Aligning with Standards

StandardsTime for standards! Our goal in this section is to take the goals you built in the first Design step of this course and attach standards to them. In that Design section, we took a brief look at standards with the though of using them to help check for gaps in our course goals. In this step of the course, we take a deeper look at standards and actually align our course goals with them.

Before we begin, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, it's easy to get bogged down in standards, but this is something you can adjust as you move through the development process, so stay light on your feet and take your best guess if you're stuck. Also, this is often not a clear-cut process, but try to not let that shake you. For example, you may find that you have course goals that don't align with standards. Don't worry about that. You may find that you address one particular standard in every goal. Again, not a problem. Of more concern is if you find a standard for which you don't have a goal. While that situation at times can be okay, it can often indicate a gap in your course that would make the course stronger if filled.

With all that in mind, let's get started!

Step 1: Changing the Sheets... (about 10 min.)

Let's get started! First, let's take a few quick minutes to take the course goals sheet and transfer them to a more comprehensive sheet that we can use to guide the whole course development process. This will be for the most part an easy copy-and-paste task to get our heads back into the process. For this step, you'll need two documents. First, you'll want to open the Course Goals sheet you created and submitted in the first Design step. Next, open up the Course Design Framework sheet. We'll use this framework sheet for the rest of the course to help give your course a sense of structure. Once you've got both documents open, fill in the first section of the Course Design Framework. Then copy the goals from the Course Goals sheet to the Course Goals column of the Course Design Framework. This should be a simple copy and paste activity to get our heads back into the design process. When you've finished this, move on to the next step.

If you find as you do this that you've got oodles of goals to copy over, you may want to consolidate some of the goals into larger categories.

Step 2: Goals, Meet Standards (about 30-50 min.)

Now that you've got the course goals in the framework sheet, it's time to match those goals with standards. To begin this step, we'll want to access the standards document you used in the first Design step. For reference, here are the links to the various standards collections:
Reacquaint yourself with the standards that match your course. Once you feel comfortable with this, the next step is fill up the "Complementing Standards" column of the Course Design Framework. The easiest way to do this is probably to start with each standard and see if it aligns well with a particular goal. If it does, paste it into the Complementing Standards box. Take your time here. Don't worry about the size of the table boxes; they may get huge and that's okay. Keep in mind that you'll often have many standards apply to one goal. This shouldn't take that long to do, but rushing it will make things more confusing as you move forward with developing the course.

Also, if you find standards for your area that just don't fit into your goals, just paste them into an unused row at the bottom of your Course Design Framework. Keeping them there may help you think of ways to incorporate them into the course at a later date.

Once you've got your Course Design Framework the way you want it, move on to the Aligning with Standards Assignment. Nice work!

Last modified: Friday, May 7, 2010, 1:00 PM