Mapping the Structure of Phoebe's Content

This structure is based around the components of a learning session as identified in a number of JISC documents, as well as a number of lesson plans developed for the Learning Design Tools project (see SourceDocuments). In this iteration of the project, the components map to the elements that have been identified in a (representative?) number of real-life plans as well as templates: i.e. they deliberately do not map to the components of an IMS LD learning design (although there is obviously some overlap). This is in keeping with our design rationale, which is to produce a tool which practitioners will find useful in their current practice, before we start migrating them to Learning Design "proper".

An individual component doesn't necessarily correspond to a "data value" (for want of a better term) that the user has to enter; rather, a number of them could be clustered together as an extended prompt -- e.g. the list of learner characteristics that need to be taken into consideration. Also, if a user doesn't enter any information for a specific component, then that component should not appear in the final output (whether printed and/or digital).

The sequence in which the components are listed below is entirely flexible -- in fact, they largely appear in the order in which I thought of them. It would be nice to allow users to edit the default list/map in order to delete the components which they never have to consider.

NB: Items in italics are subheadings grouping together related components.

>> denotes lists that should be initially closed, but can be opened to reveal sub-items and closed to hide them again.

The amount of text in the following list will be reduced as the content is generated.

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Basic Structure

Contextual information: What, when and where?

• Title of session
• Brief description of session
• Author(s) of this plan
• Teaching staff to be involved? (if other than the author, or additional to the author; indicate also whether they are team-teaching or teaching parallel classes/sets + Lab assistants, LSAs, demonstrators)
• Position within course/programme?
  • Course/programme title
  • Year group
  • Module
  • No. of unit/session within module
• Timing?
  • If F2F or blended F2F+Online:
    • Term
    • Week
    • Date
    • Time (from... to...)
  • If online:
    • Dates of availability (from... to...)
    • Expected study time (in hours)
• Setting?
  • If F2F or blended F2F+Online:
    • Location (room) + does it need to be booked? [What if > class? -- link to student numbers?]
    • Technology required + does it need to be booked (+ how long in advance); are support staff aware and available?
    • Risk assessment (see PG i/v)
  • If online:
    • What technology do students need (if this has already been specified, where?) + how to ensure its availability?
• Source of curriculum -- here and in LO section?

The Learners and their Characteristics

• Brief profile?
• Expected number? (approx.) (if more than one class/set, no. and composition of sets -- link to setting?)
• Specific learner characteristics? that need to be allowed for: (+ what you need to do: e.g. allow more time, print handouts in large fonts; use coloured backgrounds in online materials). (May need to include links from specific characteristics to tools that can meet/address these characteristics in specific ways e.g. assistive software for reading; Inspiration for dyslexia; concept-/mind-mapping tools for visual learners; extensions to Word etc. (need help from TechDis? etc. here). May not need separate pages for each characteristic if we use Page outline + jumps back to the top of the page at the end of each segment.
  • Learning styles?
  • Differentiation? incl. special needs
  • Linguistic competence? (e.g. ESOL)
  • Culture/nationality?
  • Accessibility? -- what assistive tools might be needed?
  • Social and interpersonal skills? -- e.g. use of (anonymous) forums to encourate participation by more reticent learers
  • Competence in key skills? -- ICT, literacy, number
  • Attitude to their own learning? [what would this map to? Activities to match/develop their attitude towards learning? Appropriate teaching approaches?]

Learning outcomes and other curriculum aspects

• Source of curriculum? (link to URL/ref to document if appropriate?)
• Aims/objectives? (see TALL specifications)
• Intended learning outcomes? (are these the same?) (NB some plans divide these into "must/should/could" -- i.e. "required/desirable/useful"?) As a single page with page outline or as separate pages?
  • Acquisition of knowledge
  • Understanding
  • Specific skills (cognitive and/or psychomotor)
  • Social/collaborative skills
  • How each outcome maps to one or more of the aims
• Method of assessment? -- links to activities and/or tools?
• Plan for recording the progress and achievement of individual learners (RARPA -- ACL only? See PG i/v)
• Reading or other preparation? required before the session (incl. links/refs to resources) (when/how are you going to inform the students about this work?)

The teacher's role in this session (teaching approach)

• Possible roles Can think of this in two ways: a) practical/pragmatic decisions and b) teaching approaches expressed as more or less formal models or theories.
• Effective practice WRT the chosen role...
• Appropriate teaching approaches: i.e. theoretical or practical models (NB not clear how this will inform their planning up-front... Might be most appropriate to think in terms of teacher-student relationship.) (NB also: is this to be used to adapt the activity-level guidance to the user's chosen approach? Could be problematic, esp as individual activities may work best with different approaches.) (? Map their overall intentions to appropriate practice models or specific examples? Elicit the appropriate ones by giving them drop-down lists of categories to select from and therefore narrowing down to the closest fit.)
• Effective practice guidelines?
• See Appendix 2 of Helen's draft C-S template for classifications
• Work in progress on teaching approach

Sequence of tasks/activities

• Main sequence
• Extension and/or reinforcement activities
• Contingency plan (What if...?) -- (e.g. change/drop individual activities; switch to another plan altogether)

Individual activities

• Brief description of the activity
• Relationship of task to learning outcome(s) of the session as a whole (NB would be good to be able to see these at the same time)
• Technique (use taxonomy "smoothed" into desciptions?)
• Social composition: individual / 2+ (how many per group or max. no. of groups? Self-selected or teacher-defined and if so, on what criteria e.g. ability, social) / whole-class (plenary)
• Role of teacher in activity
• Equipment and/or resources for this task (e-, mechanical and/or P&P -- with file names or URLs): for tutor / students
• Omit? Method of feedback (extrinsic/intrinsic, teacher/peer, verbal/written...)
• Function: part of main sequence / conditional on outcome of preceding task (which one?) / differentiation / supplementary (reinforcement or extension) / contingency
• Position in sequence (NB need to consider branching + stand-alone activities e.g. contingency, reinforcement, extension) (Numbering system TBD)
• Duration / Start and end time

Technologies

• Genre of tool
• Appropriate uses and advantage of e-tool
• Example(s) of use

Post-session Reflections

• Extent to which your aims were achieved
• Benefits and opportunities
• Problems and risks
• Learners' feedback (general impression if opinions weren't sought explicitly)
• Advice to others
• Other reflections
• Changes that need to be made to the plan

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Template for guidance screens

Content

• What this item means
• Why it's important (or not!) to consider it (if not self-evident)
• (Narrative text) advice incl. brief examples of action (? include verbatim quotes from practitioners rather than 3rd-hand reports?)

Links to other content

• Related info (quick jumps -- as per mapping diagram) and/or more in-depth info (inside and outside Phoebe)
• Case studies
• Generic models of practice
• Learning designs (re-represented for ease of availability -- devise our own FoR and notation?)

Notes for developers only

• Tags (Categories TBD: see TagCategories)
• Source of content
• Notes and queries

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Navigation through the Content

The following concept map represents an attempt at tracing users' possible routes through the main components of Phoebe. It has been derived by integrating the  mapping tables created by Helen Beetham for JISC and making connections both as per the instructions in the tables themselves and through inference. It assumes three basic entry points (shown in bold): Learning outcomes, learner characteristics, teacher's chosen/preferred role and tools/technologies. These are interrelated in that, e.g., learning outcomes can be influenced by the learners' characteristics. "Pedagogic approaches" are not considered key entry points at present, since some PIs have indicated that approaches/theories do not feature prominently in their planning.

 http://phoebe.conted.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/attachment/wiki/UploadedFiles/Routes%20Through%20Content%20from%20Cmap%2025%20Aug.jpg?format=raw

Unresolved issues on this map:

• Contextual info: setting, timing, available resources (infls. scope of activities, choice of technologies...)
• Impact of contingency planning: can affect sequences + individual activities
• Non-e tools and resources

ALSO We do not assume that the path taken in planning is necessarily the same as the route through the content!

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Issues TBD

1. Can we make the planner usable for planning learning sessions at multiple levels -- e.g. a whole course, in which case the "activities" would be units within the course (so not all "fields" would be required). Users would then create separate plans for each unit -- could give the plan name (URL?) in the "activity" data. LM 1/8: Not for initial prototype.
2. Form(s) of representation for this info, other than as hierarchical list similar to the one above, but expandable/contractible. LM 1/8: Now experimenting with tagging.
3. There is a one-to-many relationship between global info and activity info, as each session may include more than one activity. However, do we want to consider a possible one-to-many relationship between an activity and global info -- i.e. where the same activity can crop up in different learning sessions? (Probably not, unless we were to store the info in a database, which isn't currently envisaged.) LM 1/8: No.
4. How to represent branching where learners may do different activities depending on choice or differentiation? LM 1/8: Not for initial prototype.
5. Granularity of a) the whole thing and b) individual activities; e.g. are discussion and reporting back a single activity or 2 separate ones (e.g. for timing?) LM 1/8: This is up to the person creating the plan to decide.

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