Matthew Shaw CEP 800 Module 5.

.4 Curriculum Planning Lesson Plan Overview: Curriculum planning for department administrators at Stanford University encompasses two main areas: course scheduling and class scheduling. Course scheduling includes setting up course offerings for the next academic which often involves updating the descriptions, units, grading bases or quarters offered. Class scheduling consists of submitting room requests, updating meeting times, adjusting enrollment capacities, assigning instructors and managing waitlists. Course and class webforms are the tools staff members will use to submit requests to the Registrars Office for curriculum updates through the student information system. Clearly, the curriculum planning process and the steps involved can seem overwhelming initially, and is currently a challenge with high turnover and new departmental staff members each year. Goals: The main goal of the lesson plan will be to create a unique learning environment that promotes staff understanding of how to plan for the next year and how to submit the required webforms to update course offerings and class schedules. The key is to create a learning structure that includes deeper learning and guiding staff members to understand why webforms are necessary and how to navigate through the curriculum planning process. Rather than memorize simple steps, which are often forgotten between academic quarters, the goal is to enhance the curriculum planning experience and to connect all the pieces of how scheduling for the next academic year all comes together. Tentative structure: The lesson plan will be designed for flexibility, allowing the students questions and interests to navigate the learning. However, as the instructor of this lesson plan, a tentative model of the two-hour session can be viewed below: 9:30-9:35am: Introduction to the curriculum planning process and tools needed to succeed 9:35-10:00am: Overview of the curriculum planning resources and guided learning on how to use these webpages (course catalog and the schedule of classes) o Course Catalog Writing and editing course titles/descriptions Minimum/maximum units per course Allowable grading bases Quarters offered and course reporting categories Cross-listing courses between departments or careers o Schedule of Classes Allowable meeting days/times Using Registrar Office rooms vs. departmental rooms Updating class instructors/teaching assistants Enrollment capacities and waitlisting courses 10:00-10:15am Demonstration on the course webform creation/submission process

10:15-10:45am Student participation in creating/submitting course webforms and sharing of questions/findings 10:45-11:00am Demonstration on the class webform creation/submission process 11:00-11:30am Student participation in creating/submitting class webforms and sharing of questions/findings 11:30am brief overview and wrap up

Student population: The student population is likely quite different from most other lesson plans in the CEP 800 course, as departmental staff members will be the focus of our lesson plan. Departmental administrators involved with curriculum planning will be invited to the training session and the group will likely be quite diverse in terms of age and experience at Stanford. Location: Wallenberg Learning Theater (preferred). The learning theater is a flex classroom that can seat 55 students and has multiple options for layouts (lecture, seminar, workshop, etc). The room is also technologically advanced, as the focus of the room is a 32-foot wide by 8-foot tall interactive wall panel in which sixteen wireless connections can connect to display individual screens. While this location is the ideal space to promote active learning and student involvement, the popularity of the room leaves room availability quite hard to come by. Technology involved: In addition to the Wallenberg interactive panel, students will be able to connect laptops wirelessly to the panel during the question/answer period and also when working in a collaborative manner to solve unique cases that arise during the curriculum planning process. Laptops will be made available for those students who do not bring their own laptop, however students will be advised to bring the laptop he/she use normally uses to provide a sense of familiarity and to minimize a new device learning curve. Essential questions: 1. What role do course and class webforms play in the curriculum planning process? 2. How do you create and submit course and class webforms? 3. How do you plan course offerings and class schedules for the next academic year?

Curriculum Planning Lesson Plan Overview Content The bulk of the lesson plan will revolve around two main concepts. First, we will aim to identify the key components of curriculum planning by painting the big picture on how all of the concepts, web pages within the student information system (SIS) and webforms work together. The goal will be to first demonstrate the connections through visual demonstration and lecture. We will then discuss as a group how the pieces, such as the course catalog, schedule of classes and course/class webforms merge

together to create the class offering each quarter. Once we have a solid grasp on the big picture and how the curriculum dots are connected, we will move to the focus of how to update the course offerings and class schedules. The heart of the lesson plan involves the how of curriculum planning creating and submitting the course and class webforms while referencing the model and materials discussed in the previous portion of the lesson plan. The goal here is to help students understand how the course/class webforms, and how they tie to the webpages within the SIS, such as the course catalog and schedule of classes. With each webform process, we will review how to make key edits such as updating descriptions, units, grading bases and crosslisting classes with a course webform, and how to update the classroom, meeting patterns, enrollment capacities and waitlist with the class webform. I will promote the webforms as tools to accomplishing tasks within the curriculum planning process and try to make clear connections that the students can relate to. Clearly, this is no easy task to cover in two hours and could easily be spread over a week of instruction. However, as this is a training session rather than a class we must make the most of our time with the students by laying out the foundation for understanding and then promoting an environment of open questions and collaboration to help understand the curriculum planning concepts. The expected challenges come from not only the time allotment, but also some trickier concepts such as crosslisting courses, setting up a class waitlist and actually remembering the steps involved. Again, a key goal is not to push the memorization of steps but rather understanding of how each component works together and how to submit a webform with all of the required information. Another hurdle that we will likely encounter revolves around the diversity of the student population in two areas. First, the group will be composed of departmental staff members that range in age and technology proficiency. In addition, Stanford is a decentralized campus, meaning that each department has great control over their course offerings and structure, which can again vary greatly amongst each department. Finding the key blend of teaching approach for both the staff population in the training class and the balance of teaching/discussing the curriculum planning concepts will be critical in the lesson plans success. Pedagogy The pedagogical approach to the lesson plan will include two main areas: guided learning and active learning. In the initial phase of the lesson plan, I will aim to guide the students through the curriculum planning process by connecting the key concepts, SIS webpages and webforms. The students will follow along with the connection process as we relate the course catalog, its components (description, units, grading basis, quarter offered, course numbers) to the course webform. The same will be done with the schedule of classes and the class webform. Essentially this relates to the information processing theory of learning as I intend to guide students to a more complete understanding of curriculum planning, the course catalog and the schedule of classes. Student questions will be encouraged to promote understanding, as Willinghams theory that students remember what they think about rings true within this part of the lesson plan. The students will be actively processing information, but I will aim to not over exert them with too much information or bore them by simply guiding them through the process a balance must be accomplished to keep the material interesting to help understanding how all the pieces fit together.

In the second phase of the lesson plan in which we aim to demonstrate submitting course/class webforms, I will again first demonstrate how to accomplish the task and then ask the students to create and submit a webform in our SIS test environment. In this stage, active learning is promoted by involving more student participation by acting on the material they have just learned. My goal is to follow the social constructivist theory by transitioning from the modeling behavior of demonstration to the scaffolding phase in assisting students with the webform process. Essentially, the students and I will be sharing the thinking load of how to create, update and submit webforms. After a lengthy portion of the class time is spent on webform submissions, I intend to slowly fade out my involvement to allow students to troubleshoot themselves and also promote peer learning as they ask each other questions to become experts. Finally, as the lesson plan concludes, I hope my role will be more of a coach position in which I can provide positive reinforcement, clarity on any challenging questions and guidance moving forward. As the bulk of curriculum planning takes place in the summer, with some ongoing updates before each term starts (September, December, March and June), I understand that the students often spend a great deal of time working on webforms and then forget about them for two to three months. I must use the initial portion of the class as a refresher for those current staff members while also providing clarity for new staff members who may be seeing this material for the first time. Again, the key is to identify the student population of the training session in advance to know what class demographic I will encounter and structure my lesson plan accordingly. Ideally, at least one training session could be geared directly to new hires and another session to existing members to effectively balance my teaching strategies (more time for user questions and trickier webform issues with the experienced group and more guidance and personal attention for the new hire session). Content & Pedagogy The guided learning approach will greatly benefit any new hires, as they are able to follow along with learning the SIS layout and viewing an overview of the course catalog/schedule of classes webpages. The more experienced students may also benefit from this area as a refresher and to also see how all of the available resources tie in to the webform creation process. The active learning model will allow students to not only ask questions and work on webforms related to their department/subject, but also learn from other students by working in a collaborative manner. Finally, my involvement as the lesson plan goes on will go from a hands-on instructor to more of a motivational guide, allowing the students time to learn how to submit webforms but also how to encounter issues. I will aim to correct these issues so the errors do not stick with students, however, for the staff members to know how each concept connects, they must also see how areas do not relate or how to troubleshoot errors when they arise. Such scenarios may occur when submitting webforms without units or grading bases, in which the system will flag an error message for them to correct. Again, I am not promoting failure but I do want the students to gain the ability to understand the concepts and how to work through problems rather than around problems, as I will not be in their offices every time an error is made. With the classroom layout in the Wallenberg Learning Theater, the seat layout of group tables will promote students working together. In addition, the interactive wall panel will allow students to share

their work and questions by connecting wirelessly, which will help my goals to promote scaffolding behavior. Technology As part of the lesson plan, three main technology tools will be used in promoting student understanding of curriculum planning. First and the most integral part of the lesson plan is the SIS test environment. The student information system webpages will allow students to practice the material they have learned, and also allow the instructor to demonstrate the webform submission process without making an impact to any live data. The test SIS will allow for errors to be made, webforms to be created and submitted within our session that students can then use as a reference when submitting a webform in our live production website. Tying into the SIS test environment are the tools that will help the students access these pages clearly either a laptop, tablet or desktop computer will be required for the session so that students can follow along and practice certain test scenarios. Students will be advised to bring their own laptops (if available) so that students are comfortable with their computers already, rather than possibly having to learn a new computer layout at the training session. However, if the students do not own laptops we can easily provide loaner laptops for the session. As mentioned, there may be a slightly longer learning curve for those students to adjust to a new laptop during the lesson plan. Finally, the location of the learning session will add to the students learning experience as we will be located in the Wallenberg Learning Theater, which houses an interactive wall panel that measures 17,280 pixels wide by 4,320 pixels tall. The wall panel will allow for instructor demonstrations and webform examples during the guided learning phase, and then allow for students to connect wirelessly to share any questions, concerns or webform examples with the rest of the class. We will spend a large portion of the lesson plan reviewing webforms and the aim here is to promote peer learning by sharing examples of each others successes and small hiccups in learning the curriculum planning process. The lesson plan could indeed exist without the use of technology, however the content and collaborative efforts would be negatively impacted. If technology were not available or limited in some capacity, the session would likely lead to a full lecture by the instructor with no examples to demonstrate. The teachers approach would transition to a presentation style of instruction, essentially telling the students information and displaying more of a behaviorism approach to learning. In addition, the students would not have the ability to practice creating webforms or sharing their findings, which in turn would likely lead to students forgetting the material by the time they return to their offices. As a goal of our session is to encourage active learning, the lack of technology would almost limit any such learning behavior with students simply listening to the instructor reviewing materials without any visual reference. As the cognitive learning theories demonstrate, students are more likely to learn when multiple senses (visual and auditory) are inspired by the lesson plan. Technology & Pedagogy The main goal of my inclusion of the three technology pieces is to link each of the technologies as we try to enhance student understanding in curriculum planning. Each technology is essential to one another to make the lesson plan transition effectively and encourage student learning. During the initial

introduction and my review of the SIS resources (course catalog/schedule of classes), the Wallenberg interactive panel is crucial to the success of the student learning. I intend to review certain links and webpages within the SIS that departmental staff can access, and display how to become comfortable with using these pages. The interactive panel will assist in the guided learning phase, as I engage the students in a short lecture-style learning session. Tying into the use of the wall panel, the individual laptops and SIS test website will allow the students to also follow my lead and explore the webpages on their own devices. All three technology tools are key components to the guided learning as I hope to provide the students with a clear connection of the resources available and why these curriculum resources are helpful. As the lesson plan shifts from the curriculum overview to the webform content, I will again demonstrate examples of the creation and submission process, and as a class we will then tackle specific examples. After I have completed a demonstration, I will likely ask the students to all make a change to a grading basis or description, and then send the webform for approval in our test environment. Once becoming more familiar with the webform process, I will ask the students to then work on webform scenarios that are relevant to their department, shifting from modeling behavior at the beginning of the session to less scaffolding as we proceed. The use of the personal laptops and test environment will help the class in this stage as I promote the social constructivist theory and the scaffolding model. Finally, as students are working on their own examples I expect them to encounter issues or bring up how to questions. In this stage the interactive wall panel will play an important role in the peer learning process as we collaborate as a class on solving webform questions. The interactive wall panel again will help us tie the lesson plan back to include the social constructivist theory, this time relating to the concepts of peer observational learning. Technology & Content The technology choices used in the lesson plan allow me to address each of the essential questions of curriculum planning, by tackling the why of curriculum planning importance and the how to of planning course offerings and schedules for the next academic year. In years past, student confusion has existed due to the inability or lack of knowledge to connect the pieces together in the curriculum planning process. Relating the course catalog and schedule of classes to the webforms seems to have been a struggle, so the interactive wall panel will allow me to tackle this first hurdle by displaying how each of these SIS pages relate to one another. As the lesson plan progresses, the SIS test environment, laptops and wall panel will all be utilized by the students in hands-on activities to create, submit and review webforms with classmates. Our three technology tools will greatly assist in accomplishing our three essential questions, as I can demonstrate the material to the students, then guide them through connecting the dots, and finally as the students take control of their own learning during the open periods for webform creation/submission. Assessment As the students leave the training session, I hope the learning doesnt end there. My goal is to promote student understanding of the curriculum planning and webform process, but also motivate the students

to continue to learn and help each other as future questions arise. If I can help the students understand how to process certain faculty questions, all while being interested in trying to troubleshoot the inquiry, I will see this as a positive step forward. In current scenarios, often departments will simply email the Registrars Office support staff or submit help tickets regarding curriculum planning questions, when the resources are readily available. My goal is provide the knowledge of how to troubleshoot, not only when questions arise, but to help the staff members plan for the next academic year. In part due to the decentralization on campus, in-person interaction is very limited between departments and the Registrars Office, so most assessment will be done through email/help ticket analysis and queries that I will develop through SQL reports. I will take a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the students progress to see if the lesson plan did in fact promote student understanding. First, I will review the sheer number of email requests and help tickets submitted to the scheduling office by running program reports through the Remedy application. This will give me a rough idea if the sheer number of questions has subsided and if the students are able to tackle basic questions on their own. While this approach is not an excellent analysis of learning, I can also develop a SQL query that extracts the number of rejected webforms (due to incorrect submissions) that the scheduling staff processes within a certain time frame. This will provide a better statistical overview of student learning as I can compare these figures directly to previous months of even years to see how student understanding of the webform process has evolved. Next, I will work with the scheduling staff to review the content of the submitted emails and help tickets. While it will be difficult to track all of the questions, the scheduling team will have a general idea if the incoming questions are more user-error based or systems-issue focused. The goal of the content assessment is to see less user-error questions as the students should know how to troubleshoot certain issues and answer basic how to webform questions. I will also try to break down the limited barrier of staff to Registrars Office interaction and reach out to former students to get their feedback on the training session. As we hope to hold these training sessions on a semi-annual basis, the feedback would be beneficial to help future students by improving the learning sessions.