Course Evaluation Narrative: Spanish 300: Cervantes Don Quixote The class I chose to evaluate is Yales open course

Spanish 300: Cervantes Don Quixote with lectures by Roberto Gonzlez Echevarra, Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature at Yale University. I chose to use the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program Rubric from 2012 because it was the most focused rubric available for the topic of online courses. The course, as a traditional lecture-type course, scored very well on the rubric. In terms of the course as an online course, the materials available were far too limited and traditional in scope for the course to score well over all. The findings are as follows: Cervantes Don Quixote scored in both the highest and lowest quadrants of the Course Design portion of the evaluation; the results were mixed. The course was exemplary in terms of the statement of the goals and objectives, the content being chunked into manageable segments, the presentation of content in varying methods and with supplementary sources such as transcripts available, the effectiveness of the material in inciting higher-order thinking skills, clear links between instructional strategies and reaching course objectives are drawn, the tools on the site engage students with the course content, and the tools effectively reduce the laborintensive aspect of an online course. Essentially, the course excelled in this portion of the rubric at stating and meeting goals and objectives, and drawing clear connections between the goals and the methods of reaching them. The content presentation is outstanding; well-designed, easy to navigate, and visually-appealing. The engagement of the learner is half-effective, with higherorder thinking skills emphasized and instructional strategies designed to help students meet the guidelines and objectives. Where the course faltered in its design is in the writing of the objectives which are not written in very clear terms of measurement. The content is presented in a very limited way; there are no links to external sources or RSS feeds, there are no web-quests,
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pre-reading outlines, or devils advocate challenges available for the learner. The content is presented purely in a learner as vessel and teacher as fountain of knowledge format, in the style of lecture. The learner is not very engaged in this course. Additionally within learner engagement, there are no differentiation activities available to provide individualized instruction to remedial or advanced learners. Unfortunately, the course scored very low in terms of the use of technology. The technology is not employed in very creative ways, and does not transcend a traditional teacher-centered model of instruction, despite being an online course. Additionally, only one type of delivery material is enacted in this course, which demonstrates a lack of the effective use of technology for the course. The Cervantes Don Quixote online course scored quite poorly in the Interaction and Collaboration category. There are no synchronous communication activities, and no real-time interactions. There is no sense of community among learners, nor is the course designed to facilitate a community. Student-to-student interactions are nonexistent in the course. There is a distinct lack of collaboration activities. Again, the course follows a teacher-centered model in which the instructor is the source of knowledge, and the individual student is the processor of this knowledge, providing their individual reactions to the material, but never interacting in any way with other student within the courseonly with the instructor. Participation is evaluated at 15% of the total course value, yet no guidelines are provided for student in terms of the desired types and quality of communication, there is no rubric or evaluation document provided for the manner in which participation will be evaluated, and the instructor does not use electronic tools for course updates and information. In the assessment category, Cervantes Don Quixote excels. The assessments (A midterm, a take-home final exam, and four two-page papers on topics provided by the professor)
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clearly match the goals and objectives for the course, including A close reading of Don Quixote in the artistic renaissance and baroque Spain, the book in relation to paintings by Valzquez, and why Don Quixote is read today. The assessments also clearly reinforce the assignments, as the requirements of the course are that Students are expected to know the book, the background readings and the materials covered in the lectures and class discussions, and the written assignments allow the students to clearly demonstrate that they have accomplished the assignments. There is a clear statement of the expectations for assessment within the course. Assessments require higher-order thinking skills, assessment activities occur all throughout the duration of the course at reasonable intervals, and multiple types of assessments are used. The assessments are tightly bound to the objectives of the course, and measure the performance they claim to measure. Opportunities for self-assessment are also available as students receive feedback on their written assignments and discussion interactions. The course did lack in some areas of assessment: The assessment does not provide a list of objectives accomplished. There is no rubric available for students to peruse before the assignment is due. Overall, however, the Cervantes course excelled in the area of assessment and the measuring of objectives within these assessments. In the final category of Learner Support, the results of the Cervantes course were also a mixed bag. The facets in which the course excelled are as follows: The course was exemplary in its orientation and CMS. The tutorial materials are clearly labeled and explained, the tutorials are neatly organized and easy to find, and the tutorial materials support different learning modalities because they are offered in audio, video, and written form. The course also excelled in its technical accessibility issues because the course materials are in easy-to-access standardized formats, there is no specific software required to access and participate in the
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course, files are clearly labeled with length and size restrictions, and all of the videos are streamed. The course also scored well within the feedback category, as learners have the opportunity to provide the instructor with feedback through the survey option within the course. The feedback mechanism allows the students to participate in the course evaluation anonymously. The categories in which the course struggled, however, include the Instructor Role and Information. The course struggled in this category because despite a lengthy description of the instructor and his qualifications, there is no contact information available for the instructor. There is no stated statute of time regarding expected e-mail replies, the availability of the instructor for technical support issues is not presented, and the manner in which the instructor will collect and return work is not clearly explicated. The course also struggled in the Institutional Policies and Support category because there are no links to institutional policies such as plagiarism, and there are no links provided to instructional services such as the library. Overall, the Spanish 300: Cervantes Don Quixote course has a very clear declaration of the intended goals for learning, the ways in which learning will be measured, and the way that the grade will be calculated. The materials are provided in multiple formats for multiple learners, are thorough, and are very clearly and understandably organized. The course lacks much in the way of technology and its effective use, and is essentially a traditional teachercentered course presented in a technological manner, but it does not make use of the technological tools available for student use. The assessments, while clearly tied to objectives and clearly explained, do not incorporate the use of technology, and are also quite traditional. The interaction between student and instructor is non-existent outside of the classroom, and methods of reaching the instructor are not divulged. Truthfully, despite the lack of
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implementation of technology, I found this course to be informative, chock full of insight, and very thought-provoking. The learner knows what to expect, what is expected of them, and how to meet these expectations. I will truly research this course further over the summer because I feel there is a lot to be learned from it.