Curriculum Implementation and Evaluation

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1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of team-based curriculum design in a remote work environment?

Examine strengths pertaining to an increase in interdisciplinary connections among curricular material. Also look at the emphasis on collaboration and team building; the affective domain is activated. Notice also how team-based design promotes active, student-centered learning. Another benefit is that teams can move research findings into the field more quickly than individual methods.

According to researchers, other strengths include the ability to instantly create courses based on students' needs; reduced time allotted for faculty and staff development http://www.ecsel.psu.edu/~rdevon/teachi~11.htm

Focus on the plethora of resources as a benefit. For example, "The comparative advantage of deploying the best human resources without the need to assemble them all in one place" http://www.ecsel.psu.edu/~rdevon/teachi~11.htm

Conversely, some weaknesses also persist. Look at problems with distance. According to http://www.irrodl.org/content/v6.1/brown_voltz.html, the complex nature of technology and teaming in remote locations makes it easy "to become carried away with, or distracted by, other design elements and to overlook the necessity of providing a rich learning activity." Researchers are also wary of "the social influence of the e-learning design might include the cultural appropriateness of the material, the extent to which the design makes demands on others working with or supervising the learner, the way that it may influence cultural capital in the educational setting, and the ethical values implicit in the design or content" http://www.irrodl.org/content/v6.1/brown_voltz.html.

Similarly, you might want to examine how they are often" constrained only by ...