Taking an inventory of my teaching material

I have tried many times, in many ways, to create a well-organized and complete inventory of all my teaching material, and so far it has always eluded me.  I want to have one document where I can track all of my lecture topics, concepts, skills, tools, readings, and assignments.  I’m not talking about all of the content itself, just an inventory of what I have that I can use to review, assess, and improve my GIS curriculum (I teach five different GIS courses).  My attempts all seem to end up in MS Word, Excel, or OneNote.  I usually come up with a new, wonderful method, try applying it, and then find that it doesn’t quite work, spend more time noodling around with it, and then eventually abandon it before it’s finished.  Well, I think I may have finally found a way that will work.  Why?  Because it is about as simple as I can possibly make it.  No tables, no charts, no colour coding; just a simple hierarchical set of headings, subheadings, and bullet points in MS Word that match the topics, sections and slides I use in PowerPoint.  It seems obvious to me now, which is probably a good sign.

The highest level in the inventory is the topic (e.g. “Map Projections”).  Within each topic, I decided that there are three main components: theory, implementation, and readings.  The theory portion is organized under each topic as subheadings, and below these, individual bullet points that correspond to one main concept.  The implementation portion is called “Tools and Skills” to recognize that some things can be neatly itemized as specific tools in the software, while others are combinations of tools or other methods.  The last section is a list of references that, for now, is just for me to track where I’m drawing ideas from, but can also be used for proper citation later on and as a reading list for students (likely in a condensed form).

Now that the above framework has been sketched out, the first phase of my curriculum renewal will be to populate the inventory using only my existing material.  So far I have added the headings from my PowerPoint files, which was relatively easy, as I have “outline” slides at the start of each lecture and title slides for each section.  What I’m finding more time-consuming though, is adding in the tools, skills, and references, as I have never properly listed these anywhere before, at least not in a way that was complete and all in one place.

Once I have filled in all of my existing material, the real fun will begin in phase two, where I will systematically go through the UCGIS GIS&T Body of Knowledge, the Geospatial Technology Competency Model (both of which influenced the framework above), ESRI’s list of skills measured for technical certification (I’m just going to start with the ArcGIS Desktop Associate list), as well as a pile of textbooks and workbooks, to identify new material that should be included.  I will also have to edit some existing topics to make room for the new ones.  The challenge here is that each of the sources I’m using to help assess my curriculum has its own way of naming and organizing topics, a sort of conceptual taxonomy.  I will try to use these as much as I can, but inevitably find myself wanting to revise them to make them more easily understood by those new to the field.

The last phase will be to actually create the new lectures and assignments, which is no small task. As tedious and time consuming as all of this may sound, I’m actually finding it very satisfying so far.  I have wrestled with this for years, and finally think I have something that will streamline my workflow, enhance my curriculum content, and give me a simple inventory that is clearly organized and that, hopefully, will help students navigate through all the material in a way that enhances their learning experience.  Beyond that, I just think it’s fun (yeah, I’m a little strange that way).

 


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3 responses to “Taking an inventory of my teaching material”

  1. Amy Daniels Avatar
    Amy Daniels

    That sounds like something I would do if I had TIME! :-) Really, that is an awesome idea and I think it should be made into a tool somehow. Love your blog.

    1. Don Avatar

      I know what you mean about needing the time! I try to do it each summer, but even then it can be challenging. Fortunately I am starting a half-sabbatical, so no excuses for me this time. The GTCM has a spreadsheet tool for curriculum assessment, which is fairly good, but I’m planning to adapt it into something that includes more detail on some topics for my own use. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the blog!

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