Designing Courses for Significant Learning: Voices of Experience: New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Number 119

by L. Dee Fink (Editor), Arletta Knight Fink (Editor)

Overview

Higher education today is being called on to deliver a new and more powerful kind of education, one that prepares students to be more engaged citizens, better equipped to solve complex problems at work and better prepared to lead meaningful lives individually.

To respond to this call, teachers in colleges and universities need to learn how to design more powerful kinds of learning into their courses. In 2003, Dee Fink published a seminal book, Creating Significant Learning Experiences, that offered teachers two major tools for meeting this need: the Taxonomy of Significant Learning and the model of Integrated Course Design. Since that time, educators around the world have found Fink's ideas both visionary and inspiring.

This issue of New Directions for Teaching and Learning contains multiple stories of how college-level teachers have used these ideas in a variety of teaching situations, with subject matter ranging from the sciences to the humanities. Their conclusion? The ideas in Fink's book truly make a difference. When used properly, they lead to major improvements in the level of student engagement and the quality of student learning!

This is the 119th volume of the Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly report series New Directions for Teaching and Learning, which offers a comprehensive range of ideas and techniques for improving college teaching based on the experience of seasoned instructors and the latest findings of educational and psychological researchers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470554807
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	10/19/2009
Series:	J-B TL Single Issue Teaching and Learning Series , #106
Pages:	113
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

L. Dee Fink founded and directed the Instructional Development Program at the University of Oklahoma from 1979 until 2005. He currently works as a national and international consultant on instruction in higher education.

Table of Contents

Preface L. Dee Fink 1

1 Shoeboxes and Taxes: Integrated Course Design Unleashes New Creativity for a Veteran Teacher Marsha M. Huber 9

2 Bringing Language to Life in Second-Year Spanish Debra Dimon Davis 17

3 More Significant and Intentional Learning in the Economics Classroom Laurence Miners Kathryn Nantz 25

4 Inspiration and Intellect: Significant Learning in Musical Forms and Analysis Bruce C. Kelley 35

5 Using Fink's Integrated Course Design: How a Book Changed Our Students' Learning, Our University, and Ourselves Carolyn R. Fallahi Laura E. Levine Joan M. Nicoll-Senft Jack T. Tessier Cheryl L. Watson Rebecca M. Wood 43

6 Using Integrated Course Design to Build Student Communities of Practice in a Hybrid Course Harriet R. Fayne 53

7 Integrating Big Questions with Real-World Applications: Gradual Redesign in Philosophy and Art History Marice Rose Roben Torosyan 61

8 Integrated Design of a Virology Course Develops Lifelong Learners Joseph C. Mester 71

9 An "Extreme Makeover" of a Course in Special Education Joan M. Nicoll-Senft 81

10 Sooner City: Reflections on a Curriculum Reform Project Randall L. Kolar David A. Sabatini K. K. Muraleetharan 89

11 Still Learning L. Dee Fink 97

12 Lessons We Can Learn from the Voices of Experience Arletta Knight Fink L. Dee Fink 105

Index 115

Editorial Reviews

Advisors who teach a course, or use an advising syllabus, will find Designing courses for significant learning to be essential. Fink’s 2003 book, Creating Significant Learning Experiences introduced ‘integrated course design’ (ICD). Six years later this system has been widely adopted and this volume shares ten stories from educators who have used and found success with Fink’s method.

Teaching and advising for significant learning – helping students to have powerful experiences – is a wonderful goal. Fink’s ICD provides a useful system for designing a course or advising syllabus to reach towards that goal. This volume provides an entertaining and instructive view of ICD from the viewpoint of practitioners in the field. Their stories are insightful and well told. I recommend this book for advisors interested in improving the significant learning in a course they are teaching, or through the use of an advising syllabus.
—From NACADA Journal, Review by: Stephen Price, Physical Education and Recreation Studies, Mount Royal University

From the Publisher