Task 1: Task Overview Table
Task Assignment
Now that you’ve completed the preparatory work
of identifying targeted knowledge and skills, formulating a scenario,
and enumerating prerequisite skills, it’s time to define the
overall structure of the course. This is done by creating a Task
Overview Table.
The Task Overview Table specifies a sequence of tasks
the student1 will perform
during the course; each task requires application of some of the targeted
knowledge and skills, which the student will learn just in time as
they are instrumental to what he or she is trying to accomplish while
working on the task.
Each defined task should be:
- Authentic – It should be the sort of thing
that a student might do in the real world after completing the course,
and it should make the real-world relevance of the knowledge and skills
clear.
- Coherent – The things the student is asked
to do during the task should make sense as a “package.”
- Tractable – A task should be something that
a student, or team of students2, can accomplish and can accomplish
in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of effort.
The set of tasks must be sequenced appropriately in
the task table. All things being equal, the natural chronological order
of tasks in the real world is best, thus maintaining the narrative
of the scenario. Alternatively, tasks might be sequenced in a skills-based
order such that the skills of more advanced, later tasks, build on
those of more basic, earlier ones3.
After this work has been completed, we will review
your Task Overview Table in a group discussion and provide feedback.
You may then wish to revise it.
_______
1 Although the singular “student” is used
throughout these documents, note that it may be the case that tasks
are performed by a team of students. As the course author, this is
your choice.
2 If your course design calls for students to collaborate
to produce more significant work than could be accomplished by a single
student.
3 The ideal solution might be a combination of the
two.
Updated:
June 6, 2005
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