The use of Visual Control Cards (VCCs)

Here below i have shared with you an example of a VCC that I have prepared for my students in the Summer Course in Project Management. The course is conducted entirely virtually and all communication goes through our learning environment Moodle. It is actually question of a so called MOOC. I have around 50 students from different Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland.

After having familiarized myself with Lean and read the book Lean Teaching by Bob Emiliani (see Featured Post in the left column), I have decided to use VCCs in all my courses as a way of telling the students what I think that they shoukd at least remember from the course. This course, Basics of Project Management, is divided into five Parts with different topics. I will give a VCC for each part and the example below is from the first Introduction Part. I just love to do this visual presentations. It is also a way for me to reflect on the course content again and get new insights. The idea is that I publish these VCCs in the end of the two weeks period for each Part which means that the student has already studies the topic and will be able to use the VCC as a recollection. My goal as a teacher is that it will give the student some "Ahaa's" and perhaps a desire to go back to study the material and check for details again. All this to help the deep learning process to happen.

An example of a Visual Control Card from my course Basics of Project Management. You can enlarge it by clicking on the picture.

About Task Oriented Learning

I keep reminding my students in the on going Summer Course in Project Management that it is wise to study in small chunks in order to keep focused on the topics. I believe that this helps students to learn and to get a deeper understanding for the current subjects. Today I published a VCC (Visual Control Card) to help them to see and remember this. Se the picture below. The cumulative points can be checked by the student together with the teacher's comments in the Learning Environment (@VAMK we use Moodle).

A VCC for the students to explain how to earn points. You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it.

Task Oriented Learning | An Implementation in Moodle

I have in my teaching implemented something that I call Task Oriented Learning. I do not know whether this is a scientifically accepted term, but that is not the point either. I have actually developed these principles during my educational studies (I made these rather late in my teaching carrier) but has not implemented them until the last three years.

I believe that the student is entitled to know in the very beginning of the course in detail what is expected of him/her in terms of objectives and content, and the amount of work. This is also something that our Pedagogical Guide advises us to take into consideration.
I strive to give the student a clear course plan of the weekly work load and a breakdown into on campus and off campus activities. The studies are divided into small parts/portions/chunks with clear learning goals and study material, week tasks, assignments and other learning activities. The whole idea is to keep the student focused on the subject and give him/her the opportunity to earn points on weekly basis. "Eat the apple bit by bit" if you allow this metaphor.

I have implemented the ideas in our learning environment, we use Moodle here @VAMK. I want the students to know all the time how many points they have earned. I strive to comment the assignments as they are done and the points are to be checked by the student in "Grades" in Moodle.  

I produced a short video (1:10 min) from a Powerpoint presentation using Office Mix which gives you an idea of what I have done with my course in Project Management.

I am happy to share it here on my Blog. You can watch it in full screen by clicking the box down in the right corner. You can stop the presentation (video) whenever you want by clicking the play arrow and continue by clicking the same button