On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 07:10:19PM -0400, Matthew Jadud wrote: > 2010/8/23 Karsten Wade <[email protected]>: > > Please critique and help me get this correct. It's the same method we > > need to apply to the other chapters, and apply to new chapters yet to > > come. > > Hi Karsten, > > [DETAIL] > The first objective is not clear. > > "Use documentation as a way to become immediately useful as a project > newcomer." > > I think "as a way" is wordy. > > "Use documentation to become immediately useful as a project newcomer." > > "immediately" may be the modifier you want, but I don't know why I > would want to become useful "as a project newcomer." What does that > mean? Or, what does it mean to "become immediately useful?" If this is > the first thing I read, should it be more concrete? "useful as a > project contributor", or "an active member of a FLOSS community," or > anything that gets us towards something that is concrete/specific.
OK, I'm sure all could be considered in that way. Your's is a good set of changes to make it more clear. (I tend to be a bit verbose on the first through fifth edits.) Are you just providing a model for consideration that I can apply across all of them? Or am I lucky and that's the only one with problems? :) > [GENERAL] > I will say that these look like they will break the up the flow of a > chapter something fierce. This would be the kind of thing that I would > consider good for revision and consistency: after going through the > book and writing these, leave only the set that starts the chapter in > place. The "section-by-section" learning goals then provide a lens for > revising the text that is already in the book, and making the whole > book more consistent overall. OK, so that is one set of values worth doing this exercise. > Having a set of goals that tell me, as a reader, what the learning > goals are for the next eight paragraphs (and then finding another set, > and then another...) seems awfully heavy-handed. I'll likely forget > what the chapter-wide goals are by the time I get half-way through. I > prefer reading books that, through quality of prose (and judicious use > of sectioning and diagrams), make it obvious what I'm supposed to be > getting out of it. Perhaps if I see these in context of a chapter > I'll feel differently, but that's my gut feeling reading through all > of the learning objectives. I'm not sure what I was planning on doing with them at the end; I don't think I really visualized how they would be inline or not. In my mind, this is an exercise in confirming or rewriting the existing chapter. I am reverse engineering what we did, making sure it has some sound pedagogical basis, and doing that same for the rest of the book. But once done, is it of any additional value? That is, this is an exercise useful for writing a chapter from raw. Does having a full set of learning objectives provide more bona fides for this book? I'm thinking beyond all of you, to newer educators and their grad students leading discussion sessions and such. Is an appendix of learning objectives useful, ever? (Sounds painful to maintain, at least.) > Looking to the MIT page referenced, "Best practice dictates that > learning objectives be kept to no more than half a dozen."... you're > going to end up with more than a dozen *per chapter*, and the book is > intended to be used in a single course. It was a bit unclear to me what granularity that was for. Per book? Chapter? Section? A dozen maximum at all levels? How they are written can be very inclusive or very specific. Learn to maintain a car v. learn to change a flat, learn to check the air in the spare, learn to maintain tire pressure, learn to check tred wear, etc. For example, we wrote eight for the chapter originally. However, each of the sections has smaller, more granular learning objectives. Is it worth enumerating these as well? Not inline, but in some fashion? Anyway, seems worthwhile to continue, and to tighten the objectives, which could help tighten the content. > But, this is all just my 2c from the sidelines. Good luck. Just keep calling those balls and fouls, 'kay? - Karsten -- name: Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener team: Red Hat Community Architecture uri: http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki gpg: AD0E0C41
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