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How to edit, revise, and enhance cbt materials
Having started in the field of instruction as a course developer with a large utility company, I learned first hand that it is impossible to write course materials that will fit every student, or every instructor, and today, every computer configuration. Course materials are not meant to cover every situation. It is up to the instructor to adapt the materials to the students' needs to meet the course objectives.
First, start with good materials
Instructors new to a course usually rely heavily on the course materials the first few
times they teach the class. So, for the new instructor, the course materials should
include an easy-to-follow guide with solutions to all potential problems, and goals
that the students should be expected to accomplish at the end of each lesson.
Another helpful guideline would be how much time (on average) it will take the
students to learn each lesson.A well-designed set of course materials will also provide more than enough
demos, exercises, and supporting text from which the instructor can pick and
choose to meet the needs of students with varying backgrounds.For example, there should be guided, step-by-step exercises for beginners and a
choice of exercises that have students apply what they have learned. Some
exercises should require students to apply at least 50 percent of what they have
learned; other exercises should ask students to apply 70 percent or more. Still
others should allow students to research and try out new methods not provided in
the book.Always a need for change
Even with a wealth of examples and demos to choose from, you probably will need
to supplement and/or modify the materials for special situations. Some materials
may introduce five or six new concepts in what is meant to be a step-by-step
exercise for beginners. For example, a first lesson in word processing may
introduce the student to tabs, margins, fonts, alignment, and character formatting,
all in one exercise. If students are finding this too much to handle, try creating five
shorter exercises that cover each of the topics individually. Then use the one in the
book as a review exercise.Sometimes the sequence of the course materials causes problems.
Teaching Module 4 before Module 3 may be more helpful if the students are already familiar
with the concepts in Module 4. You must be careful with this, however, because
course materials are generally not written as stand-alone lessons. It is often
assumed that the students have completed each module in succession before
they go on to the next one. Make sure your students have the background skills
needed to jump ahead.Make materials relevant
One way to make examples relevant to the students is to find out what they would
like to use the computer for, and then develop exercises that relate to their
interests. One student didn't have much interest in a beginning MS Office class
until I showed him how he could use Excel to make his statistics homework
easier. Not only did his attendance improve, but it made statistics more interesting
for him as well.Another student was in danger of failing an MS Office course until one day she
asked me how to make signs that she could hang up in her Laundromat. She
ended up passing the course.When is it safe to leave out material?
Knowing what to add to a course is one thing; knowing what to eliminate is
another. One class of non-typists found the mail-merge exercises so confusing
that I felt compelled to scrap the exercises in the book and create a simpler one.
The new exercise was much easier for them to understand; all of the students were
able to successfully complete it.However, should I continue to leave out the complicated sales letter demo in the
book for the next class? Again, the overriding guide should be to use the materials
to meet both the students' learning needs and satisfy the course objectives. If the
objective is to know about the mail/merge function, then my example lesson will
suffice. However, if the student must be able to produce a mass mailing to 100
salespeople on the road when they go back to work tomorrow, then the
complicated sales letter exercise should also be taught.Test, test, then test again
No matter how good the course materials appear to be, don't have your students
test them out for you. The only way you can anticipate the problems a student will
have with the materials is to test them out yourself. A good rule of thumb is that if
you have trouble understanding the text, at least one of your students will as well.By thoroughly testing out all course materials beforehand, you will be able to make
changes to poorly written or confusing materials before the student has to deal
with them. More importantly, you also will ensure that the exercises will work on
your classroom's equipment.Back
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