The Atlantic: The "Dead" Syllabus

[marshwiggle]

I wish we had a course coordinator to standardize the exams (not that I'm volunteering to step into that hot mess).  Despite years of evidence about effective assessments, countless free resources, etc., most folks here write really bad* exams. 

*bad = misaligned with learning goals, use the "A only" "A & C" "B & C" question type that is shown to be less effective, overly-wordy questions, etc.

The essential point underlying the Dunning-Kruger effect is that the skill required to recognize what competence looks like in an area is the same skill required to achieve competence in that area. I find that for myself this applies to creating learning objectives. If I have trouble coming up with good learning objectives for a topic, it means I haven't yet really figured out what to teach or how to teach on that topic and how I want students to apply what they learn. On the other hand, when I know how I want them to be able to apply the knowledge, coming up with good learning objectives is easy.