Recurring Meetings: To keep communication open and consistent, various meetings are scheduled between the programs and Vision Team, across the faculty, designer, and leadership levels. These will vary between weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly recurring schedules.

Course Deconstructions: The ID and the CME will meet weekly to conduct a deconstruction for each course. The deconstruction includes identifying and refining Course Competencies (complex skills identified by industry), Learning Objectives, and KSAs, all broken into topical categories. The ID will act as the curriculum coach to guide the CME through the process and ensure the quality and completeness of each deconstruction.

Course Deconstruction Reviews: Once the course deconstruction is complete, it will be reviewed by the ID Manager and Director of Alignment to confirm the accuracy and quality of the competencies, learning objectives, and all other content.  Feedback will be requested during the review and the ID II and CME will work through the feedback to make appropriate modifications.

Quality Check/Assurance Meetings: Once the modification are complete, the design team will request a Quality Check meeting with the Curriculum Analyst. The CA will then prepare the quality check documents and review each deconstruction. During the meeting, the CA will go over the competencies and learning objectives, noting questions, comments, and revision needs based on PBE and TSTC guidelines and policies. Any needed revisions will be completed by the ID and CME and resubmitted to the CA for approval. 

Program Leadership Review & Approval: Once the CA has approved deconstruction, program leadership will review and give final approval. Should there be any feedback that requires modification, the ID and CME will work together to make the needed changes and resubmit to the CA and program leadership for approval.

Every PBE course has a deconstruction document outlining the course goals and content. Here are some key pieces that you'll find in deconstruction documents:

Course End Goal

The course end goal is a higher-level, big picture snapshot of what students should be able to do at the end of the class. It is 1-2 sentences long and starts with the phrase "Students will be able to...".

WECM/ACGM Outcomes (COs) 

Most TSTC courses have statewide course outcomes (COs) that are part of either the Workforce Education Course Guide Manual or the Academic Course Guide Manual. Every course with the same course identifier (Ex: LNWK 1370) across Texas must teach to these outcomes. These are aligned to our course competencies and/or learning objectives.

Course Competencies (CCs)

Course competencies (CCs) are overarching, broad goals for the course. They should invite authentic engagement by creating opportunities for students to apply the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that they have been working with in learning objectives. Course competencies are measurable, and students must succeed on their related, authentic assessments in order to succeed in the course. These should be connected to higher-level skills that have been identified by industry. Most courses will have 3-9 CCs that are written with verbs from the Apply or above categories in Bloom's Taxonomy.

Learning Objectives (LOs)

Learning objectives (LOs) are the specific mini-goals needed in order to achieve the course competencies (CCs). They represent groupings of KSAs, and they will encompass what is needed for each category. Each course competency will have 3-9 LOs (with a minimum of 2). LO verbs can be drawn from any level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Categories

Categories are groupings of KSAs. As courses get developed in Canvas, these most often emerge as learning modules. 

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) 

KSAs represent the course content itself. These are generally written as an outline of purely descriptive terms and do not include verbs so that they are more easily distinguished from course competencies and learning objectives. 

1. 1. Competencies represent explicit knowledge, skills, abilities and intellectual behaviors, balancing theory and application in a demonstration of mastery.

   2. Competencies are co-constructed with input from diverse communities such as employers, expert practitioners, subject matter experts, faculty, learners, advisory committees, recent graduates and professional or licensing bodies.

   3. Individual competencies are relevant, current and accurately depict the needs of employers and society.

   4. Competencies are capable of anchoring, specifying and guiding the learner experience, including curricular design, the development of instructional content, activities, remediation offerings and the assessment strategy.

   5. Individual competencies are aligned to cognitive levels of learning using recognized taxonomies and/or industry standards.

Learning Journey 

The learning journey provides a framework for the flow of learning in the course and what resources the learner will use to acquire new knowledge. During this phase, the CME can provide existing resources to evaluate. Existing resources should align with the course competencies and learning objectives, be accurate and current, contain appropriate breadth and depth, be of high-quality, meet accessibility standards, and reflect current learning strategies. If current resources are not available, they will need to be created. TSTC strives for 60% unique, TSTC created content and allows for 40% third party content. 

Check for Understanding 

Before students take a mastery assessment, they must first complete and pass any Check for Understandings in the module. These formative assessments are designed to gauge their understanding of the content and prepare them for the mastery assessment. Check for understanding is designed to be automatically graded within Canvas, provide feedback to students and allow for unique (if possible), multiple attempts. 

Mastery Assessments 

The purpose of mastery assessments are to assess whether a student has ‘mastered’ a course competency. Our goal is to use Authentic Assessments that mimic what a student might encounter in the workforce. Rubrics should be used to determine the level of mastery.

Lessons

To maximize student learning we want to use interactive and engaging content that is industry-relevant, transparent, and intentionally designed to meet the needs of all learners. Keeping this in mind, lessons should be developed or content curated using the following concepts:

• Industry relevance - lessons should provide the student with the ‘Why’ of the lesson. How will this lesson benefit the student in the workplace? This can be accomplished with module or lesson introductions or within the lesson or formative assessments.  

• Transparency - each lesson should align to a learning objective; paying special attention to the Blooms verb in the objective. If the verb says ‘label the x diagram,’ then the lesson should provide an overview of the diagram with a formative assessment where they practice labeling a diagram. 

• Chunking - content should be broken into small chunks of related information, using the learning objectives from the deconstruction as a guide. General rule of thumb is that videos should be around 5 minutes in length. Longer videos should be broken into chapters or re-engage the student with questions or interactions during the video. 

• Variety - we want to provide students with alternative ways to learn the course content that meet their individual learning strengths. This could be a combination of strategies like reading the textbook, a video lecture made by the instructor, a video on YouTube, LinkedIn Learning or other website, an article, an interactive/simulation etc. 

• Formative assessments- lessons should include an opportunity for the student to practice their new knowledge. These can be woven into a lesson using tools such as Articulate Storyline, quizzes within videos using Yuja. The goal is to mimic the real life experience, if possible. For example, if a student needs to know the steps to a certain process then a drag and drop could be suggested where they place steps or a process in the correct order. 

Course Branding

Each course/program can have a unique course banner/course image. ID’s will work with program leadership and/or CME’s to select an appropriate image for each course or program. 

1. 1. The set of competencies is clearly specified and provides easy-to-understand pathways that illustrate what the learner must know and be able to do in order to progress in and complete a credential.

   2. The program encompasses an integrated curricular sequence that scaffolds learning at appropriate cognitive levels leading to mastery while affording the learner flexibility in the time spent to reach mastery.

   3. The set of credential-specific competencies, chosen through a co-constructed process, represents the complete taxonomy of the knowledge, skills, abilities and intellectual behaviors required by academia, the workforce and society to evidence a prepared and proficient credential holder.

   4. Learners can articulate what they should know and what they should be able to do upon completion of the program.

   5. Learners have meaningful access to faculty subject matter experts who play an active, central role in the design and delivery of the program.

   6. Learning environments, content, communications, activities and assessments are accessible to and inclusive of each learner, based on identified needs.

   7. Learners are offered varied learning exercises, activities and experiences to promote their engagement and provide multiple opportunities for the development of competency mastery.

   8. The program is designed to support individual learners with personalized learning pathways as they develop and master competencies.

1. 1. Authentic assessments are built within and aligned to an overarching assessment strategy for the competency being measured and the credential being earned.

   2. The assessment strategy clearly articulates how the set of assessments supports the learning journey for learners, matches the cognitive level of the competencies being demonstrated and determines mastery at the appropriate academic level.

   3. The set of authentic assessments is designed to provide learners with multiple opportunities and ways to demonstrate competency, including measures for both learning and the ability to apply (or transfer) that learning in novel settings and situations.

   4. The assessment strategy and each of the assessments and their corresponding rubrics equitably measure learning outcomes across diverse learner groups, while guarding against bias in the formative and summative assessments.

   5. Faculty understand their role in the overarching assessment strategy for the credential and are trained in and can articulate the critical function played by each assessment in validating mastery of a competency.

   6. Each authentic assessment is transparently aligned to program competencies and their corresponding rubrics. Each authentic assessment is rigorous, has clear and valid measures and is approved by faculty and assessment professionals.

   7. Formative assessments serve as a tool for learning and provide feedback for reflection and refinement while also offering a feedback loop that is timely and appropriate to the competency and intent of the assessment.

   8. Summative assessments’ ability to measure application (the “can do” aspect of a competency) is validated by a subject matter expert (SME), ideally one external to the program design team.

   9. The assessment design accommodates personalization for learners by offering flexibility around when assessments will be administered. This ability is often supported by technology.

   10. The timeliness of feedback from assessments enables learners to proceed with an absolute minimum of delay. Technology is used wherever possible to facilitate and expedite the timeliness of feedback.