Evolution of a Learning Goal

I just got back from the Lilly Conference on College Teaching. The first workshop I went to was on course design. One chunk of this was on learning goals. This came in the second half of the workshop, after we’d talked quite a bit about learning factors, etc. I chose to work on my 200-level Biophysics class, where I thought I had decent goals already. One of the ones I particularly liked was

Use simple physical models to provide quantitative insight into biological systems.

The people running the workshop have some good reasons for insisting on particular phrasing, and they recommend either “students will be able to [verb] [object]” or “given [thing] students will be able to [other thing].” Fair enough, if I lighten up a bit on the need for an action verb, I get

Students will be able to use simple physical models to provide quantitative insight into biological systems.

We talked a bit about how many goals a class should have. Their book recommends 3-5. If you have a ton more than that, you’re listing specific objectives rather than overarching goals. One of the authors/instructors actually recommends a single goal. If you can do it, it gives you a really nice way to focus the class, makes you comfortable cutting material in the interest of deep(er) learning, etc. The danger, of course, is that you don’t want a goal that’s general enough as to be meaningless.

We also talked about the time-frame of a goal. If you’re setting a 5-year goal (i.e. what do you want them to be like in 5 years), they have 5 years between now and the goal, so you don’t get to take credit (or responsibility) for the whole goal; you just need to plant a seed.

In thinking more about the class and about attitudes, it became clear that I really wanted the students to be able to identify a problem and play with it.

Students will be able to identify a biological problem and play with it, using simple physical models to provide quantitative insight.

At this point, we talked a bit more about the purpose of goals, and the idea that you want the class to be committed to the goals, and I was introduced to what may be my new favorite fable/punchline: “in a ham and egg breakfast, the chickin is involved; the pig is committed.”

Anyway, the above goal is sounding wordy, and is really trying to do too much at once. Worse, “play with it” is maybe clear to the instructor, but really unlikely to be clear to the students. There are at least two things going on here, and they’re worth separating: I’ll have to teach them as separate skills, students will certainly learn them as separate skills, and I should be explicit.

• Given an identified biological problem, students will be able to identify several categories of physical models with which the problem might be addressed.
• Given a biological problem and a physical model, students will be able to provide quantitative insight into the system.

At this point, it’s close, but there’s a bit more work to be done with categorizing the physical model(s). I mean, the students aren’t going to be dropping in an extraordinarily complex set of models for a 200-level class that requires only a semester of calc-based mechanics as a pre-req:

• Given a biological system and an appropriate simple physical model, students will be able to adapt the model to the system, providing quantitative insight.
• Given a biological problem, students will be able to identify several [candidate? potential?] physical models to apply to the system.

The idea of “adapting the model to the system” was an important addition, and a clarification of “play with.” It’s also something that I expect most students to have relatively little experience with, especially in an interdisciplinary context! In addition to a few other things, this was where I started monkeying with the “quantitative insight” wording, and where to put it in the goal.

• Given a biological system, students will be able to name the appropriate physical models that apply.
• Given a biological system, take a physical model and appropriately adapt it through quantitative analysis to that specific system.

tweak a bit

• Given a biological system and a physical model, students will be able to appropriately adapt the model to the system to provide quantitative [insight?] analysis.
• Given a biological system, students will be able to name appropriate physical models.

That’s pretty close. My penultimate version was a combination of the last few.

• Given a biological system and a physical model, students will be able to adapt the model to the system through quantitative analysis.
• Given a biological system, students will be able to name relevant physical models.

“… be able to name …” doesn’t sound so strong, even though “relevant” carries a lot of weight. After looking at Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, a simple switch from “name” to “predict” captures what I want, and makes the goal much higher-level. I’ve added the third (and final) goal here:

• Given a biological system and a physical model, students will be able to adapt the model to the system through quantitative analysis.
• Given a biological system, students will be able to predict relevant physical models.
• Students will gain exposure to important questions in the modern field of molecular biophysics, and evaluate current research on a system of their choice.

That’s much better, both for me and the students! And that’s despite the fact that my original goal (“use simple physical models to provide quantitative insight into biological systems”) still sounds decent. I wonder if I should use that phrasing, and perhaps something about “play with a model” in the course description rather than the goals.