Lynda’s Rules for Course Content

Yeah, this is my blog about my fiction life. But the truth is my obsession with Amel and Horth’s world has always driven skills development for my day job. So I’m going with being “one me” on the blogging front.

I’m attending the Open Education Conference for 2015 in Vancouver, this week and feel the urge to indulge in free speech. So here’s my rules from my salad days at UNBC, about course content, whether you make it yourself, adapt it or buy it.

Lynda’s Course Content Rules

other things being equal ’cause there are always special cases …

Go with free or less expensive over greater polish

(note: polish and quality are not the same.)
Use the “necessary and sufficient”principle for required content. (i.e. Nothing not essential to outcomes and everything that is essential.)
Be up-front about what’s fact, what’s cultural consensus in the field, and what’s debatable or in flux.
For enrichment: connect students to living (in high-change fields) or authoritative (in slow-change fields) sources. Make “optional” aspect explicit and warn them it is “off the deep end” stuff.
For review/remedial challenges (i.e. bugbears): provide two alternative, level-appropriate sources that present your lesson in a different way.