Course Redesign Developments to Increase Math Student Success

~ From Carol A. Twigg, National Center for Academic Transformation President and CEO

Changing the Equation Selects 38 Institutions

The National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) has selected 38 two-year institutions* to participate in Changing the Equation, a new program focused on redesigning remedial/developmental math supported by a $2.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Institutions participating in the program will improve student learning outcomes while reducing costs for both students and institutions using NCAT's proven redesign methodology. Collectively, these 38 redesigns will impact more than 100,000 students annually.

Each participant in Changing the Equation will redesign its entire developmental math sequence-all sections of all developmental courses offered-using NCAT's Emporium Model and commercially available instructional software (ALEKS, Carnegie Learning, Hawkes Learning Systems and MyMathLab.) Each redesign will modularize the curriculum, allowing students to progress through the developmental course sequence at a faster pace if possible or at a slower pace if necessary, spending the amount of time needed to master the course content.

Scaling a Proven Innovation

Changing the Equation builds on NCAT's ten years of experience in conducting large-scale course redesign programs that improve learning while reducing costs. Math redesigns at NCAT partner institutions have

  

• increased the percentage of students successfully completing a developmental math course by 51% on average (ranging from 10% to 135%), while reducing the cost of instruction by 30% on average (ranging from 12% to 52%), and 
• increased the percentage of students successfully completing a college-level math course by 25% on average (ranging from 7% to 63%), while reducing the cost of instruction by 37% on average (ranging from 15% to 77%) 

*Institutions selected to participate in Changing the Equation include:

·        Anne Arundel Community College

·        Bowling Green Technical College

·        Cecil College

·        Cochise College

·        College of Central Florida

·        Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas

·        Cumberland County College

·        Dakota College at Bottineau

·        Delgado Community College

·        Genesee Community College

·        Guilford Technical Community College

·        Hazard Community and Technical College

·        Heartland Community College

·        Henderson Community College

·        Iowa Western Community College

·        Laramie County Community College

·        Leeward Community College

·        Lurleen B. Wallace Community College

·        Manchester Community College

·        Mercer County Community College

·        Mesabi Range Community and Technical College

·        Miami Dade College

·        Mid-State Technical College

·        Mountwest Community & Technical College

·        Nashville State Community College

·        Northern Virginia Community College

·        Northwest-Shoals Community College

·        Northwest State Community College

·        Oakton Community College

·        Pearl River Community College

·        Robeson Community College

·        Somerset Community College

·        Stark State College of Technology

·        Volunteer State Community College

·        Washington State Community College

·        West Kentucky Community and Technical College

·        West Virginia University at Parkersburg

·        Wilbur Wright College

~CS Robinson

10 Questions to consider when redesigning a course for hybrid teaching and learning

A hybrid or blended course, by definition, reduces face-to-face "seat time" so that students can pursue additional teaching and learning activities online. To be successful, a hybrid or blended course requires careful pedagogical redesign. These ten questions offer you a way to start thinking about some of these design issues.

1. What do you want students to know when they have finished taking your hybrid course?
2. As you think about learning objectives, which would be better achieved online and which would be best achieved face-to-face?
3. Hybrid teaching is not just a matter of transferring a portion of your traditional course to the Web. Instead it involves developing challenging and engaging online learning activities that complement your face-to-face activities. What types of learning activities do you think you will be using for the online portion of your course?
4. Online asynchronous discussion is often an important part of hybrid courses. What new learning opportunities will arise as a result of using asynchronous discussion? What challenges do you anticipate in using online discussions? How would you address these?
5. How will the face-to-face and time out of class components be integrated into a single course? In other words, how will the work done in each component feed back into and support the other?
6. When working online, students frequently have problems scheduling their work and managing their time, and understanding the implications of the hybrid course module as related to learning. What do you plan to do to help your students address these issues?
7. How will you divide the percent of time between the face-to-face portion and the online portion of your course? How will you schedule the percent of time between the face-to-face and online portion of your course, i.e., one two hour face-to-face followed by one two hour online session each week?
8. How will you divide the course-grading scheme between face-to-face and online activities? What means will you use to assess student work in each of these two components?
9. Students sometimes have difficulty acclimating to the course Web site and to other instructional technologies you may be using for face-to-face and online activities. What specific technologies will you use for the online and face-to-face portions of your course? What proactive steps can you take to assist students to become familiar with your Web site and those instructional technologies? If students need help with technology later in the course, how will you provide support?
10. There is a tendency for faculty to require students to do more work in a hybrid course than they normally would complete in a purely traditional course. What are you going to do to ensure that you have not created a course and one-half? How will you evaluate the student workload as compared to a traditional class?

Further information may be accessed at http://www4.uwm.edu/ltc/hybrid/faculty_resources/questions.cfm

~CS Robinson~