Unit 2: Saylor Course Overview
All Saylor Academy courses have similarities in their organization and share common features. In this unit we’ll explore the “anatomy” of a Saylor course and the online environment in which Saylor courses “live.” Understanding the constituent parts and how they function online will help you contextualize the specific development activities you’ll conduct, which will be covered in Unit 3.
Completing this unit should take you approximately one hour.
2.1: The Anatomy of a Saylor Course
2.1.1: Syllabus
Saylor Academy courses use a standard syllabus which includes information to relevant student policies and learner supports. The syllabus also includes standard self-study reminders, and is customized with specific course-relevant information. Review the standard template, and compare it to syllabi you may have developed or used in other course contexts.
2.1.2: Blueprint
All Saylor Academy courses begin as blueprints, which are detailed topic outlines that identify the learning taxonomies for a given course of study in a linear, pedagogically sound progression. When designing the blueprints, we aimed to be as granular as possible, topically identifying concepts, and calling attention to their presentation in the assigned resources. Our blueprints are granular, drilling down to sub-subunit levels in many cases. Please avoid general headings and work to clearly present the various sub-topics and principles you will need to cover. Review this document to see the template and instructions for creating a blueprint from scratch. Note, however, that Saylor’s primary course goals involve updating existing courses, and it is unlikely that you will be asked to develop a blueprint from scratch. Instead, you’ll likely be asked to adapt the blueprint structure to effectively incorporate the best openly licensed materials, address identified weaknesses in learning progressions, or otherwise revise an existing blueprint.
2.1.3: Course and Unit Learning Outcomes
While the blueprint lays out the topics a course will cover, a course is obviously much more than a series of connected concepts; students will also need to do something with what they learn. Such application is articulated in learning outcomes.
You are likely familiar with the work of Benjamin Bloom, an American educational psychologist, whose work on learning outcomes and taxonomies has become foundational. Please read this article about ongoing applications of Bloom's work.
Please read this article for a discussion of sequencing activities appropriately to support development through Bloom's Taxonomy.
Saylor courses specify learning outcomes at both the course and unit level. For our purposes, outcomes are most useful when they employ observable verbs. For example learning outcomes with verbs like know, understand, or appreciate are relatively weak, as they don’t indicate observable student performance. Instead, learning outcomes should be designed to gather indirect evidence that learning has occurred and are more reliably structured around such verbs as: define, identify, differentiate, calculate, and so forth. Remember that these outcomes will need to be assessable through our online, independent-learner model.
2.1.4: Resources, Instructions, and Other Framing Notes
Resources (usually readings or videos) with instructions and framing notes form the “meat” of any course. Each resource is paired to instructions that tell a student what to do with the resource. In addition to providing clear instructions (e.g., read section 12 and answer study questions 1-4) resources should be contextualized for the learner. Such contextualization can include linking one particular resource to its surrounding resource, drawing particular attention to a compelling example, providing additional clarification of a point in a resource, or otherwise giving expert guidance to a student.
2.1.5: Final Exam
Nearly every Saylor course includes one course-summative final exam, which is the only portion of the course that carries an official grade. The exam bank consists of double the number of items as appear in any given exam attempt (in most cases, the bank is 100 items for a 50 item exam). The items are auto-gradable, usually multiple choice. To pass the final exam, and thus the course, a student must earn a 70% or higher on a final exam attempt. Students have 2 hours to complete the exam once started, and may retake the exam as many times as they would like. There is a required 2-week waiting period enforced between attempts. All final exams are linked to course completion certificates, and some exams are additionally linked to credit-recommendations through transfer partners or credit-recommending bodies. Credit-bearing exam attempts usually require the use of a proctor. See here for more information on Saylor’s college credit opportunities.
2.1.6: Assessments and Other Activities
In addition to the final exam, most courses also include some mixture of discussion board prompts, study questions, checks for understanding, problem sets, unit quizzes, or other active learning opportunities. The type and scope of these vary considerably from course to course, depending on the course learning outcomes and the assignment types standard to the course’s respective discipline. Students may receive grades on these activities, but these grades are not weighted in the overall course grade. Students may choose to display their performance on auto-graded assessments or evidence of their work alongside their course completion certificates.
2.1.7: Course Evaluation Survey
Embedded within each course is a course evaluation survey, on which students are invited to provide feedback about their learning experience.
2.2: The Learning Environment
Now that you know about the standard components of a Saylor course, let’s spend a few minutes getting familiar with the learning environment in which those components appear.
2.2.1: Moodle
Moodle is Saylor’s learning management system. It is similar to many of the learning management systems out there, and is open source. As a course developer, you won’t need to do much with Moodle’s technical specifications; Saylor staff will upload course materials. Saylor’s Moodle instance allows anyone to access most course materials, even if they are not logged into an active Moodle account. In order to access any of the assessments that are housed within Moodle (all auto-gradable materials and some of the other assessments), students must create a free account with Saylor and be logged into that account. For an overview of the way Saylor uses Moodle, check out this Getting Started video.
2.2.2: Discourse
Saylor uses Discourse to host our discussion boards. Discourse is an open source, student-led, and community-moderated platform. Saylor students use Discourse to share artifacts of their learning (essays, discussion and journal prompt responses, and so on) and get feedback, pose questions about course content to one another, find a support network, and meet each other and Saylor staff virtually. The Saylor community on Discourse is growing and dynamic. Saylor staff members occasionally interact with students on Discourse, particularly greeting students in the introductions thread or troubleshooting broken links, unclear instructions, difficulty understanding how to begin a course, etc.
Some of Discourse’s discussion board features and permissions are gated, in part, by a system of trust levels. Varied, sustained, and reliable contributions to the boards enable students to do more with the system: send private messages, upload attachments, flag problematic posts, edit or close stale threads, etc. Ample opportunity to make relevant posts to Discourse enables more students to use the boards to their fullest potential, thus democratizing the Saylor community on Discourse. Keep in mind as you develop your course that Saylor’s aim is to provide frequent opportunities for real discussion and interaction that are not prescriptive or confined. Encouraging students’ reflection on their prior experiences related to the course content or eliciting students’ reactions to clearly visible examples of course concepts seen in the outside world, for example, are great ways to foster discussion in this context.
Students beginning a program of study with Saylor Academy may introduce themselves here. We welcome consulting faculty to introduce themselves, interact with students, and look for topics that may be relevant to their expertise.
2.2.3: Accredible
Since Spring 2015, Saylor has been issuing course completion certificates via our partner, Accredible. These certificates are web-native, allowing students to share them with whomever they want. Students can customize the specific evidence items shown on each certificate (for example, including the final exam score, selected answers to study questions, project completions, and so forth). You can learn more about Saylor’s Accredible certificates here. As you develop your course, think about what kinds of things students may want to display to others after they’ve finished their course -- often, those items can be featured in Accredible certificates.