Slides from our second meeting of three from a course redesign series on creating non-disposable assignments. As advertised: Do you want to offer students an opportunity to bring their passions, personal interests, and individual strengths into their coursework? How can we design assessment which students feel connected to, value, and are proud to share with their peers? Are you interested in learning how to create a non-disposable assignment for your students? This 3-part assignment redesign workshop will take you through the steps to create a non-disposable assignment from beginning to end. Disposable Assignments: "are assignments that students complain about doing and faculty complain about grading. They’re assignments that add no value to the world – after a student spends three hours creating it, a teacher spends 30 minutes grading it, and then the student throws it away” (Wiley, 2013). This series is about creating a non-disposable assignment. The three sessions will blend a combination of some pre-reading, discussion, and in session time to flesh out the details of a rich assignment that allows students to co-create knowledge, be creative and engage in a personalised learning experience. We’ll focus on crafting projects which meet your existing or redesigned course learning outcomes, explore tools for students to demonstrate their learning, and identify strategies for conducting peer-review. In the end you’ll end up with plan for implementing your redesigned assignment in Spring 2018 or Fall 2018. Throughout the three-part workshop we will also be collectively exposing our own learnings to others in the group through a live reflection and blogging site to support our work. We hope faculty can attend all three parts as they are planned with the intent you are coming for the whole series.

1. The Non-Disposable
Assignment: Enhancing
Personalized Learning
Michael Paskevicius & Liesel Knaack
Centre for Innovation and Excellence in
Learning

2. Agenda
Welcome and intro (5 minutes)
Round table to discuss progress of thinking and plan for redesign (10 minutes)
Group discussion for deeper discussion and sharing of projects (15 minutes)
Return to larger group to discuss key themes, overlap, issues and synergies
(10 minutes)
Work through and discuss open learning design checklist (15-20 minutes)
Time to work or discuss further (30 minutes)

3. Student learning, engagement and success:
1. Promote student leadership
2. Promote complex thinking
3. Enhance experiential learning opportunities
4. Support undergraduate and graduate scholarship,
research and creative activity
Academic community:
3. Support a breadth of scholarship, research, and
creative activity
Community Engagement:
1. Sustain collaborative relationships
2. Foster awareness of global cultures, issues and
conditions, and the role played by VIU in the region
nationally and internationally
4. Enhance opportunities as an open access university
https://www2.viu.ca/pvpa/documents/BOGA
cademicPlanBoardApprovedMarch2017.pdf

4. Why don’t we (the students and myself) create the
course as we go along. Why can’t we all be part of
the design process, all do the research, all add our
own perspective on anatomy as we learn? Why can’t
we generate material that is accessible, accurate,
detailed and relevant? Why can’t this be the non-
disposable course?
The word ‘relevance’ has emerged as a VIU mantra,
and this seemed to be a theme also in the session
we did. I see Open Learning allowing me to bring
these strands together. It is a way of exciting and
motivating students; but also a means of linking and
integrating theory and practice.
My early impression is of the benefits to students, as
well the credibility it would yield the instructor, a win
for both students and faculty.
Campuses abound with energy, ideas and an
endless supply of student engagement. On-
site, students can walk out of their classes,
into a tentful of other students who are more
than happy to engage them in discussions
about global issues, campus politics, and
current affairs. While our online students do
create great communities in D2L, they are, for
the most part, disconnected from everyday
campus events.
It occurs to me that relevance
is a key factor for creating a
non-disposable project.
https://wordpress.viu.ca/enhancingpersonalizedlearni
ng/category/participant-reflections/

5. Quickly share where
your thinking is in terms
of your redesign project?
Be brief as you will have
a chance to dive deeper
in a minute.

6. 1. Learning
Outcomes
2. Assessment
& Evaluation
Methods
3. Teaching &
Learning
Strategies
Constructive Alignment
Identify the desired student
learning outcomes
Determine acceptable levels of
evidence that support the desired
results have occurred
Design activities that will make
desired results happen
https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/alignment.html

7. Learning outcomes
• What is the purpose of this learning activity?
• What new knowledge, skills, capabilities and/or attitudes do
learners need to gain?
• Are new digital capabilities made explicit in learning
outcomes or not?
• How will learners know when they have achieved the
outcome(s), and how well they are doing?
Learner differences
• Do learners have choices about how they carry out a task
and how they participate with others?
• Are learners' differences valued, e.g. by promoting
personalisation, setting collaborative tasks, and by
rewarding innovation as well as accuracy?
• How are learners being involved in the design process?
• How are differences in learners' digital confidence,
capability and access addressed?
Digital resources, tools and services
• How will learning artefacts be captured and shared?
• What resources will learners have access to? What resources
do you expect them to discover for themselves? What
support will be needed?
• What information literacies will learners require and
develop in accessing and using these resources?
• How will you use learners digital access and know-how as a
collective resource e.g. through group work, informal
mentoring?
Learning dialogues
• How will learners interact with one another?
• What are the opportunities for peer learning, review,
feedback, and collaboration?
• Are there opportunities to engage or involve the
community?
• How are the rules of academic of professional
communication made clear?
• Who will give feedback on students’ progress and how will
this be communicated?

8. Feel free to continue to share
thoughts on the non-disposable
assignment, project ideas,
design considerations, useful
resources, apprehensions, or
ideas.
https://wordpress.viu.ca/enhancingpersonalizedlearning/
#nondisposableviu

9. Next steps
• If you have not done so already: Write a
reflective post about an assignment you would
like to redesign or create fueled by the
principles of the non-disposable assignment
• Or: Write a post from the perspective of a
student who is tasked with your non-disposable
assignment. What is their impression of this,
what are they nervous about, what are they
excited about?

10. Photos sourced from Unsplash.com
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11. Prepared by: Michael Paskevicius
Learning Technologies Application Developer
Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning
michael.paskevicus@viu.ca
Follow me: http://twitter.com/mpaskevi
Portfolio: http://michaelpaskevicius.com/
Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/mpaskevi
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License.. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0