Course assessment packages are the companion materials to a textbook. We select a few assignments from a course pilot for your review. These are typical assignments that demonstrate the kind of student learning that is possible with the textbook. By reviewing these assignments, you will be able to assess the alignment between the required coursework and the workforce skills, standards, and scenarios that matter the most to you. You have useful insight into the meaning of the coursework because you see applications of workforce skills in your daily life. We create a Course Assessment Package Navigation Document to help you track the course elements you will review.

Workforce Advisory Board members attend a synchronous training session and review the course assessment packages for three courses during Year 2 of the Open Curriculum Development Project.

Preview the form you’ll use for your review: Course Assessment Package Workforce Advisory Board Review [Google Form]. Please submit a separate form for each of your three reviews.

The Course Assessment Package Navigation Document

To support your review, we’ve created a Course Assessment Package Navigation Document to help you track the course elements you’ll review. Here is an overview of what you’ll find in this document.

First, we include reference information for an overview of how the curriculum develops over the course of the term. You may find it helpful to scan these documents to get a sense of the arc of the course and the level of workforce experience among students.

• The Course Map is a complete week-by-week layout of the course, showing how activities and course materials align with learning objectives for each unit.
• The Course-Level Learning Outcomes are the learning goals identified for the course.

Second, the course elements you will review are assignments that are representative of the kind of work students do for the course. We share both the instructions for students as well as grading information. These are the exact materials used in a pilot course that assigns the open textbook.

Last, the Course Grade Breakdown shows you how much weight is given to each assignment you review. This information can help you manage your review time. For example, if one of the assignments is missing scenarios that are relevant to real-live workforce settings, and it is worth 50 percent of the course grade, you might spend more of your review time suggesting improvements for this specific assignment.

Sample Review Process

Now let’s practice reviewing a sample course assessment package for the course SOC 206: Social Problems [Google Doc].

Remember that your goal is to assess the relevance of course skills to those needed in your workforce. You are also welcome to suggest scenarios or contexts that you don’t see represented in the course assessment package.

Step 1: Overview

Orient yourself to the skills and topics involved in this course by reviewing the Course Map. Read the course description, note the theme of each unit, and scan the assigned work per week. Do any topics surprise you? Are topics missing? This information will help you to review the Course-Level Learning Outcomes with a better sense of how the course works together as a whole.

You’ll find the Course-Level Learning Outcomes listed immediately after the Table of Contents on the first page of the Navigation Document. The Course Learning Outcomes give an overview of the focus and scope of a course. The learning verbs tell you about the skills students will develop over the course of the term. The topics and themes in each one will tell you more about the content and frameworks that students will cover. Consider the relevance of these skills to your field before moving on.

Step 2: Assignments

Read the representative assignments to understand how the learning outcomes are measured in the course. For the purposes of our practice review, let’s look at the Representative Discussion prompts. You’ll find them in the Table of Contents on the first page of the Navigation Document.

We know from the Course Grade Breakdown that discussions are worth 30 percent of the final grade and that there are 10 total assignments in this category. This means that students have multiple opportunities to engage in discussion assignments and that this is a big part of their final grade for the course.

The discussion assignment category includes multiple prompts for online discussions as well as the rubric used to score each one. The Discussion Board Assignment in the box below includes two options for students.

The review form asks you to rate your agreement with the statement: Assignments are relevant to scenarios and contexts in my field and/or organization. After reviewing the discussion prompt above, consider the relevance of this prompt to the scenarios and contexts for work in your organization. Does this prompt reflect the skills workers need in your workforce? Why or why not? Are there additional scenarios or examples from your workforce that you would like the instructor to include in this prompt?

The rubric for scoring discussion posts tells you how the instructor will grade this assignment. The rubric includes specific criteria as well as the rating or score for each criterion. This will help you understand the skills the instructor wants students to demonstrate in the assignment, as well as how much each skill is worth in the final grade of an assignment.

Reviewing grading information will help you to answer the final review questions in your Google Form. These review questions ask you to rate your agreement with the following statements:

• The criteria for success for each assignment is clear and easy to understand.
• I understand how each assignment meets course learning outcomes.

Consider the discussion prompt and rubric above. Do you know what the instructor will use to determine student success? Is the relationship between the assignment and the course-level outcomes clear? Would you suggest an additional criterion to consider?

Licenses and Attributions for Year 2: Course Assessment Packages

Open content, original

“Year 2: Course Assessment Packages” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Open content, shared previously

“Unit 1 Reflection and Discussion” by Kimberly Puttman for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed CC BY 4.0.