Why do faculty redesign large courses?
For Susan Miller-Cochran, director of the First-Year Writing program, the reason to begin offering English 101 online was her strong desire to make the course more inclusive and accessible.
English 101 has a firm attendance policy, which can be a disadvantage to students with certain disabilities. These students may benefit from a remotely offered class allowing them to do group work in a technologically facilitated environment. In addition, English 101 is four credit hours, which may cut into students’ schedules if they participate in other campus activities, such as athletics or work-study jobs.
Because English 101 is a critical-path course — meaning every student at the university has to take it before graduating — Miller-Cochran felt it was time to make the classes more welcoming to a wider range of students.
She started working on an application for another type of grant to help her accomplish this, but when DELTA staff saw what the English Department had in mind, they suggested she apply for a grant for a critical-path course redesign instead.
“That seemed appropriate, since we were talking about such a sweeping change within the program and how we think about first-year writing,” Miller-Cochran says.
She credits DELTA with helping achieve all her goals for this endeavor.
“There are many moving pieces and a team of people who are already really knowledgeable about technology and about the kinds of questions we should be asking, about the existing literature that has been written, about the things we are trying to do, that has really been invaluable because I don’t have time to do it all on my own,” she says.
She used the grant to develop a faculty learning community with a small group of first-year writing faculty. The group meets once a week, joined by DELTA representatives.
“[DELTA] is part of that conversation, hearing what the faculty are thinking through and developing for their courses and showing us possible technologies to help us troubleshoot ideas,” Miller-Cochran says.
The grant’s salient feature was the creation of the English 101 online component. As a domino effect, DELTA suggested creating a process to help get the right students into the right course sections. This led to the creation of a directed self-placement assessment that each student takes to receive feedback on why a certain type of learning environment is best suited to them. Finally, DELTA supported the design of a one-hour online English 105 class for transfer students to take in connection with the placement process.
The project has had a beneficial trickledown effect, Miller-Cochran says.
“It is an exciting process if you enjoy teaching and learning because no matter what, whenever there is a new learning environment you are looking to move into or design for, it is going to help you rethink everything that you do,” she says. “For English 101, it has caused us to think about what we could be doing in our face-to-face classes or ways that we can use technology to make those sections more inclusive, more accommodating of a wide range of students,” she adds.
The new English 101 and English 105 online courses will launch in fall 2015.
On April 24 DELTA will conduct a specialized workshop to address issues specific to critical-path courses, such dealing with high enrollment and providing consistent learning experiences. Sign up for the workshop online.
If you’re interested in applying for a DELTA grant, proposals will be accepted through May 15.
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