Story Articulates Authentic Design
Principles, personas & paradigms
Watch video to better understand this resource
Review contributors to authentic assessing:
- Realistic & simulates real-world contexts
- Requires judgement and innovation
- Asks the student to “do” the subject
- Assesses student’s ability to effectively use knowledge & skills to negotiate complex tasks
- Allows opportunities to practice, consult resources, and get feedback on and refine performances and products
Wiggins, G. (1998). Education assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco: Joey-Bass Publishers.
Why Story To clarify Course Design?
Story is biological.
The shared neural network of memory & imagination:
Dr. Addis explores a unique research direction that seeks ways to improve a person’s ability to picture the future, and thus offers possible new interventions for depression and other mood disorders amongst older adults. These approaches are based on the evidence that suggests memory and the imagining of the future share the same neural network in the brain.
“Being able to imagine the future allows us to mentally work through potential obstacles in our minds and to troubleshoot how we might best cope with those situations,” says Dr. Addis. “This is important to our psychological well-being since it helps us use more effective coping strategies and eases our worries about upcoming events. It also improves our ability to focus on our goals.”
If the content, interactions and production of course or assessment design do not directly translate into their envisioned future story, there is a greater likelihood that less importance will be given and alternative means to achievement, i.e. outsourced writing services, will be engaged.
This dynamic connection of the past informing the future seems to correlate on the impact of authenticity in course design as a learner’s personal encapsulation of their past motivates current engagement when expectations of higher education learning are met, but just as strongly when envisioning the usefulness of current learning methods to achieving employment success.
However, it must be noted that while some impact on academic integrity has been found in research on authentic design, a common thread throughout has been that outsourcing academic work has become a routine practice among higher education students; and thus, all efforts should be framed within this reality. (See recent research from Australia by clicking here.)
Dr. Donna Rose Addis
University of Toronto. (2021, February 26). Donna Rose Addis. Department of Psychology. https://www.psych.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/donna-rose-addis
Netflix. (2019, September 12). Connect failed: User ‘942227_alan’ has exceeded the ‘max_user_connections’ resource (current value: 5) [Video]. Netflix – Watch TV Shows Online, Watch Movies Online. https://www.netflix.com/title/81098586
Story is philosophical.
“…Dewey accepted from Hegel experience as manifested in particular social, historical, and cultural modes. Not only is the self-constituted through experiential transactions with the community, but this recognition vitiates the Cartesian model of the simple, atomic self and methods based upon that presumption.
Philosophy may start where we start, personally — with complex, symbolic, and cultural forms—and then articulate further emergences from them.”
Dr. John Dewey
Stanford University. (n.d.). John Dewey (Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey/
Story is reflection.
“Carefully scaffolded prompts help students engage in reflection as a connective meaning-making process.”
Eynon, B., Gambino, L., & Török, J. (2014). Reflection, Integration, and ePortfolio Pedagogy. Catalyst for Learning — A Connect to Learning Site. https://c2l.mcnrc.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/01/Reflective_Pedagogy.pdf
Activity #1 – Principles of Story Design
Self-Study – Evaluate how directly applicable you think these principles of Story are to effective course design.
Pairs/Groups – Move through each principle discussing the extent of its applicability to course design. Examples and further insights do not need to be given for each principle, but you should add further detail or examples for at least a few.
Use this scale to help:
- 1 = directly applicable to course design
- 2 = somewhat applicable to course design
- 3 = not really applicable to course design
[Course design] is about….
- ….principles, not rules.
- ….eternal, universal forms, not formulas.
- ….archetypes, not stereotypes.
- ….thoroughness, not shortcuts.
- ….the realities, not the mysteries of story.
- ….mastering the art, not second-guessing the marketplace.
- ….respect, not disdain, for the audience.
- ….originality, not duplication.
- ….the positive/negative charges of life are at the soul of our art.
- ….not only what you have to say but how you say it.
McKee, R. (1999). Story: Substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting. Methuen Publishing