A DESIGN HELPING MECHANISM FOR ACTIVE LEARNING COURSES

A good Active Learning course's design is done backward [1], and [2] where one imagines him/herself at the end of the course and trying to assess how the students have constructed their knowledge and the skills that they have acquired taking this course. At this point of time, we go back with the course to design the learning experiences that the students have to go through to successfully construct their knowledge and thoroughly acquire those skills. During this design process, each learning experience is designed to fulfill a part of or may be one-whole learning objective of the course, if it is conducted successfully by both the trainer and the learner. To build a learning experience, one has to design both a composition of activities utilizing Active Learning tools and a certain environment to assure its success [3]. To be able to transform a learning objective into a collection of activities fits this environment we need two elements: First, casting the learning objective in Bloom's taxonomy terminology (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains) where every objective is expressed as a single or a collection of the levels of learning that are needed to achieve it. Second, choosing the right set of Active Learning tools that compose an activity in cognitive and/or psychomotor domains, leading to meeting those levels of learning needed to achieve this objective within a certain environment in affective domain. Transforming a learning objective into a collection of Active Learning activities, composing a learning experience, in itself is the heart and soul of designing an Active Learning course [4]. This paper introduces a design mechanism that helps in this transformation to fulfill the two elements above. This mechanism is based on heuristically classifying each activity that is carried out before, inside or outside the classroom according of its contribution of a certain level of Bloom's Taxonomy domains levels [7],[8], and [10]. Then, using a combinatorial road map one can combine a set of activities to achieve a learning experience that fulfills a certain learning objective. Examples are given on how to use this mechanism to design learning experiences for a design course at the college of engineering level. An analysis of the resulting learning experiences is carried out and it showed their matching to the set forth learning objectives.