Catalyst Awards Blog Series: Curricular Experiences Templates Prove Beneficial in Virtual Education
The Catalyst Awards program recognizes innovation and excellence in our global community of practice. In this blog series, a selection of 2022 award-winning institutions from across the globe share their success stories and best practices.
This post was guest authored by Heraclio Campana Añasco, academic vice-rector at the Universidad César Vallejo, Peru.
Universidad César Vallejo is a 2022 Catalyst Award winner in the “Teaching & Learning” category.
The curricular experiences project template offers all professors access to the same online curricular experience or the same subject use materials and resources to help ensure learning success.
The Universidad César Vallejo employs approximately 6,000 professors who use an average of five files each, for a total of roughly 30,000 teaching files. This quantity of files makes monitoring content difficult. However, copying the curricular experiences template reduced the work and guaranteed the relevance and quality of their resources and teaching materials. The curricular experiences template was designed and developed using the learning sessions of a subject with all its materials and resources according to the syllabus. The template was finalized by a curricular experiences or subject specialist team, and then copied into the Blackboard® Learn platform so that all professors who teach the same curricular experience have access.
A curricular experience or subject is organized into 17 files; the first file contains general information, and the other 16 files present the learning sessions according to the syllabus. The general information file includes the syllabus, activity schedule, student presentation forum, and the 16 learning session designs.
Each one of the 16 folders contains:
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An activity plan that details the activities to be developed by the student before, during, and after each learning session.
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Information material that refers to guides, readings, and virtual learning objects.
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Annexes with presentations, texts for reading, links, videos, and complementary resources.
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Assessment activities that detail the activities for delivering learning products or evidence for each session, as well as the criteria and assessment instruments.
Project achievements
To promote autonomous learning, students have at their disposal the learning session materials and resources of their subjects in the Blackboard Learn platform before classes start.
The implementation of the curricular experiences template enables the design of a collaborative structure by specialists in each subject.
Professors have a virtual teaching file with materials and resources which have undergone a validation process to ensure their relevance and quality.
The curricular experience template enables monitoring of the implementation of the virtual teaching file, which guarantees that the content is oriented to the achievement of the students' competencies.
Results
The curricular experiences template was fully implemented in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Universidad César Vallejo. After copying the templates into Blackboard Learn, all professors have a basic teaching file for the development of their learning sessions.
Students have access to the materials and resources of the virtual teaching files from any device, wherever and whenever they need them.
Application of Anthology and/or Blackboard Learn solutions in the project
The Blackboard Learn platform is a virtual learning management system and allows the copying of partial or complete contents of a subject.
The file-copy function offered by Blackboard Learn allows the implementation of a virtual teaching file template, with resources validated by specialists of the study program.
Conclusion
The implementation of the virtual teaching file before the start of classes guarantees that professors develop their learning sessions with quality, innovative materials, and resources because this has a favorable impact on the success of student learning.
The incorporation of interactive activities in the virtual teaching file promotes student motivation, encourages autonomous learning, and reinforces learning through feedback.
For more information on the program, visit Catalyst Awards. Learn more about our 2022 Catalyst Award winners and their stories.