TOWARD A BETTER SYLLABUS: ENTROPY-DRIVEN INTROSPECTION FOR ALTERNATIVE LESSON PLANS
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| Title | TOWARD A BETTER SYLLABUS: ENTROPY-DRIVEN INTROSPECTION FOR ALTERNATIVE LESSON PLANS |
| Authors | |
| Abstract | Developing a lesson plan (or syllabus) for a course can be a very time consuming process. Once the instructor has a pool of topics to be taught in the course, the organization of those topics in a form that facilitates understandability by the students as well as efficiency with respect to the order of presentation can be an elusive task – many times considered to be an art that distinguishes good from exceptional teachers. In this paper we present a method that is helpful in the process of choosing a better lesson plan, among several alternative lesson plans. We do not imply that the presented method is a panacea for the formation of a best lesson plan, however, the method is useful in situations when several alternative complicated and lengthy lesson plans may be contemplated for the purpose of selecting the most viable option. Our method is based on the notion of entropy, borrowed from information theory. It provides a fairly simple and quick way to decide which one – among several alternative lesson plans, is a better choice for adoption. |
| Publisher | University of Zagreb, University Computing Centre - SRCE |
| Date | 2009-12-01 |
| Source | Journal of Computing and Information Technology Vol 17, No 4 (2009) |
| Rights | CIT. Journal of Computing and Information Technology is an open access journal.Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work´s authorship and initial publication in this journal.Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal´s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). |