Chapter 4: The Cisco Networking Academy Instructional Approach

This chapter will discuss:

 Cisco Networking Academy's approach to instructional design

 How students experience Networking Academy’s curriculum

 Educational research that supports the curriculum and assessments

Course design

Networking Academy Approach

Our strategy is to provide innovative learning solutions that enable students and instructors around the globe to
transform their education using highly collaborative tools and interactions. Rich multimedia content including
interactive activities, videos, games, and quizzes addresses a variety of learning styles, stimulates learning, and
increases knowledge retention. Hands-on labs and Packet Tracer simulation-based activities help students develop
critical thinking and complex problem-solving skills.

These are some advantages of the Cisco Networking Academy course materials and instructional approach:

 Provides a cohesive set of related learning objectives.

 Uses skills acquisition and a combination of multiple learning theories to support mastery, and build student
competence and confidence.

 Includes formative assessments with rich feedback, followed by summative assessments to help students and
instructors monitor progress toward learning goals.

 Enables flexibility for instructors to personalize instruction and align with student learning goals.

 Includes context to increase relevancy and engagement.

 Regularly updates curricula materials to ensure the highest quality experience.

Designing Interactive Content, Activities, and Assessments

The first step in good course design is to begin with the end in mind. Clearly define the knowledge, skills, and abilities
(KSAs) the learner should have as a result of completing the course. Design the course content to elicit evidence of
that knowledge. Collect and analyze the evidence.

The Cisco Networking Academy has modeled their approach to instructional design on the Evidence Centered
Design (ECD) method. ECD provides a framework for systematically designing, developing, delivering, scoring, and
measuring the effectiveness of the learning experience. Establishing ‘what' the claims are that we should be able to
make about the learner as a result of taking the course, and ‘how’ they will demonstrate progress in achieving the
KSAs, are key outcomes of the Cisco Networking Academy’s instructional design process. It is critical to note that this
is an iterative, descriptive process. Updates are constantly made to the various elements as the design progresses.
More importantly, as data is gathered from the learner, design elements (such as the Student, Evidence, and Task
Models) are updated.

The instructor has many tools to choose from when teaching, just as students have tools to choose from to support
their learning. A primary role of Networking Academy instructors is to facilitate and adjust these different aspects of
teaching and learning to achieve the desired learning outcomes for their students.

Educational Gaming

Results from educational psychology suggest the potential for educational games to be another way for many
students to learn. We have promising early research results on the impact of games on learning in the Networking
Academy. Please consider the games described below and share any ideas you have.

Packet Tracer Multi-User (PTMU) refers to the capability of two or more instances of Packet Tracer (on the same
computer, same LAN, or over the WAN) to interconnect and form a virtual network on the real network. This allows
many different online, multi-player educational games to be played, including peer-to-peer, small group, whole
classroom, or over the Internet. For more information, visit the Packet Tracer resource page on netacad.com.

While PTMU was developed specifically for the Networking Academy, we strongly support the use of other
instructional games as well. For example, many instructors use a form of the game show “Jeopardy” to review
networking knowledge and other cooperative or competitive lab-building and “hacking” activities, sometimes called
“Router Wars”. We encourage instructors to contribute game-based ideas in the netacad.com communities so all
members of the Networking Academy can benefit from these innovations.

Student experience

Embedded Interactive Activities

The curricula created by the Curriculum and Assessment Engineering (CAE) team at Cisco Networking Academy
provides students and instructors with a toolbox of engaging learning options to personalize their learning experience
and customize their lessons.

The curriculum includes embedded, highly interactive activities to help stimulate learning, increase knowledge
retention, and enriching the entire learning experience. These design elements help to make it easier to understand
the content.

Interactive activities include, but are not limited to, checkbox, ‘drag and drop’, and Syntax Checker:

 Checkbox activities usually ask the student to categorize a feature or characteristic of a concept or technology.

 Drag and Drop activities may be as simple as identifying a term that pairs with a category, or as complex as
placing items in a topology.
  Syntax Checker activities require the student to enter correct command language in order to produce a
specified outcome.

Additionally, video demonstrations and tutorials, and external links round out the rich curricula provided to Networking
Academy students.

Hands-on Labs

Hands-on labs provide one more way to reach students with different learning styles (visual, auditory, and
kinesthetic). Kinesthetic learners comprehend new information best through hands-on experience. Networking
Academy courses accommodate all three learning styles using interactive learning components, classroom
instruction, and hands-on practice with labs and Packet Tracer activities. Kinesthetic and social activities are
presented where applicable. These encourage students to work in a social situation and share experiences and
knowledge with classmates.

Kinesthetic and cognitive skill acquisition is valuable to technology education because of the need to implement
complex solutions with speed and accuracy. Given the interrelated complexity of technical solutions, leveraging
kinesthetic and cognitive skill acquisition in technical education improves learner success.

The figure displays a sample lab topology for a Networking Academy hands-on lab. Basic step by step labs along
with more advanced skills integration labs, (which add problem-solving and troubleshooting) are included. Skills
assessments (SAs) are used to evaluate knowledge acquisition upon completion of a course.

Packet Tracer Activities

Packet Tracer is a powerful network simulation program developed by the Networking Academy. Packet Tracer
allows students to experiment with network behavior. Students can ask, and then answer, “what if” questions. As an
integral part of the curriculum, Packet Tracer provides simulation, visualization, authoring, assessment, and
collaboration capabilities. Packet Tracer makes it easier to teach and learn complex technology concepts.

Packet Tracer supplements physical equipment by allowing students to create a network with an almost unlimited
number of devices, encouraging open practice, discovery, and troubleshooting. The simulation-based learning
environment helps students develop the following skills:

 Decision-making skills

 Problem-solving skills

 Creative and critical thinking skills

Packet Tracer supports both the Windows and Linux operating systems. Packet Tracer mobile supports both
the Android and Apple iOS mobile platforms.

The self-paced course Introduction to Packet Tracerhelps users become familiar with the network configuration
simulation tool before they need to use it in courses.
Research and assessment

Educational Research

The Networking Academy uses four approaches to educational research to improve curriculum, instruction, and
assessment:

 Action Research - Conducted by instructors, who plan the use of a particular learning tool (perhaps a new
game), implement the tool, reflect on the results with students, revise their plan for the use of that tool, and then
share their results in the online communities. The measure of successful action research is measurable
improvement the next time an activity is used in a class.

 Design-Based Research - Conducted by members of the Networking Academy team to get quick feedback for
improving each design iteration of new curricula, simulations, assessment, and games. The measure of
successful design-based research is a more useful and useable tool for teaching and learning.

 Qualitative Research - Taking an “anthropological” approach to studying classrooms, whereby great detail
and/or long periods of study are observed through some means of recording, and are then coded and
analyzed. The measure of successful qualitative research is credibility. Do the results of the research ring true
for participants, provide ideas for further quantitative study, and/or provide guidelines for further action?

 Quantitative Research - Using descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze whether learning is effective,
and developing probabilistic models to help the Networking Academy, instructors, and students get feedback to
improve the learning process. The measures of successful quantitative research are reliability (reproducibility of
results) and validity (chains of evidence that support conclusions for specific purposes).

All four of these approaches to research are used extensively in the development of the curriculum, assessment, and
games instructors use with students.
Holistic Approach to Assessment

From a holistic perspective, assessment can consist of multiple interactions. Informal activities can be class
discussions, one-on-one discussions, or unobtrusive observation of students in the classroom. Formal, or
standardized, assessments can include prepared sets of tasks or questions combined into an exam, or a
performance activity. In the Networking Academy, instructors are encouraged to use multiple resources and tools in
order to understand what the student truly knows and can do, and to adequately prepare them for the next level in
their journey.

The Networking Academy provides a wide array of assessment tools and features to help students, instructors, and
administrators understand the strengths and weaknesses of individuals as they progress through the curriculum.
Students receive feedback on their knowledge and skills progression through self-activated assessments and
activities. Instructors can schedule and deliver more formal and summative assessments through a globally
accessible assessment system. Although Cisco provides these tools, it does not specify instructional actions and
uses for assessments, but does offer sound pedagogical suggestions for their use in making inferences about
students’ abilities.

Assessments provide learning metrics that are important to all groups of stakeholders:

 Students - Formative feedback and summative evaluation of their learning process

 Instructors - Formative feedback and summative evaluation of their teaching process

 Administrators supporting and managing Cisco Networking Academies - Opportunities for coaching,
remediation, and/or recognition

Reliability, Validity, Fairness, and Security

Reliability refers to the consistency of test scores over time.

Validity means that it is valid for a specific context and is multifaceted. It is analogous to accuracy:

 Construct Validity – Are we measuring the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) of interest?

 Content Validity – Do our measures capture the domain?

 Criterion (predictive) validity – Can some scores predict others?

Validity requires reliability, is key to fairness, and is weakened by poor security. We think of validity as a complex,
contextualized, desirable goal for our partnership with schools and institutions that use our curricula.

Fairness means assessments should not discriminate between students EXCEPT on the grounds of the knowledge
or skills being assessed.

Security for Networking Academy assessments relies heavily on our instructors because they are the “instructional
last mile” in delivering our learning experiences, including assessments.
Formative and Summative Assessments

This is CAE team’s approach to assessments (both formative and summative):

 Design an assessment portfolio according to best practices, to include psychometric modeling of multiple
choice items with Item Response Theory (IRT), item banks, with ongoing quantitative investigations of reliability
and validity, and hands-on and simulation-based performance assessment.

 Deliver assessments in ways to help address the digital divide.

 Delegate to local control for all reasonable accommodations.

 Industry certifications are the ultimate summative assessment.

Innovative assessments, both formative and summative, are integrated into the curriculum and supported by an
advanced online delivery system. Immediate, rich feedback supports instructor and student evaluation of acquired
knowledge and skills. Assessments can be as simple as a multiple choice question or as complex as troubleshooting
a network with real equipment or in a simulation.

Formative assessments provide practice and support to help students master core concepts. Formative assessments
align with topics covered in the curriculum and give students and instructors detailed feedback about students'
strengths and weaknesses. Chapter quizzes, interactive activities, and simulations such as Syntax Checker and
Packet Tracer activities are embedded throughout the curriculum. These are examples of formative assessments that
support the learning and evaluation of student performance.

Summative assessments help measure students' familiarity with course content and ability to apply their knowledge.
Summative assessments are designed to summarize the knowledge and skills of a student. They usually cover a
broader range of information than formative assessments and provide less detailed feedback. Examples include
online practice certification exams, final exams, and hands-on performance exams administered on real equipment.

This is the mission for Curriculum and Assessment Engineering:

 We build learning products that empower global problem solvers with employable skills.

 We identify critical competencies and produce a path to mastery.

 We use innovation and research to optimize teaching and learning experiences that accelerate skills
acquisition.

The result is ever-increasing value for students, teachers, employers, and their communities.