Forum LAMS Lounge Forum: Re: Re: Re: Re: Thoughts from users at the University of Sheffield

By: James Dalziel

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Thanks Robyn - seeing LAMS as a "module" level planner, rather than a "course" level planner is a really important observation. (NB: By "planner" I mean "plan and run")

I wish we had a better word for "module" - that is, a discrete component of a subject/unit/course that might go for a class/lesson, or for a week over several classes/lessons (or online over a week or more for distance education), or a similar period of time suitable to the context (eg, a half day workshop in corporate training). Part of the difficulty is that different types of education (university, K-12, etc) think of this thing ("module") differently, and have different words to describe it as well as different scheduling patterns for classes (or their online equivalent).

For some educators, the defining characteristic of a module is that it addresses a particular learning objective (or outcome or competency). This works well in some contexts, but in others you are always addressing a range of learning objectives (eg, subject specific content for the module, as well as more generic skills like problems solving, communication skills, etc), which makes it difficult to make the module = learning objective link hard and fast. Personally this ideea doesn't work well for me, but I know it is important in many other contexts.

Another key element of focusing on modules (rather than whole courses) is the potential for sharing and re-use - my sense is that it is rare that an educator would replicate an entire course from another educator (if it were shared), but re-using a single module (or potentially a number of different modules shared by different educators) is more likely. This has always been one of the key drivers behind the way LAMS was designed.

Posted by James Dalziel