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Quality Matters
Wright State's membership in the Quality Matters Ohio Consortium as part of Quality Matters reflects our dedication to quality in online course design. As part of this collaborative network, we share best practices and innovations in online learning, aiming for excellence and quality assurance across Ohio and beyond. This partnership enhances our faculty's ability to develop successful online courses and programs supported by a community focused on professional growth, scholarship, and research.
Create a Quality Matters Account
- Go to MyQM - www.qmprogram.org/myqm/
- Input email address
- Select “No, I am new here.”
- Select Sign In
If you have questions about Quality Matters, please contact: genevieve.jomantas@wright.edu
The Quality Matters rubric is designed to help institutions review their courses across eight broad standards.
- Course Overview and Introduction
- Learning Objectives (Competencies)
- Assessment and Measurement
- Instructional Materials
- Learning Activities and Learner Interactions
- Course Technology
- Learner Support
- Accessibility and Usability
WSO Quality Course Design Template
The Wright State Online Design Template, guided by Quality Matters standards, compliance, and accreditation initiatives, offers a quick start to developing high-quality online courses. When imported into your D2L course shell, it establishes an effective organizational structure and essential features. This facilitates a streamlined course design process, ensuring your course is clear, engaging, and accessible, and allows you to focus more on content and teaching methods. To request access to our Quality Course Design Template, please email WrightStateOnline@wright.edu.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy is a framework for categorizing educational goals, first proposed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956. It is widely used in education to guide the development of learning objectives and assessment tasks. The taxonomy consists of six levels of cognitive skills arranged hierarchically from lower to higher-order thinking skills:
- Remembering: Recalling facts and basic concepts.
- Understanding: Explaining ideas or concepts.
- Applying: Using information in new situations.
- Analyzing: Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships.
- Evaluating: Justifying a decision or course of action.
- Creating: Producing new or original work.
The table below organizes action verbs at each Bloom Taxonomy Level. Using this verb selection guide will help you accurately describe the level of learning or proficiency you can expect your learners to achieve.
|
Cognitive Level |
Action Verbs |
Definitions |
|---|---|---|
|
Knowledge |
arrange, define, describe, duplicate, identify, label, list, match, memorize, name, order, outline, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, select, state |
Remembering previously learned information |
|
Comprehension |
classify, convert, defend, discuss, distinguish, estimate, explain, express, extend, generalize, give example(s), identify, indicate, infer, locate, paraphrase, predict, recognize, rewrite, report, restate, review, select, summarize, translate |
Grasping the meaning of information |
|
Application |
apply, change, choose, compute, demonstrate, discover, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, manipulate, modify, operate, practice, predict, prepare, produce, relate, schedule, show, sketch, solve, use, write |
Applying knowledge to actual situations |
|
Synthesis |
arrange, assemble, categorize, collect, combine, comply, compose, construct, create, design, develop, devise, explain, formulate, generate, plan, prepare, propose, rearrange, reconstruct, relate, reorganize, revise, rewrite, set up, summarize, synthesize, tell, write |
Rearranging component ideas into a new whole |
|
Evaluation |
appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, conclude, contrast, defend, describe, discriminate, estimate, evaluate, explain, judge, justify, interpret, relate, predict, rate, select, summarize, support, value |
Making judgments based on internal evidence or external criteria |
Backward Design & Learning Objectives
Start with the end in mind when developing a course. In other words, first, define the course learning objectives that students should achieve by the end of the course. This instructional design framework is known as backward design, as articulated by Wiggins & McTighe (2005). The backward design The framework emphasizes designing courses intentionally, prioritizing outcomes over methods and assessments.
Using this approach, course developers focus on three primary stages:
- identifying the desired results (learning objectives)
- determining acceptable evidence of learning (assessments)
- planning the learning experiences and instruction (learning activities)
By establishing clear, measurable objectives at the outset, educators ensure that all course components are aligned with these goals. This alignment clarifies the path for student learning and enhances the course's coherence and effectiveness.
The learning objectives serve as benchmarks for instructors and students, providing a clear framework for what needs to be accomplished. These objectives are designed to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART), which helps in creating focused and feasible goals. After the objectives are set, instructors work backward to create assessments that genuinely measure these objectives. Following this, the learning activities are designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the assessments.
Ultimately, the backward design model fosters a learner-centered approach, where the educational experiences are tailored to meet the established objectives. This deliberate educational process ensures that every course element contributes to meaningful and effective learning outcomes.
The following generator is a free resource to help develop measurable outcome statements.
Learning outcomes generator from Easygenerator.com
Course Mapping
The course map is pivotal in aligning learning objectives with activities and assessments, providing a clear and structured blueprint for the educational journey. This alignment ensures that every course element is purposefully designed to achieve the desired learning outcomes, enhancing the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the learning experience.
