TCTC Learning Commons: Higher Education and Assessment: Instructional Design

Teaching and Learning Essentials

Bloom's Taxonomy
An overview of the original and revised Bloom's taxonomy, considered to be foundational and essential to assessment.
From Teaching to Learning—A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education
Authored by Barr and Tagg, this article argues for a shift from college as an institution that produces instruction to college as an institution that produces learning.
Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education
Chickering and Gamson offer advice on ways to improve teaching at the undergraduate level.
Learning Reconsidered
This report is an argument for the integrated use of all of higher education’s resources in the education and preparation of the whole student.
Bloom's Taxonomy Action Verbs from Clemson University
Includes a definition of each area of Bloom's Taxonomy along with action verbs for each area.
Bloom's Taxonomy Affective Domain
This taxonomy is based on the work of Bloom, developed by Don Clark

IDEA Notes on Learning
A resource to support improved student learning, these notes are useful to anyone wanting to address specific ways to facilitate learning following learning objectives.
What is the difference between course objectives and learning outcomes?
Created by Arizona State University
So, What's a Learning Outcome Anyway?
Defines and explains the importance of using learning outcomes.
Embedding Affective Learning Outcomes in Library Instruction
Offers strategies to help instructors and librarians to discover, articulate, and address students’ self-efficacy, motivation, emotions and attitudes. Includes worksheets to assist in creating affective learning outcomes.

Assessing Prior Knowledge
The Eberly Center for Research Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University provides a few strategies on gaining a better understanding of student knowledge.
Instructional Strategies for Online Courses
From the University of Illinois, information about how to teach to different learning styles and designing activities for multiple modes of learning for an online environment.
Build Sustainable Collaboration: Developing and Assessing Metaliteracy Across Information Ecosystems
Describes the goals and beginnings of an ongoing, collaborative assessment project designed by a librarian and a writing program faculty member.
Inventory of Higher Education Assessment Instruments
A list of more than 250 assessment tools, each entry describes its unit of analysis (i.e., student, faculty, staff, institution), its level of assessment (i.e., program, institution), what it targets (i.e., beliefs or values, knowledge, skills, etc.), and a few lines describing it. Be aware that some of the tools listed here are no longer available. Some are free; some are commercial and require payment.
Higher Education Outcomes Assessment Commons
An open learning space that curates content for faculty and assessment professionals through housed resources and tools for student learning outcomes, teaching and learning, program review and accreditation.

The IDEA Center
The IDEA Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving teaching and learning at colleges and universities by provide teaching and learning resources for faculty and leaders.
IDEA Notes on Instruction
These succinct notes are useful to anyone wanting to address specific ways to employ different teaching methods.
Principles of Teaching & Learning
The Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University presents the basic principles of teaching and learning, along with a bibliography of related resources from various disciplines.
Active Learning for the College Classroom
D. Paulson and J. Faust from California State University provide an extensive list of active learning classroom techniques.
Making Active Learning Work
Created by the Center for Education Innovation at the University of Minnesota, this web site offers a tutorial with recommendations for implementing active learning in your classroom.

Explora Educator's Edition This link opens in a new window
Educators can discover grade-appropriate content in Explora by limiting results according to reading levels and make use of highly relevant educator support materials such as ready-to-use lesson plans, classroom activities and rubrics. A Curriculum Standards Module allows educators to browse Common Core, state- and province-specific curriculum standards, many of which have recommended search strings for successful content retrieval.

Using ACRL Frames in Your Instructional Design
Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy
Describes a pedagogical approach to information literacy that helps instructors focus content around transformative learning thresholds.
Threshold concepts: From personal practice to communities of practice
Proceedings from the 2014 National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning Threshold Concepts conference. Papers capture the essence and substance of Threshold Concepts offered from a range of academic disciplines including geology, history, art, mathematics, and engineering.
The Basics: Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy
Two-page introduction to the concepts

Creating Significant Learning Experiences by L. Dee Fink
Publication Date: 2013
Offers busy faculty with invaluable conceptual and procedural tools for instructional design. Fink shows how to use a taxonomy of significant learning and systematically combine the best research-based practices for learning-centered teaching with a teaching strategy in a way that results in powerful learning experiences. Also addresses new research on how people learn, active learning, and student engagement.
Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning by Char Booth
Publication Date: 2009
Booth outlines a four-part framework of instructional literacy, which includes reflective practice, educational theory, teaching technologies, and instructional design.

Online Discussion Guidelines
Created by the University of Minnesota Duluth, a sample discussion rubric.
Questions and Prompts to Foster Online Discussion
Adapted from Penn State Learning Design Community Hub, shows six types of questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy with prompts that incorporate several question types to encourage students to engage in deeper-level discussion.
Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education
A list of best practice strategies is based on “Institutional Policies/Practices and Course Design Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education."

Curriculum and Instruction: A 21st Century Skills Implementation Guide
This guide presents assessment tactics and examples to assist in 21st century skills initiatives, specifically relating to standards, assessment, professional development, curriculum & instruction, and learning environments.