Teaching and Learning for Social Impact Main Menu Introduction Introduction to the Teaching Schema Why: Teach for Social Impact What: Topics to Teach for Social Impact About this Publication Washington University in St. Louis

How: Introduction

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In this section we will focus on integrating our purpose with our teaching by connecting to specific pedagogies and design principles that will allow us to design for significant learning and social impact. Too often, especially when we are called on to change the modality or the way we teach, we focus on external tools that we think will help us achieve our goals. These tools are important and they aren't the only solution that will get us to where we want to go. We need a solid foundation on which to stand (our purpose) that helps us make decisions about our content and our teaching that will ultimately serve our purpose.

Every Decision you make in designing your online course should extend from the learning objectives you have designed for your course. Develop those objectives first, and then figure out which technological tools will help you and your students meet them. --Flower Darby, Small Teaching.

When we are designing from a place of intention and with a clear direction about where we want our course to end up at the end of the year, we discover that we need to make choices about what and how we are going to teach. In a way, it is freeing, because we don't have to learn about every single pedagogy or every single tech tool, and we don't have to cover all of the content we think we need to cover. We can choose the things that serve us, and leave that which does not. We get down to essentials. Wiggins and McTighe would call this getting down to the enduring understandings and essential questions, things which we want students to remember and to be able to know and do years after they are finished with their education. These help you design a course that produces transferable knowledge and understanding through inquiry and application.

Important Questions to Consider

Contents of this path:

  1. Backwards Design
  2. Begin: Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions
  3. Creating Learning Outcomes
  4. Creating Assessments
  5. Other Design Considerations