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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Hello, and welcome to the Transform Your Teaching podcast. Today's episode is a re release from our series on back to the basics, talking about objectives. In this episode, Doctor. Rob McDowell and Doctor. Jared Piles had a discussion with one of our good friends of the program, Doctor.
Ryan:Hye Song Ye. We thought this would be helpful for you all because really, objectives is where it all begins. So thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy this episode.
Narrator:Welcome to the Transform Your Teaching podcast. The Transform Your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. We seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices. Thanks for joining our conversation.
Jared:Welcome back to Transform Your Teaching here on the campus of Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. My name is Jared Piles, with me as always is Doctor. Robert Ivan McDowell. Hello, Doctor. McDowell.
Jared:Hello, it's good to be here today. We are revisiting our series on the basics, talking with some faculty members about their different assessment strategies, content delivery, and the like. And with us is a very esteemed colleague who happens to work down the hall from us. He's in our department. He's one of my good friends.
Jared:We started here together. He's my partner in crime when it comes to instructional design. That rhymes. Doctor. Hai Song Yeh.
Jared:And I did a little bit better on that pronunciation, right?
Haisong:Yes.
Jared:Thank Just for the record though, how do you actually pronounce it?
Haisong:I mean, I thought I
Jared:was I think I did okay. Well, it's better. If we had a rubric
Rob:It's very close.
Haisong:Yeah, it's very close.
Jared:If we had a rubric, I would score at least above like a 70, Would you say?
Haisong:Oh, hi. Yeah. 85. Oh, 80 five. Wow.
Rob:Generous. But in the office, we affectionately call him yay yay.
Jared:Yes. Because he is the grandfather.
Rob:He is the grandfather of the CTL.
Jared:He's the all wise no. He's also referred to as the A Team.
Rob:The A Team, yes.
Jared:In the office.
Rob:They cannot forget that. It's very People will
Jared:bypass my office
Rob:And mine.
Jared:And Rob's and go straight to Doctor. Ye's office because they get the best answers from him, by
Haisong:the Because my door is straight towards the hallway.
Jared:Yeah. I think you need to change where you sit because they also see you as you sit right beside the door. I think you need to hide like Robin would.
Rob:I have a question, and there's my answer. He's sitting right there. Anyway, so just give us a a brief history of how you came to Cedarville.
Haisong:So I was a PhD student in Indiana State University. So I studied my PhD program 2012. And then towards the end, I think that was 2018, and I was trying to find a job all over the country. I looked I was looking over for a job. And I don't know how I just have a chance to find the job posting from CWL.
Haisong:And then I applied for that. At the same time, I applied another job almost the same time. But I got both interviews, one from Cedarville, One from the other institution. Yeah. So it's just it.
Haisong:I mean
Jared:We should also mention that Hai Song and I interviewed for the same job. Yes. And he won out. He did. He did win out.
Jared:Yes. At that I'm not bitter about that at all.
Rob:At that time
Jared:Clearly, because I'm here.
Rob:At that time, he he had the requisite skills and also the education.
Jared:Oh, yeah. Mhmm. And I'd come from k twelve. I hadn't done instructional design in doctor Egan.
Rob:You'd had you'd done some.
Jared:You had a master's. But I had a master's, but it wasn't in instructional designer. It wasn't necessarily in higher education.
Rob:Mhmm.
Jared:I had taught a little bit. Right. But, yeah, he clearly he won. He's the 18.
Rob:He's the 18.
Jared:So he's gonna win. Yeah. So let's talk about objectives. How do you approach let's say, let's start. I know you do you have your foot in both camps when it comes to teaching and designing.
Jared:So let's start with teaching. How do you approach objectives?
Haisong:So for teaching, like, I always think about the overarching goal for this course, how a course will fit the program, how the course will serve the students, like with the prerequisites, like prior knowledge. Most of the time I will have course objectives like I had already determined for the course. But as an instructor, I still have the opportunity to choose a way to implement those objectives in my course. So first of all, I will not just look at the course, but the whole series of the courses, like how this course will serve as a prerequisite for the following advanced courses, or what kind of prerequisites for this course. I will try to find the good position of this course, like in a series of courses.
Haisong:So that's the first step. Then I will look in at the course objectives and then try to identify those assessments. At the end of the course how students can demonstrate their successful achievement.
Jared:So same question, but now put your designer hat on. How do you approach objectives?
Haisong:Because I have the mindset of an instructional designer. So I will say pretty similar. I will still start from how this course is positioned in the program. And then again, course objectives, then assessment, then content.
Jared:I have one follow-up. I've never asked you this before. You and I meet with instructors on a regular basis about their courses and through various stages of the design process. How do you teach an instructor about good objectives? What's your approach to it?
Haisong:Usually I will like influence them, guide them through the thinking process. Like I would ask as a subject matter expert, after Susan finishes this course, you want them to be able to do, like what the actual work or actual job or work, like what can they
Jared:do? And
Haisong:then usually they will give you a or give me a very specific example. And then I can start from that. I can build up the course level objectives and module level objectives
Ryan:like that.
Jared:So you start you give them say, give me a specific task that they're going to an actual action
Haisong:Mhmm.
Jared:That they're going to be able to do at the end of the course.
Haisong:Mhmm.
Rob:So why is it so important that course objectives be clear? And why do they need to start with a verb?
Haisong:You guys have already discussed in the previous episode, you used the drive. Mhmm. We need to know, I say we, it's including the instructor and the students. Both of them needs to know what's the end goal of the course. That needs to be very clear.
Haisong:So from the instructor's perspective, the instructor can design facilitate design those activities and facilitate the student's learning process towards that goal. From the student's perspective, when they study, they have a very clear goal. It will also help the students to improve their skills in self regulated learning, like lifelong learning, not just for this course, but but
Jared:Soft skills.
Haisong:Soft skills.
Jared:Yeah. Like organization and time management, stuff like that. Gotcha.
Rob:So it kinda teaches by inference Mhmm. Using those course goals, gets them to start with what they want first and work backwards from there?
Haisong:Mhmm. Okay.
Jared:Kinda like backward design?
Rob:It sounds like it.
Jared:Sounds like it.
Haisong:Yeah. So like I I told you guys, when we were at the AECT conference, I attended a session. That session had a student present with a professor about an online course design. So the student shared about like how, shared the students' perspective of how a online course will be a good online course. One perspective from the students is clear course goal.
Haisong:That's very important for them as well, I think.
Rob:So it sounds like knowing what you're doing in a course and why you're doing it, especially if it's your program of study. And that's why I liked really a lot about what you were saying earlier of dovetailing your course into what comes before it and what comes after it. So that really gets us to a a larger idea of program development and even program outcomes, which we haven't really touched on this podcast at all. But I think it's legitimate to say it's really hard to write good course objectives if you don't know where the program is headed. Mhmm.
Rob:I think that's also a piece, and it is very encouraging to hear how you start off with that, not only in your teaching, but also in your design work. So
Jared:we have a thought experiment that we're going to do. We feel like we have covered objectives and we've defined them and described them as many times as possible. But as we have discussed in previous episodes, sometimes a good case study or a thought experiment like this is a good way of demonstrating and helping make those connections.
Rob:Yeah. I like it.
Jared:We're gonna do two SMEs and an ID. Doctor. Yeh is the ID, and Rob and I are partner SMEs. Never heard two SMEs. Partner SMEs.
Jared:Our course is going to be
Rob:How to make a good cup of coffee.
Jared:And now using the power of audio, hold on, gentlemen. We are going to transport ourselves to a coffee shop. This is a really nice coffee shop.
Rob:I mean, is It does have a feel.
Jared:It's very nice. I I feel like this is like our coffee drops have come full circle. Do you smell the aroma? Yeah. I think
Rob:we should call this this episode the coffee pot.
Jared:I don't know what that means. Instead
Rob:of coffee drops, it's the coffee pot.
Jared:But it's not anyway, doctor Yeh, lead us through this thought experiment, please. We are here to build a course informing other faculty members of how to brew a good cup of coffee.
Haisong:Sure. So may I ask, what's your end goal?
Jared:What do you think our end goal should be, doctor McDowell?
Rob:I think our end goal should be that faculty member can brew for themselves at home a delicious cup of coffee with any contraption that they have.
Jared:So we're not limiting brew device. We're just saying whatever.
Rob:So what do you think, fellow SME?
Jared:I I think it's great. I think we should whatever the way we get there, the end goal should be a delicious cup of coffee.
Haisong:Yeah. So the end goal is a delicious cup of coffee.
Rob:Correct.
Haisong:So how do you define delicious?
Rob:Well, it is somewhat subjective.
Haisong:Right? It
Jared:is very subjective. Yes.
Rob:Because we do have those amongst us that think Maxwell House is a delicious cup of coffee.
Jared:Yeah. And that's a We
Rob:would say that's sad.
Jared:That's a bad cup of coffee. How would you define delicious?
Rob:Well, personally, I think delicious cup of coffee is something that's chocolatey, nutty in flavor, doesn't have a bitter aftertaste, and is smooth. It doesn't, like, kick you in the face, so to speak. Like, you're not rolled over by how harsh it is.
Haisong:Mhmm. Let's
Rob:Or we've gone to
Jared:No. No. It's I think it's fine. I think if we do delicious and chocolatey, I think we are getting to a specific type of bean and not necessarily the brew method. So I would say that delicious would be an equal extraction, like the perfect level of extraction.
Jared:So that involves the ratio of water to beans, the grind size, and everything else. I think that's where we need to go for delicious.
Rob:I think that is excellent. Yeah.
Jared:You are right. Thank you.
Haisong:So now we have an action verb. It's actually to brew.
Jared:Brew? Okay. To brew. Right? So at the end of this course, students will be able to brew a do we say delicious?
Rob:To brew a proper cup of coffee with the right ratios of water to beans and contact time. What else is missing there? Water temperature. Water temperature.
Jared:Grind size, water temperature, time is part of that as well.
Rob:Because regardless of bean well, I think they also need to know what makes a good bean and what doesn't.
Jared:That's correct.
Rob:So when is the proper time to actually brew a bean or to grind it?
Jared:Yes. Because beans can get stale.
Rob:Yes. They get stale. After they're first roasted, you're not supposed to have them out for you're you're not supposed to use them for another week.
Haisong:Okay. So so we are getting very detailed Yes. Yes. Stuff.
Jared:Yes. So
Haisong:let's back up a little bit.
Jared:Okay.
Haisong:So the final goal final goal is to brew a cup of delicious coffee
Jared:still, Yes. We're trying to define delicious.
Haisong:Yeah. Then we try to define delicious.
Rob:Okay. And
Haisong:then we have an idea of what is considered as delicious. So the delicious is based on the coffee brewer's own Taste. Tastes. Yeah. Okay.
Haisong:Then my next question will be how would you evaluate it's delicious? So based on based on what I've heard, it's mostly it's self evaluated.
Jared:Yes. I think you're right.
Rob:But it makes me wonder if we need to go away from delicious and go back to what you were saying earlier, is that it just needs to be technically brewed properly.
Jared:Yeah. Because delicious is subjective. We need something that's objective.
Rob:I think you were on the right track when you were talking about time, temperature, grind size, those three things, and quality. Yeah.
Jared:Mhmm. We can we can wrap it up by just I mean, we can put all those things together and say, brew a properly extracted cup of coffee. Because extraction extraction is all those things. Grind size, water, temperature
Rob:Okay.
Jared:Time. That's properly extraction.
Rob:So that's a
Jared:That's gonna give us a good cup a delicious cup of coffee.
Rob:Okay. I like that. Yeah. Is that where we were headed, doctor Ye?
Haisong:Yeah. So now we come up with the final, like end goal of the course. We can say, because this is a simple course, I was expecting we need like more than one objective for this course. What do see? Right?
Jared:Alright. That's fair. Yeah. So You don't wanna go into the different regions where coffee is harvested?
Rob:That so that the coffee maker would understand the history and provenance of multinational coffee beans.
Haisong:Yeah. So that's, again, do we need that in this course? Like, if our goal is to just brew a cup of extracted for coffee. Alright. Do we need
Rob:to This seems like a short course,
Jared:maybe a module in a course. I that's fine with me. Maybe this is part of the process with doctor Yea is realizing we either need more, or we need to just say, hey. This is probably a two week course.
Rob:You mean we didn't think about everything we were wanting to do before we got in here?
Jared:Yeah. We should have brainstormed before we came into the Oh. Yeah.
Rob:But this has been very helpful.
Jared:Yes. It has.
Haisong:But again again, we can go deeper if we have time.
Jared:We do. Let's go Like,
Haisong:is a course objective. But in order to help student reach that goal, we needed to set up some lower level, or say, like module level. If we have two modules, we need some level, or sublevel objectives.
Jared:Okay.
Haisong:How we can ensure student will reach this course object.
Jared:Okay.
Haisong:What do we need?
Rob:Well, they need to know how to grind coffee. Well, what kind of coffee they should use. Right? So they need to know when it's good to grind coffee beans versus when it's not. So when is it the premium time?
Jared:Is that
Rob:the right thing to say? Or the right time?
Jared:Yeah. The right time, I would say.
Rob:When is it the right time to grind coffee beans?
Haisong:So start with coffee beans.
Rob:Stop start with coffee beans.
Jared:I would say start with coffee beans.
Narrator:Mhmm.
Haisong:Do you think we needed to talk about how to choose coffee beans? What kind of roasts?
Jared:I think we need to make them aware of the different types of roasts and maybe because the regions are not always very specific, but it wouldn't hurt to go to why an Ethiopian coffee is different than a Costa Rican coffee.
Rob:Do we make them aware of like the tasting wheel or the flavor wheel?
Jared:I don't know if that's at this level. I think that might be a advanced coffee tasting.
Rob:Okay.
Jared:That's that's two zero one. This is only one zero This is one zero one.
Haisong:So so we can say given a type of coffee beans.
Rob:So, like, light roast, medium roast, dark roast, that's what comes to mind?
Jared:Yeah. Mhmm. And that how that also can affect extraction as well.
Rob:What about single origin versus, you know, blends? Does that matter?
Jared:Or guess that would matter. I guess you're we're also informing our students on we're giving them a buyer's guide almost to buying coffee beans at this point.
Rob:Essentially, it's what it sounds like. Because the other thing you have too is flavor is affected by by the finishing. Yeah. So there's so many different finishing types Yeah. Even to the same coffee bean.
Rob:You could have the same coffee bean beans, I should say, from a particular location, say Costa Rica Yeah. And you can finish it in multiple ways and the flavor be completely different each each way.
Jared:Yeah. So you've got anaerobic. You've got your the ones that are just dried in the sun. You've got the ones that are washed.
Rob:You've got
Jared:yeah. There's a lot of different processes
Rob:for that. Do we we go into that or
Haisong:not? Yeah. Do you want to go into that? If not, we can just say, given student student will will be given a type of bean.
Rob:That's simpler.
Jared:Yeah. If we're not looking for necessarily the flavor, which we got rid of the delicious part of it.
Rob:Because ultimately, what we want for them is to just know how. To make To make
Jared:Properly extracted cup. Yeah. So maybe we don't need that as much. Yeah. Maybe I would I would do dark medium.
Jared:And if we're gonna go into like weights, like how we weigh the coffee, I think we should go into dark medium and light.
Rob:But you're gonna have to because that's part of extracting.
Jared:Right. Proper ratios. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, but I think besides that, I don't think we need to
Haisong:go into much detail about So bean, water ratio. Water. So how special? Like, what what's special for water? Temperature or type of water?
Haisong:Like this?
Jared:For this level, of course, I would just say temperature.
Haisong:Okay. You can get to
Jared:the nitty gritty of the minerals you put in your water. Oh. Shout out third wave water.
Rob:Yeah. Just down the road.
Jared:Here on Cedarville's campus. Also was on Shark on campus in Cedarville. They're also on Shark Tank.
Rob:Yeah. Yep.
Jared:But we won't go we'll just talk about temperature at this point.
Haisong:Okay. Yeah. So the the two objectives, sub objectives here. So one is the beam, how to grind and set the proper temperature of the water.
Jared:Yes.
Haisong:Yes. That and the last one is the process.
Jared:Yes. That sounds about right. There's a lot in the process though.
Haisong:Yeah. But we need to think about, because we have like not the fourteen weeks course, So
Narrator:Oh, we could, though.
Rob:You most certainly could.
Haisong:We could, though. I agree. Yeah.
Rob:That sounds like a good online program. Coffee buying and brewery.
Jared:Your barista certificate? Cedarville University.
Haisong:So for this course specifically, do you have a, like, a particular brew method in mind you want to
Jared:We we could just do the classic and do the v 60. Just the pour over
Rob:That's the most accessible because you don't have to have I mean, you do need something like that that what's it called? The v 60, the carafe. Yeah.
Jared:And the cone.
Rob:Yeah. You need the cone most certainly.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:If you don't have the carafe, as long as you have something to put it in.
Jared:Or if we wanted to go simpler, we could do the Kolito Wave because it has a flat bottom. This is something we should talk about during the process too. Different methods have different extraction methods like there's the flat and there's the cone. Cones are usually easier to mess up, but the flat is pretty much you're gonna get even extraction all the way through if you have a flat bottomed brewer. A Lot year.
Jared:Maybe Kleta Wave would be a good
Rob:Yeah.
Jared:For that instead.
Rob:One thing we will not touch is the heresy of k cups.
Jared:Yeah. We will not discuss Keurigs at all in this course. If anyone even mentions it, I'm walking away. Or instant coffee. Not acceptable.
Jared:We don't brew plastic. That's right.
Haisong:Okay.
Jared:Okay. So the the the v 60 process.
Haisong:V 60. Yeah. Okay.
Jared:Oh, no. Sorry. KlitaWave.
Rob:KlitaWave. That's the easiest.
Jared:That's the easier one.
Haisong:Yeah. Kaleed Away. Kaleed Away. Kaleed
Jared:Kaleed Away. Kaleed Away.
Haisong:Yeah. So I think we have three sublevel or lower level objectives. Grinder your coffee properly, set the water temperature properly, and follow the process of the
Jared:Collide away.
Haisong:Collide away. Yeah. To fix a properly extracted coffee.
Jared:Okay.
Rob:So we have probably, with this thought experiment, we could do so much more with this.
Jared:We really could.
Rob:But I think the process, it just was really cool to watch.
Jared:Oh, yeah.
Rob:Because we came in with an idea, and I think this is this kinda underscores doctor Yeh, please speak to this, but it it underscores the point, for me anyway, that having more than one person with you when you're trying to do this is extremely helpful. Because you don't have someone if you don't have someone to bounce ideas off of or even question your own thinking, you're not going to probably get the target. That's what I think about when I think about course objectives. I don't I don't really define the target, what I'm aiming at precisely enough. So that was that was very enjoyable for us.
Rob:I don't know if it's gonna be enjoyable for those that are listening. I hope it is.
Jared:I I think it was because
Rob:Yeah.
Jared:I was going through man, the a team is really good.
Haisong:Yeah. He is.
Jared:Let me just say, there's a reason he's the a team. Yeah. Because the way that he directed us Yeah. In the in the right direction. It was definitely nuanced.
Rob:It was very good. And he knows us.
Jared:Yeah. He
Rob:does. But I think he can do that with anyone, and I think you can as well. So I'm a little I know.
Jared:I'm a little different in my approach.
Rob:Yeah.
Jared:But We won't do two SMEs and an ID as me the ID.
Rob:I've seen you do it as well.
Jared:So Yeah. So this was really good. I think that's going to help us better. I think it's to help our listeners as well.
Rob:I hope so.
Haisong:Hope so.
Jared:Construct some ways of approaching objective. It also shows how good doctor Yeh is. So if you wanna come over and get some insights from the A team, should do that.
Rob:We're gonna start working on our coffee course now.
Jared:Yeah. I'm all for it. Thank you for coming in.
Haisong:Thank you. Thanks for having me. Enjoyed it.
Jared:We are gonna wrap it up. That's gonna do it for us today. Thank you so much for joining us on the Transform Your Teaching podcast. Be sure to like subscribe on the various podcast platforms. Send us an email at CTLPodcastcedarville dot edu and check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog.
Jared:Thanks for listening.