Designing an Effective Course Curriculum Ponnurangam K PK

Designing an Effective Course Curriculum Ponnurangam K (“PK”) Indo-US Workshop on Effective Teaching at College / University Level Feb 10, 2011

Who am I? • Ph. D. from the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, USA • Research interests – Privacy and Security in Social Media – Security informatics – Cyber crime – Usable security • Teach – Foundations of Computer Security, Fall 2010 – Research Methods, Spring 2010, Spring 2011 IIIT-Delhi

Why Me? • Completed Documentation of Teaching Development Program from Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence • Included: attending T&L seminars for graduate students, micro-teaching, lecture observation, course and curriculum creation, lecture and homework creation with the solutions • Took me about 18 – 24 months to complete IIIT-Delhi

Preamble • Inspired by the Documentation program • I have little experience in evaluating the topics / concepts myself – I am trying to use it in the courses that I am teaching now IIIT-Delhi

The Golden Triangle for Effective Teaching Instructional activities Learning objectives Assessments IIIT-Delhi

Alignment provides consistent structure • OBJECTIVES articulate the knowledge and skills you want students to acquire by the end of the course • ASSESSMENTS allow the instructor to check the degree to which the students are meeting the learning objectives • INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES are chosen to foster student learning towards meeting the objectives IIIT-Delhi

What is Course Curriculum? • A carefully planned, clearly written, comprehensive syllabus about the course • Something that is used to promote the course before the course starts IIIT-Delhi

IIIT-Delhi

What is Course Curriculum? • A carefully planned, clearly written, comprehensive syllabus about the course • Something that is used to promote the course before the course starts • Something that is discussed in the first few lectures of the course – Set appropriate expectations IIIT-Delhi

Possible components of a Course Curriculum • • • Instructor information Course information Method of instruction / Strategies Course objectives Course calendar or schedule Course policies Textbooks and supplies Evaluation / Assessments Grading policy IIIT-Delhi

Instructor information • • Instructor: Prof. PK, pk@iiitd. ac. in TA: Kuldeep Yadav, kuldeep@iiitd. ac. in Office hours: 12. 15 – 1. 15 pm, Mondays Course website: https: //sites. google. com/a/iiitd. ac. in/research _methods_spring_2011/ IIIT-Delhi

Course information • • Research Methods Credits: 4 WF: 11. 30 – 12. 50 pm Course pre-requisites: 2+ years IIIT-Delhi

Instruction strategies • Lectures • Guest seminars • Group discussions IIIT-Delhi

Course objectives • The objective of this course is to introduce students to various research methodologies and to provide tools/techniques that can be used to evaluate the research results • Students at the end of the course: – Will be able to apply the right research methodology and evaluation technique on a given problem – Will know the components of a research paper and would have written (attempted) one on a chosen problem IIIT-Delhi

Course calendar or schedule Date Activity / submission / concepts to cover Week 1 Objectives & Philosophy of the course, Logistics of the course, Philosophy of research Week 2 …. Week 3 …. Week 4 …. Week 5 …. Week 6 …. IIIT-Delhi

Course policies • Plagiarism and cheating – What is it? • Copying HW / exams / code • Any content taken from another source without citation – First time caught, zero on that HW / exam – Second time caught will be directed to academic committee – Caught in report, one grade lower IIIT-Delhi

Textbooks and supplies • Lecture notes • Research papers • Course website IIIT-Delhi

Evaluation / Assessments • Assignments, tests, midterm, and final • Group presentations • Poster presentation IIIT-Delhi

Evaluation / Assessments • Tentative dates for – Assignments, tests, midterm, and final – Group presentations – Poster presentation • Policy for late submissions • Policy for missing tests or quizzes IIIT-Delhi

Grading policy Grades Points A 90 – 100 B 75 – 89. 99 C 60 – 74. 99 D 50 – 59. 99 E 40 – 32. 99 F < 32. 99 IIIT-Delhi

Takeaways • Effective teaching is alignment of Learning objectives, Instruction strategies, and Assessments • It takes a lot of efforts in developing an effective curriculum – Iterative process IIIT-Delhi

Ponnurangam Kumaraguru (“PK”), Ph. D. Assistant Professor Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology New Delhi – 110078 pk@iiitd. ac. in

Thank you IIIT-Delhi

Backup slides IIIT-Delhi