Re-Engineering Education -

Chapter 10 - Taxonomy of Courses
 

Each course will also be anchored in a taxonomy of knowledge that will illustrate the relative position of the course as a whole, and each topic within the course can be seen as leading to other topics and eventually to other courses. This taxonomy will be presented as a map on a browser screen with the various knowledge areas represented visually, and with hyperlinks to the lower levels and successively to the actual topics.

Each course will also be anchored in a taxonomy of knowledge that will illustrate the relative position of the course as a whole, and each topic within the course can be seen as leading to other topics and eventually to other courses.  This taxonomy will be presented as a map on a browser screen with the various knowledge areas represented visually, and with hyperlinks to the lower levels and successively to the actual topics.

For example, the domain of mathematics could have a taxonomy like this, suitably presented:

• Base course: arithmetic

• Base course: geometry

• Base course: trigonometry

• Algebra builds from arithmetic

• Statistics builds from arithmetic

• Analytic geometry builds from algebra and geometry

• Calculus builds from analytic geometry and trigonometry

• Number theory builds from arithmetic

• Differential equations builds from calculus

• Linear algebra builds from algebra

• Multivariate calculus builds from calculus and linear algebra

• Multiple regression analysis builds from statistics and calculus

Obviously, the exact taxonomy can be debated quite vigorously, and this is only a quick example intended to be illustrative rather than definitive. However, the purpose is instructional efficiency, not mathematical purity. Students are rarely told the purpose for what they are studying, and how all the pieces fit together. Providing a structure, though not required by this proposed design, will improve the efficiency of the learning that results.  Possible representation of taxonomies with non-hierarchical relationships may be considered at a future point.
 

© 2008 by Don Estes