Meta, meta, meta...

I've spent much of the last several days putting together a lot of the "metamaterial" for MATH 365: assessing what L. Dee Fink refers to as the "situational factors" affecting the course, laying out a comprehensive set of learning goals, brainstorming methods of feedback and assessment. That was today's chore, actually: I managed to describe a pretty robust set of feedback and assessment measures to be used on both individual and team activities during the coming semester. The students'll have to contend with

In-class quizzes
In-class exams
Course journals
Course blog postings
Research notes
Research meetings
Preliminary project reports
Final articles
"Symposium" presentations

The first four of these measures will assess individual learning, and the final five pertain to each of the teams of four or five students into which the class will be divided. Each measure, including the more "traditional" categories of quizzes and written exams, has been tailored to the needs of the course and the very non-traditional way in which it will be taught. I'm happy to provide further details concerning feedback and assessment methods, as I conceive them for this course, if you care enough to drop me a line!

My next goal is to come up with some good teaching and learning activities to address the stated learning goals. At this time I'm searching for the perfect "first day" activity, one that will capture the interest of the greatest possible number of students, and that will incorporate as many of the seven major aspects of the course's foundational knowledge as possible. I'm now envisioning students running around in really nasty traffic patterns...