I started my academic career in a typical fashion—teaching courses based on textbooks I selected and syllabi I designed. My syllabi were pretty skimpy when I first started out; in my graduate-student arrogance I felt that the real heart and soul of the course lay in the “magic” that occurred between the students and me. I couldn’t explain what that magic was; I only knew that I worked hard explaining concepts in class, and in my mind that was the sum and substance of effective course design.
Boy, was I wrong.
My first teaching position after earning my doctorate was in a program that focused on adult students. We used common syllabi—something I wasn’t happy about, but I wanted the job, and so I fell in line. After several meetings with instructors teaching different sections of the same course, I came to realize how much I was learning about teaching and designing the course in the first place. Within a year, I was leading a number of common sections of courses, explaining to new faculty why we taught using the same activities, same textbooks, and same assessments.
Since those days, I have never taught for an adult-oriented institution without being part of some level of standardized course design. And I watch as new groups of faculty come to grips with the “standardization” of courses. Most question this practice at least at first. Many struggle. I think the word “standardization” just conjures up too many potential negatives for most of us. But at the end of the day, instructors at institutions like UMUC come to realize the power of the commonly designed and delivered course section. And there are good reasons to embrace this model.
We teach tens if not hundreds of sections of the same course around the world both online and face-to-face every year. To ensure that students in an online section are gaining the same knowledge as students in a face-to-face section offered in Heidelberg, Germany, we ask instructors to use common course objectives, course materials, activities, and assessments. Imagine how chaotic it would be if we hired 100 adjuncts to teach 100 sections of Introduction to Psychology with no common guidance. I might focus on social and personality psychology, while another might focus on the brain, while another might focus on abnormal psychology. It would be hard to know if all students were similarly ready for advanced psychology courses.
Also, given that we hire such a variety of individuals to teach for us, we need a way to ensure consistency and quality. For the first-time instructor who may need some help with a course, a standard design is a good navigational tool. Students have some assurance that the course materials are developed and ready to go. When an instructor has taught several more times, he or she can introduce new and different ways of achieving the common learning objectives.
Finally, by having collaborative teams of faculty and instructional designers developing programs and courses, it is more likely that the course will be nonbiased, appropriately paced, and sequential. It cuts down on the human tendency to teach a course heavily based on the instructors’ interests. Rather than the “dumbing down” of a course, standardization ensures an appropriate level of quality and often results in a far more interesting course.
I have discovered that when I taught solo long ago, I fell into the same ways of teaching each time. When teaching standardized, well-designed courses, I learned new ways of approaching material, new learning activities and new forms of assessment. For example, my first portfolio assessment occurred in a team-developed course; I doubt I would have assigned a portfolio in 1996 without that experience.
Standardization doesn’t have to mean restrictive. In fact, using the term “standardization” creates its own set of restrictions in our thinking, If we focus on commonalities and collaboration in course design, we will form learning communities, and that is a goal we can all agree on.
--Marie
