Redesigning Math 1300
Q&A with Jason Aubrey
Business Mathematic Coordinator, Department of Mathematics
Q: How do you redesign a course that is not necessarily ‘broke’?
A: For 1300, I think the point is to use the course as a platform to innovate in a way that is good for students, faculty and the university as a whole. I think large scale innovations like this need a strong platform.
Q: Do you hope to see a ripple effect with other faculty in your department wanting to look into redesigning other courses?
A: I think it will have a ripple effect, but the nature of that effect depends entirely on how it turns out. Do the students do as well as or better than students in other sections? Are students satisfied with the new course structure? If students perform just as well as students in other sections, are there other benefits to such a redesign? These are open questions, and the nature of the ripple effect depends on how those questions are answered.
Q: Have you seen a high-level of interest in this process within your department?
A: Yes and the vigorous debate about the redesign has been very valuable to me as I thought through the shape of the redesign and as I implement the pilot this semester.
Q: What has been your role in the process?
A: I am writing a custom textbook or e-book, and am producing online videos and worksheets.
Q: What has ET@MO’s role been in the process?
A: This simply wouldn't be possible without the expert advice and constant support of ET@MO and the Arts & Sciences IT and Instructional Design team. From expert advice about instructional design and assessing the project, to ‘down in the trenches’ technical support, their support and involvement has been absolutely essential.
Q: How will the redesign be measured?
A: For the purposes of measuring student satisfaction and helping to tweak and improve the course materials, I am giving weekly surveys to the students in the pilot sections. We will have a larger mid-semester survey though MOCAT (Missouri Cares About Teaching). For comparing class outcomes, we will look at exam scores and DWF rates. All sections, pilot or not, take the same exams
Redesigning Biology 1010
Q&A with Susan Bush
Associate Teaching Professor, Biological Sciences
Q: How do you redesign a course that is not necessarily ‘broke’?
A: We don’t think of our redesign project as ‘fixing’ the course. Regardless of how strong a course is, there are always ways to improve the experience for the students or to make the delivery and administration of the course more efficient.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish through the redesign?
A: We have two aims. We want the students to gain a stronger understanding of the nature and process of science, and we want the students to recognize some of the many ways that the course content is relevant to their everyday lives. These are two concepts that can be difficult to convey in the traditional format of a high-enrollment course. We’re developing a series of online modules that students will complete as homework assignments, or in some cases, as replacements for certain class sessions. Each module focuses on a particular topic and consists of a variety of web-based readings, Tegrity videos, group activities and assessments. The students will learn about the cellular processes involved in sun tanning and in alcohol metabolism, for example. Another module focuses on the evolution of human mate choice preferences. I think the students will find the topics interesting, and working through the modules will reinforce the biological concepts they learned about in class.
Q: Do you hope to see a ripple effect with other faculty in your department wanting to look into redesigning other courses?
A: Sure. The online modules we develop will be made available to all faculty in the department, regardless of which courses they are teaching. We’re hopeful that other faculty will be able to adapt the modules to their own courses, and that they may contribute additional modules to the collective pool.
Q: Have you seen a high-level of interest in this process within your department?
A: The department has been very supportive of our efforts.
Q: What are the biggest changes you think you will see in the fully-implemented courses?
A: We’re hopeful that students will leave the course with a stronger understanding of what science is, how it works, and why it matters.
Q: What has been your role in the process?
A: I’ve been developing the content and assessment pieces of the modules themselves, as well as dealing with administrative aspects of the project.
Q: How helpful has ET@MO been?
A: ET@MO has been wonderful. They have made available to us a variety of different staff members to assist with various parts of module design and construction. I can’t imagine implementing the redesign without the help of our academic technology liaison, Paul Bowers, and the other ET@MO staff who have shared both their expertise and their time to support this project.
Q: How will the redesign be measured?
A: We’ll be assessing the redesign by comparing traditional and redesigned sections of the course. These comparisons will include both student accomplishment on particular exam questions and student attitudes toward science.
Redesigning Nursing 2000
Q&A with Gina Oliver
Assistant Teaching Professor, Sinclair School of Nursing
Q: How was your course that is being redesigned selected?
A: Historically, Nursing 2000, Nursing as a Profession was taught to 110-140 students once per year in a traditional face-to-face format. Since 2003, student numbers have increased, now culminating to around 300 per year, necessitating the addition of a teaching assistant position. As this is a pre-clinical course, students also concurrently take a selection of up to 40-plus different general education pre-requisite courses, making scheduling of the course difficult. Consequently, the course can only be offered in evening hours related to this scheduling challenge, despite the issue that students had been in classes since early morning. Due to the large student numbers, teaching strategies were basically lecture of course content with online quizzes covering assigned readings. Evaluative methods had decreased to include solely the online quizzes and exams.
Q: How do you redesign a course that is not necessarily ‘broke’?
A: No course is ever perfect. There are a multitude of teaching and evaluation methods that may be utilized in every class. Faculty should endeavor to implement a variety of strategies that best meets student learning-style needs and will also meet the course outcomes.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish through the redesign?
The overall outcomes for the course redesign include an increase in the cognitive level of evaluation methods ensuring that course concepts are fully assimilated, lowering the amount of time required by faculty to administer the course, and decreasing the attrition rate in the course; thereby increasing the diversity of the nursing major applicant pool and increasing revenues to the MU campus.
Q: Do you hope to see a ripple effect with other faculty in your department wanting to look into redesigning other courses?
The hope is that the process of creating an online video will be sufficiently feasible so that more faculty could implement this strategy in additional courses. This project will assist in understanding the level of difficulty in completing the multiple steps of the process in creating the video and if the process is economically sound.
Q: What are the biggest changes you think you will see in the fully-implemented courses?
My hope is that students will have increased knowledge of the profession of nursing prior to entering the clinical nursing major. Learning increases when methods are more student-centered and include a higher cognitive level of thinking, which is required in the nursing profession.
Q: How will the redesign be measured?
Statistical assessment of meeting the outcomes will be done at the end of implementation of the course redesign. Data collected will be done at baseline from the traditional class in fall 2011 and then again during the pilot redesign phase in fall 2012. Data collected will include student demographics; pre and post data on the perception of professional nursing core concepts from the traditional and redesign classes; perception of use of online technology, motivation in learning, and learner satisfaction in the traditional and redesign classes; aggregate student grades from the traditional and redesign courses; attrition rates from the traditional and redesign courses; and estimated faculty time in administration of both the traditional and redesign courses.
