what day it was, haha… needless to say at least I am enjoying the holidays… don’t worry I am doing TAFE work every 2nd – 3rd day if that makes you feel any better Michael!

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the break, see you soon.

…and thank you for your reflective comments on my post – I was airing some frustrations when I did so and almost took it down, but am glad now that I didn’t! :o)

Your earlier post was also enlightening and I’m thinking more on the notion of engaging people to see ‘what’s in it for them’ as you suggested.

I see your point (and also Kathy’s) that each step has its own value and yes, step 2 does need to be smaller – there is a need to perhaps have steps 1a, 1b, etc before getting to step 2! As always there are a lot of factors that impact the move of teachers towards more inclusive and communicative onlien learning and teaching approaches, which for some organisations is not something inherent within its culture. The culture comes first I think! We are very often caught on the bridge (and hoping the water doesn’t rise too much while we’re there!)…

BTW, who professionally develops the professional developers? ;oP …am putting together an article on this with some colleagues…

Cheers and I’d like to follow up your comments further…stay tuned!

Marg

Rob, I certainly do want to make sure that there is time to let things sink… that’s part of the reason why I thought spreading things out over a number of levels might help… would be good to hear what others think though.

Brigitte, I’m glad you focused back on the content for Intro to programming! Surprised that the modules grading (Competent/Not Yet Competent a.k.a. “Pass/Fail”) was the thing that got you to focus on the content!? I mean, the criteri that I use don’t assign distinctions because it looks pretty ;) (Unless it’s a design module of course, but I don’t facilitate any of those!)

Where are the others? :)