research-article

Dancing on quicksand gracefully: instructional design for rapidly evolving technology courses

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Richard HelpsAuthors Info & Claims

SIGITE '07: Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education

Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/1324302.1324304

Published: 18 October 2007 Publication History

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Abstract

One of the challenges of higher education in technology, especially in computer disciplines, is the rapid change of technical content. In technology disciplines with a tradition of experiential learning instructors need to continually redesign courses to ensure the learning experience for the students is current and relevant. This paper discusses an approach to course design that has been applied to a class in Information Technology that experiences significant changes in course content on a regular basis. The design approach allows many aspects of the course design to remain constant, including much of the class presentation and assessment, while including the latest technology developments and applications in the course. Students collaborate in seeking out new applications in technology and in sharing them with the class.

The paper discusses a course module developed using these principles. Different aspects of the design were analyzed. Firstly how successful is this as a mechanism for maintaining course currency with current technological developments, secondly to what extent is this successful for instructors to collaborate with students in acquiring new knowledge in the discipline and thirdly does the instructional design approach adequately support student learning of new application areas in the discipline.

References

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Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

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Gibbons, A. S. (2000). What and How do Designers Design? A Theory of Design Structure. Paper presented at the AECT 2000.

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Gibbons, A. S., & Fairweather, P. G. (2000). Computer-Based Instruction. In S. Tobias & J. D. Fletcher (Eds.), Training and Retraining: A Handbook for Business, Industry, Government, and Military. New York: Macmillan Reference.

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Gibbons, A. S., McConkie, M., Kyeongju, S. K., & Wiley, D. A. I. Theory for the Design of Instructional Simulations and Microworlds. In.

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Gibbons, A. S., & Rogers, P. C. (2006). Coming At Design From A Different Angle: Functional Design. Paper presented at the AECT Research Symposium.

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Gibbons, A. S., & Rogers, P. C. (2007). The Architecture of Instructional Theory.

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Helps, C. R. G., & Renshaw, S., A. . (2004). Design of a flexible case-study instructional module for operating systems for information technology. Proceedings of the 5th conference on Information technology education, 56--59.

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Cited By

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Giacaman NRoop PTerragni VDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Evolving a Programming CS2 Course: A Decade-Long Experience ReportProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569831(507-513)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569831
Gibbons ABoling EGibbons ABoling E(2021)Instruction as a Conversation: The Imperative for Message Layer DesignConversational Forms of Instruction and Message Layer Design10.1007/978-3-030-84220-8_1(1-15)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84220-8_1
Godat MAtkin B(2013)Reframing the development of corporate learningEngineering Education10.11120/ened.2013.06010002(0-0)Online publication date: 27-Mar-2013
https://doi.org/10.11120/ened.2013.06010002
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Dancing on quicksand gracefully: instructional design for rapidly evolving technology courses
1. Applied computing
  1. Education
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

SIGITE '07: Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education

October 2007

284 pages

ISBN:9781595939203

DOI:10.1145/1324302

General Chairs:
Bob Sweeney
University of South Alabama, USA
,
David Feinstein
University of South Alabama, USA
,
Program Chair:
J. J. Ekstrom
Brigham Young University, USA

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 October 2007

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SIGITE07

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SIGITE07: ACM Special Interest Group for Information Technology Education Conference 2007

October 18 - 20, 2007

Florida, Destin, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 176 of 429 submissions, 41%

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Cited By

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Giacaman NRoop PTerragni VDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Evolving a Programming CS2 Course: A Decade-Long Experience ReportProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569831(507-513)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569831
Gibbons ABoling EGibbons ABoling E(2021)Instruction as a Conversation: The Imperative for Message Layer DesignConversational Forms of Instruction and Message Layer Design10.1007/978-3-030-84220-8_1(1-15)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84220-8_1
Godat MAtkin B(2013)Reframing the development of corporate learningEngineering Education10.11120/ened.2013.06010002(0-0)Online publication date: 27-Mar-2013
https://doi.org/10.11120/ened.2013.06010002
Hai-Jew S(2011)Design Tools and Processes for Building E-LearningEncyclopedia of Information Communication Technologies and Adult Education Integration10.4018/978-1-61692-906-0.ch025(415-434)Online publication date: 2011
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61692-906-0.ch025
Miller CDettori LEkstrom JStockman M(2008)Employers' perspectives on it learning outcomesProceedings of the 9th ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education10.1145/1414558.1414612(213-218)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1414558.1414612
Schmalz MConway LEkstrom JStockman M(2008)It/cs workshopProceedings of the 9th ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education10.1145/1414558.1414567(23-30)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1414558.1414567

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