Silenced Voices: Gender, Credit, and Appropriation in Historical Contexts
In this online learning experience, learners navigate two modules that cover cultural equality movements in American history and the appropriation of women's accomplishments. This course is designed to be synchronous, with students meeting in real-time with their instructor to learn content, and then using the online module to master their learning objectives through various assessments.
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Audience: high school students
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Tools Used: Google Classroom, Microsoft Word, Google Forms
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Partner: Camden Robinson
Analysis
Upon our first meeting, Camden and I noticed there has been a gap in my high school history classrooms: gender studies, and specifically the appropriation of women's work. This comes from experience, as we both have worked in high school classrooms. We confirmed this learning gap by conducting a needs assessment.
Through our needs assessment, we determined possible causes for the problem, why the knowledge is important, and a suggested solution to the problem. The importance of this content was clear: an understanding of our country's history is vital for responsible civic participation and responsible citizenry. While not all causes could be solved with instruction, it was determined that a lack of knowledge and understanding on the oppression of women throughout history could be fixed with instructional solutions.
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After our needs assessment, we conducted a learner, context, and course analysis. We determined the general characteristics, prior knowledge, attitudes, motivation, and learning preferences for our audience. Then, we determined what learners would need to succeed and what obstacles they might face that would make succeeding in the course difficult, such as home environments. Finally, we looked at the prerequisites, needs for scaffolding, engagement, and other strategies that would impact course creation. All this information helped us create personas for our different types of learners that allowed us to create the learning modules with them in mind.
Instructional High-Level Map
After the initial analysis, we identified our instructional outcomes, learning objectives, and assessments. To make sure that our learning objectives and assessments aligned with our outcomes, we created an alignment map that tied them together. Below is our first outcome to illustrate this alignment.
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Outcome: Learners will evaluate the impact of women having their work appropriated by men.
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Supporting Learning Objective: Learners will identify three women in history that have had their accomplishments stolen by men.
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Assessment: students will write three biographies on women who have had their accomplishments or research credited to men.
Other assessments included a pretest to assess prior knowledge, various formative assessments to allow for practice, and a discussion post to increase engagement with peers.
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Next, we identified our instructional strategies, module flow, and resources by developing our high-level map. Using the information gained in our analysis phase, we created an overview for our modules, making sure that everything tied back to our instructional goals.
Designing a Blueprint & Developing Materials
Once we had our high-level map we created a blueprint, or detailed map of our modules. By creating a blueprint, we were able to see our modules written out and make revisions before building the learning experience out in our LMS. We designed our content and assessments, building them upon each other so students could meet our larger instructional goal.
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While we designed the blueprint, we also developed our instructional materials. By taking our outlined assessments, we created readings and activities that supported our learning outcomes.
Developing Modules & Accessibility
After completing the blueprint, we moved to Google Classrooms to develop modules. Our goal in this stage was to create a finished product that would be functional and accessible for our learners. While we had goals to meet accessibility requirements and incorporate elements of Universal Design, we fell short due to the limitations of the LMS. Some of these limitations included the inability to add links for easier navigation, add imbedded content, and use alt text for images. Although this was partially an in-person course, we feared that there would be students unable to complete the work in this program without outside accommodations. Therefore, if we were to revise this project we would build it in another LMS, such as Canvas, that has more functionality.
Evaluation
Before we presented our project to our peers, we created an evaluation plan that helped us identify what feedback we were looking for and how we would interact with our stakeholders, SMEs, and learners. In this assignment filled with hypothetical scenarios, it included meeting with these individuals throughout the process, not just near the end. This was an excellent exercise as we were unable to meet with SMEs or learners for this project. For example, before beginning the project, we might send out surveys to our students to determine learning gaps, interest in the topic, and feasibility. Later on, we might ask our SMEs to check the clarity, accuracy, and accessibility of the content.
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Once we finished this assignment, we created a survey for our peers to give us direct feedback on our project. We designed it in Google Forms and linked it directly in our Google Classroom. Then, we sat with our peers as they went through our project. We received some constructive feedback on navigating the class, but overall our flow, content, and timelines were clear.
