FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY …undergrad.fiu.edu/gsi/pdfs/UT3_Report.pdf · florida international university gates/usu/aplu transformational planning grant university transformation

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

GATES/USU/APLU TRANSFORMATIONAL PLANNING GRANT

UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMATION THROUGH TEACHING (UT3)

FINAL REPORT

June 25, 2015

Submitted by Douglas L. Robertson, Dean of Undergraduate Education and TPG Principal Investigator

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 3

Plan Documents……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

Overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

Timeline and Key Steps………………………………………………………………………………. 17

Reflections……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 23

Implementation/Next Steps………………………………………………………………………………….. 25

References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 26

Appendices--Supporting Materials………………………………………………………………………… 27

A. UT3 Related Work Groups and Standing Committees.....………………………………. 27

B. UT3 Critical Gateway Course Reports……………………………………………….…………. 43

C. UT3 Workshop Agendas and Reading Lists………………………………………………….105

D. UT3 Budget…………………………………………………………………………...............................124

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

FIU’s University Transformation through Teaching (UT3) Planning Grant has built on FIU’s

national award winning Graduation Success Initiative (GSI) which has helped to raise the

six year graduation rate for First Time in College students (FTICs) by 15 points in its first

four years (http://undergrad.fiu.edu/gsi/gsi-news.html). In 2011, GSI began a university-

wide set of interrelated interventions and innovations that involve the following: (a)

advising reform, (b) academic pathways, and (c) teaching and learning. The GSI conceptual

framework is parsimonious, scalable, and replicable regardless of institutional type, size, or

resources. The framework comprises four points: (a) help students to identify their

appropriate major as soon as possible, preferably at admission; (b) provide a clear path to

on-time graduation in that major; (c) provide immediate feedback whether on or off path;

and (d) remove barriers and add supports in the path. Poorly performing gateway courses

are a significant barrier in students’ path to timely graduation, and FIU’s UT3 planning

grant has focused on improving the performance of these gateway courses.

FIU’s UT3 Planning Grant has achieved its four goals:

1. It has added significantly to creating a critical mass of undergraduate curriculum

administrators and teaching faculty who have a sophisticated understanding of best

practices in college teaching.

2. It has identified critical synergies and efficiencies across departments and colleges.

3. It has begun to build an infrastructure to support campus-wide pedagogical reform.

4. It has been integrated into the new FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan

(http://stratplan.fiu.edu/docs/Strategic%20Plan.pdf) and thereby has become a

central part of a multi-year, campus-wide, comprehensive plan to transform the

university teaching culture and performance.

This Final Report provides details regarding UT3’s activities and plans.

http://undergrad.fiu.edu/gsi/gsi-news.html

http://stratplan.fiu.edu/docs/Strategic%20Plan.pdf

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PLAN DOCUMENTS

Overview

FIU is using a series of leverages to transform the teaching culture at the University in

order to improve student success. FIU began serious work on improving targeted gateway

courses in 2009 when it received a Walmart Minority Student Success Initiative Grant (PI,

Douglas Robertson; $100,000; 2009-2011). Early predictive analytics showed that

students were 75% more likely to graduate on time if they passed College Algebra than if

they failed it. The failure rate had held stubbornly at 70% for a decade or more. The

course had tremendous predictive power and clearly needed attention.

This work on College Algebra was leveraged to a successful Title V Grant, Project Gateways

(PI, Kenneth Furton; Co-PI’s, Douglas Robertson, Suzanna Rose, and Gisela Casines; $2.9 M.;

2010-2015; http://gateways.fiu.edu/news/2013/title-project-gateways-video/). A

modified mastery approach was introduced using both high tech (a computer-based,

emporium style Mastery Math Lab) and high touch (significant use of Learning Assistants).

The result has been a reversal of the pass/fail ratio from 30%/70% to nearly 70%/30%.

In 2013, FIU became one of 13 Founding Institutions to participate in the John N. Gardner

Institute’s Gateways to Completion Project (G2C; http://www.jngi.org/g2c/ ). That work

has involved an exhaustive study of five courses (General Chemistry I, General Biology I,

Finite Math, Introduction to Statistics I, and Writing and Rhetoric I) by five course-specific

groups that included the department chair, course coordinator, teaching faculty, university

faculty development director, university predictive analytics director, and undergraduate

dean (Appendix A).

In 2014, when FIU was selected to participate in the Gates/USU/APLU’s Transformational

Planning Grant (TPG) Project (PI, Douglas Robertson; $275,000; 2014-2015), the

institution expanded the exploration of gateway courses more than three-fold and named

the effort University Transformation through Teaching (UT3). The UT3 has focused on

http://gateways.fiu.edu/news/2013/title-project-gateways-video/

http://www.jngi.org/g2c/

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developing a comprehensive, multi-year plan to improve the performance of 17 high

enrollment (>1,600), high failure (>15%), high impact (strong predictor of dropping out or

delayed graduation) courses. In 2013-2014, the combined enrollment for these 17 courses

was 41,557. Seventeen is a small number, and 41,000 is an extraordinarily large number.

GSI’s Phase I focused on a transforming the advising system and creating academic

pathways, and now in Phase II, GSI focuses on transforming pedagogy in 17 critical

gateway courses en route to transforming the teaching culture throughout the University

(Table 1).

Table 1. Seventeen high enrollment, high failure, high impact gateway courses that are

targeted for improvement.

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Recommendations

The cross-institutional teams assembled to review the G2C’s five courses produced specific

recommendations for improvement. These recommendations in many cases had direct

application to the larger group of 17 gateway courses and became the basis for work

groups (Appendix A), many of which were integrated into the process that produced the

new FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan (approved by the Board of Trustees on March

26, 2015).

The fifteen recommendations are as follows (in no particular order):

1. Convert from adjuncts to full-time instructors in all gateway courses, which will

involve strategic institutional investment over multiple years.

2. Develop early alert systems for all gateway courses, which will include required use

of a Learning Management System by faculty as well as clickers to facilitate

automated attendance recording.

3. Expand the number and use of Learning Assistants (LAs) and create a central office

that coordinates LA recruiting, training, and strategic deployment.

4. Improve gateway course teaching and learning physical environments (e.g., create

discipline-specific gateway course learning resource centers and lounges, increase

the number of active learning classrooms).

5. Expand gateway course bridge programs both in the form of boot camps but also in

terms of collaboration with feeder secondary schools and community colleges.

6. Develop strategic faculty development and awards programs that incentivize and

support exemplary pedagogy in gateway courses.

7. Develop dependable technological support and training for the use of instructional

technology such as Learning Management Systems and clickers which are both

necessary for automated early alert systems.

8. Develop new business models that show the savings produced by improved

retention and on-time graduation and thereby provide a data-based figure that is

available for upfront investment.

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9. Develop dashboards that provide stakeholders with performance data related to

gateway courses at the section level 24/7.

10. Regularly disseminate predictive analytics to stakeholders.

11. Set up robust and regular communication systems among faculty and

administrators for feeding and receiving courses, programs, and institutions that

provide a basis for curriculum alignment and assessment.

12. Create a teaching initiatives coordinating council that regularly brings together all

groups at the institution who are involved in major pedagogical reform.

13. Incorporate “becoming a university student” learning objectives (e.g., study skills,

reading strategies, writing skills, time management) into gateway courses.

14. Guarantee course availability.

15. Establish learning metrics that demonstrate that improvements in the performance

of gateway courses (e.g., lower DWFI rates) are the result of increased student

learning and not merely grade inflation.

Predictable Choices

In addition to these recommendations, four issues have been identified that do not have

straightforward resolutions and require extended consideration. The following four issues

appear to constitute predictable choices for all institutions working on improving student

success in their gateway courses.

(1) Choosing Change Magnitude - A major issue is the magnitude of the change that is

required by the gateway course faculty. Are the faculty merely elaborating their

current teaching paradigm (first order change), or are they transforming their

whole teaching paradigm (second order change)?

An analysis of over 300 published studies indicates that faculty perspectives on their work

as teachers can be organized into a developmental sequence of three positions (Robertson,

1999, 2000, 2001): (a) Egocentrism (teacher-centeredness), (b) Aliocentrism (learner-

centeredness), and (c) Systemocentrism (teacher/learner-centeredness, or learning-

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centeredness). Between each position are transition periods that require considerable

time and support. Faculty with less developed teaching perspectives generally have

trouble understanding the approach to teaching taken by faculty with more developed

teaching perspectives. Significant redesign of gateway courses is unlikely to occur with

faculty who see themselves as disseminators of knowledge (Egocentrism) rather than

facilitators of learning (Aliocentrism and Systemocentrism).

Institutions face a critical choice that affects the budget and timeline of the plan to improve

the performance of gateway courses. Do institutions hire full-time gateway instructors

who already have highly developed teaching perspectives and who only need faculty

development to continue to elaborate that perspective? Or do institutions invest in

transforming the teaching paradigms of current faculty who have a poorly developed

teaching perspective? The endeavor to which the second question refers is tantamount to

shifting from seeing the world as flat to seeing the world as round. One cannot simply add

the notion that the world is round to the notion that the world is flat. The process of

making that perspectival transformation is tremendously difficult, highly emotional, and

uncertain in length and success.

FIU has chosen to do both: (a) support pedagogical transformation in current faculty, and

(b) invest over several years in hiring non-tenure earning Lecturers who have highly

developed teaching perspectives and who will focus on gateway courses. By investing in

both, the departmental cultures should transform to become safe places for best practices

in college teaching and research on college teaching (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,

SOTL).

(2) Managing Change Processes - In terms of managing change, the issue of

intentionally supporting and guiding the integrated individual and organizational

change processes is critical.

Change managers need to understand that in organizations a histogram in the shape of a

normal curve can be used to express the typical number of adopters over time of a

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significant change such as changing the institution’s prevailing pedagogical culture: (a)

Innovators, 2.5%; (b) Early Adopters, 13.5%; (c) Early Majority, 34%; (d) Late Majority,

34%; and (e) Laggards, 16% (Rodgers, 2003).

Change managers need also to realize that this institutional histogram comprises

individuals, each of whom goes through a process with three interrelated phases: (a)

Endings (accepting that the old way of doing things is over), (b) Neutral Zone (searching for

the new way), and (c) New Beginnings (discerning the new way and working out what it

means for that individual) (Bridges, 2004).

The two processes always need to be seen together by change managers. At any point in

time, the organization must be understood to comprise individuals who are at different

positions in their individual change processes, and change managers need to act

accordingly.

Because of performance based funding, FIU is making it clear that the old way of teaching is

over while at the same time exercising reasonable (but not unlimited) patience and

providing support for individual faculty to find their pedagogical New Beginnings.

(3) Locating Gateway Courses - Gateway courses often are a part of the general

education curriculum and serve the entire institution.

Institutions have a choice in where to locate these special service courses in the

organization: (a) in departments, or (b) in a university-wide unit such a University College

or Undergraduate College which has responsibilities for managing the general education

curriculum. The choice is pressed when a department persistently over time holds hostage

the welfare of the institution and its students by unresponsiveness to a clearly expressed

need to improve the performance of gateway courses that reside in that department.

At this point, FIU has chosen to locate the administration of gateway courses in the

departments with the exception of College Algebra which had a chronic failure rate of 70%

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and was a strong predictor of retention and graduation (students who failed the course

were 75% less likely to graduate on-time than those who passed it). Improving the

performance of College Algebra became the focus of a five-year Title V Grant, and the

course has been administered through the Arts and Sciences Dean’s office for the last

several years with a significant reversal of the pass/fail rates (from 70% failing to nearly

70% passing).

(4) Employing Vendors - Student success has become a large national market. Student

success initiatives need to incorporate predictive analytics, tracking tools, early

alert systems, etc.

Institutions can anticipate as each functionality is added that a predictable choice will need

to be made among three alternatives: (a) to employ a vendor for the tool and support, (b)

to build the tool and support internally, or (c) to integrate the two. Like most new

marketplaces, it can be a little wild out there with vapor-ware aplenty. Buyer beware is a

good motto. What can be done internally can easily be overlooked in the pursuit of shiny

objects.

FIU has used all three strategies depending on the tool.

FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan

Successfully integrating the UT3 goals and work groups into the new strategic plan, with

broad by-in and ownership throughout the university, was a major accomplishment of our

work this year in the UT3. This alignment means that institutional infrastructure and

resources will be present for UT3 for the next five years. Additional resources will be

necessary to accelerate the transformation; however, with a prominent place in the

strategic plan, an important institutional commitment is assured.

The strategic plan has four key areas: (a) student success, (b) preeminent programs, (c)

Carnegie very high research designation, and (d) financial base/efficiency. Although all

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four areas are important, perhaps most significant is student success. Nine out of ten

metrics that the Florida Board of Governors and the Florida State Legislature use to

allocate hundreds of millions of dollars (increasing at a rate of $100 million a year over the

last four years and promising to continue this increase each year until nearly all allocations

are performance based) to its 12 state universities have to do with undergraduate student

success.

FIU’s number one priority in its FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan is as follows:

FIU will be united for student success and nurture a culture with values

centered on effective teaching and enhanced learning in support of

continuously improving student success (p. 18).

Of the strategic plan’s five student success goals, three have to do with UT3. Within those

goals, of the strategic plan’s 22 specific student success strategies, 13 have to do with UT3.

FIU’s commitment to improving undergraduate student success through improved

teaching is unmistakable.

Four examples of UT3’s strong presence in the FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan

include the following specific strategies excerpted below (in their order of presentation in

the strategic plan):

Expand the Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT). With only

two full-time staff members, CAT is FIU’s most effective source of support

for faculty innovation, collaborating with faculty in curricular reform and

pedagogical transformation. Although educational and pedagogical reform

efforts are known to pose considerable challenges, particularly at large

institutions, CAT has already played a key role in successful FIU initiatives.

In order to meet the need for course reforms in this plan alone, we must

increase the capacity of CAT.

Hire additional personnel with experience in faculty

development, especially in the STEM fields and hybrid courses.

Create opportunities for faculty to work with CAT either during

the academic terms or over the summer to redesign courses.

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Reconfigure current CAT space to support learning environment.

Redesign the gateway courses identified as critical for increasing

undergraduate success. FIU has identified certain gateway courses that

have high enrollment, high failure rates, or are high impact in that they are

a predictor of dropout. Redesign will be prioritized based on courses with

the greatest impact on student learning outcomes, and new gateway

courses may be identified as enrollment patterns change.

Redesign will follow national best practices for effective

pedagogical approaches, including the utilization of effective

technology, and be adapted to fit FIU’s needs and culture.

Develop and review data collection and reporting mechanisms to

inform students, faculty and administrator on academic success

measures.

Measure improvement then recalibrate approach every semester

or year to ensure successful interventions.

Convert adjunct positions to instructor lines where possible but

in particular for high-impact courses where instructor

conversions will result in marked improvements in student

learning outcomes.

Math course redesign, discipline-based teams and support from

CAT have already resulted in significant gains in Algebra. The

university will follow a similar approach to develop the optimum

course redesign for all math gateway courses. ….

Improve instruction. The university will considerably increase and

enhance faculty development.

Expand the use of Learning Assistants (LA) and create a central

office that coordinates LA recruiting, training and strategic

deployment.

Provide a development track for adjunct to instructor

conversions.

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Offer individualized support and consultation by CAT, especially

at the early stage of teaching careers.

Create a teaching initiatives coordinating committee that brings

together regularly all the groups at the institution that are

involved in pedagogical reform. ….

Develop and implement a faculty reward system to incentivize

excellent teaching.

Provide course releases to develop new courses and participate

in discipline-based teams.

Provide stipends to attend course-design workshops.

Communicate effectively the support services available to

faculty.

Develop a fair and comprehensive system for evaluating

teaching effectiveness.

Incentivize effective teaching of faculty as they address critical

lower-division courses. Gateway course instruction should be

understood as a university-wide contribution.

Develop a Top Teachers award and event that would be similar

to the current Top Scholars recognition.

Foster development of departmental and institutional cultures

that recognize and reward excellent teaching. Instructors will be

selected, retained and rewarded based upon their teaching skills.

(FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan, pp. 20-30).

Six implementation teams are currently being formed. Each implementation team will be

chaired by an administrator and a faculty member. A steering committee will be appointed

and will meet quarterly to review progress reports from each of the six implementation

teams. An associate vice provost is staffing the process. The steering committee and

implementation teams will be in place by August, 2015.

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Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Course-Specific Redesign Teams

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) has taken the lead in supporting the

chairs, course coordinators, and faculty to redesign the 17 critical gateway courses. This

progress will accelerate in the coming years with the University’s investments in expanding

CAT and in increasing release time, stipends, and travel for members of the course-specific

redesign teams (Appendix A).

Using course redesign and pedagogy institutes and faculty learning communities (see event

agendas, Appendix C), CAT has facilitated the course redesign process for 110 of 270

faculty (40%) in 11 course-specific redesign teams that cover the 17 critical gateway

courses. If the one-credit First Year Experience course is removed, CAT worked with 100

of the 170 faculty (60%) who teach the 16 academic courses. In addition, CAT facilitates a

monthly luncheon with the chairs of the ten departments that administer the 17 courses.

The process has produced substantive course redesign plans for each of the 17 courses

(Appendix B).

During this year, the teams required considerable structure and support to move forward

on the course redesigns. The work is daunting and effortful, and it is no surprise that the

teams that had previous, longstanding relationships with, and received the most attention

from, CAT faculty developers made the greatest progress in revising the learning designs of

their courses. Intensive encouragement and assistance will continue to be critical in order

to realize the plans.

Importantly, the courses are in decidedly different phases of the redesign process and will

need different levels and types of support. The progress made overall is impressive, but

each course has significantly different needs. Some redesign teams have developed

detailed strategies and have selected instruments for measuring student learning--some

have even already collected baseline data--whereas others have not yet identified good

measures of student learning. Likewise, some teams have already produced clear timelines

for implementation, while others are less certain of their path forward.

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CAT will continue to work closely with each of the teams, providing assistance and

motivation tailored to their needs. CAT will assist them to identify and implement (in some

cases perhaps produce) effective instruments for gauging student learning and

engagement. CAT will assist the teams to interpret the results they acquire and to act

effectively to continue to improve the courses. CAT will also assist the teams to articulate

their timelines and will follow up to ensure that all teams are moving forward.

CAT will measure the success of the redesign on these critical courses, both in terms of

student success metrics (e.g., DFWI rates, 1st to 2nd year retention rates, on-time

graduation) and in more granular ways (e.g., student performance in subsequent courses).

These data will help us to learn what strategies may best be used in other courses and

which strategies are less powerful.

Also, CAT will assess the effectiveness of its own educational reform efforts using a

framework with six elements (Kreber & Brook, 2001):

1. Participants’ perceptions/satisfaction, measured for example with surveys.

2. Participants’ beliefs about teaching and learning, measured for example with the

Teaching Goals Inventory (Angelo & Cross, 1993) or the Teaching Practices

Inventory (Wieman & Gilbert, 2014).

3. Participants’ teaching performance, measured for example by using a student-

centeredness rubric (Palmer, Bach, & Streifer, 2014) to assess pre- and post-

redesign syllabi and other supporting materials such as assignments and exams.

4. Students’ perceptions of teaching performance, measured for example by student

evaluations.

5. Student learning, measured by comparing baseline and end-of-course data (for

example, using Concept Inventories developed for their specific fields).

6. Effects on the culture of the institution, measured for example by identifying policy

changes that demonstrate institutional prioritization of effective teaching and by

conducting focus groups with FIU faculty, staff, and students.

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Florida Consortium of Metropolitan Research Universities

The Consortium comprises Florida International University (Miami), University of Central

Florida (Orlando), and University of South Florida (Tampa Bay). These institutions serve

63 percent of the state’s population. The combined economies of the three city-states

constitutes the 4th largest metropolitan economy in the United States and the 31st largest

economy in the world. The three universities currently enroll 162,000 students,

collectively serving nearly half of the students enrolled in the 12-institution State

University System (SUS; Table 2). The Consortium has an operating budget of $325,000

per year, an Executive Director, and staff. In just its first two years, the Consortium has

received $8.3 M. from the State, $500,000 from the Helios Education Foundation, and

$500,000 from the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

Table 2. Consortium contributions compared to the rest of the SUS.

Metrics FIU-UCF-USF Rest of SUS

Total Enrollment

47%

53%

Undergraduate

Enrollment

47%

53%

Graduate Enrollment

42%

58%

Undergraduate Minority Enrollment

54%

46%

Undergraduates Receiving Pell Grant

50%

50%

New Florida College System Transfers

60%

40%

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Degrees Awarded

48% 52%

STEM Degrees

44%

56%

Other Strategic Areas of Emphasis

49%

51%

% of Florida’s Employed Baccalaureate Graduates

51%

49%

Degrees Awarded to Pell Grant Recipients

49%

51%

Degrees Awarded to Hispanics

66%

34%

Degrees Awarded to African-Americans

38%

62%

The Consortium’s initial focus is student success and has the following four pillars: (a)

predictive analytics, (b) high tech pathways, (c) targeted support, and (d) career readiness.

The work on improving the performance of critical gateway courses fits quite nicely within

these student success efforts, and the Helmsley award is specifically to support improving

the performance of STEM gateway courses. The three partner universities have made

plans to share best practices and are seeking external funding as a Consortium aimed at

improving the performance in gateway courses.

TIMELINE & KEY STEPS

Summer 2015

Formation of FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan implementation committees.

Improving the performance of critical gateway courses is central to the student

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success pillar of the strategic plan. The implementation phase of the strategic plan

begins Summer, 2015:

o A standing strategic plan steering committee will be formed and meet on at

least a quarterly basis with the task of assessing and reviewing status reports

from each of the implementation committees and recommending course

modification as necessary.

o Six implementation committees will be formed and co-chaired by faculty and

administrative leads. Implementation strategies will be prioritized by the

steering committee working with the implementation committees.

o Unit strategic plans will align with FIUBeyondPossible2020.

o Funding needed to implement FIUBeyondPossible2020 will be identified from

auxiliary and foundation funds, returned overhead from contracts, and

grants and E&G funding (Education & General base budget).

o Each FIUBeyondPossible2020 strategy will align with one or more of the

critical performance indicator goals

(http://stratplan.fiu.edu/docs/Strategic%20Plan.pdf ).

o Specific annual targets will be set in order to meet the 20 critical

performance indicator goals by 2020.

Detailed feedback to course-specific redesign teams. CAT will provide each of the 17

critical courses with detailed feedback on their UT3 plans. For example, feedback

will be given regarding the extent to which the plans take into account the eight

essential elements of course redesign identified by the National Center for Course

Transformation (NCAT), thereby encouraging the faculty teams to address each of

these:

o Element #1: Redesign the whole course and establish greater course

consistency.

o Element #2: Require active learning.

o Element #3: Increase interaction among students.

o Element #4: Build in ongoing assessment and prompt (automated) feedback.

http://stratplan.fiu.edu/docs/Strategic%20Plan.pdf

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o Element #5: Provide students with one-on-one, on-demand assistance from

highly trained personnel.

o Element #6: Ensure sufficient time on task.

o Element #7: Monitor student progress and intervene when necessary.

o Element #8: Measure learning, completion, and cost.

Many faculty teams would also seem to benefit from assistance with prioritizing

their many strategies for improvement. CAT faculty developers will help them

develop implementation timelines. CAT faculty developers will also request the

baseline data collected this spring and may use this information to provide

additional suggestions for the improvement plans.

Course redesign. Supported by internal funds, three departments (biology,

chemistry, and psychology) will use the Summer 2015 term to begin implementing

the plans they devised as part of their UT3 efforts. The implementation

requirements are clearly defined. Each participating team will need to provide

evidence that their efforts take into account the eight elements above and will need

to produce three deliverables:

1. Revised course outcomes for students, preferably ones that address both the

cognitive and affective components of significant learning.

2. An assessment map, one that connects course-level outcomes (and possibly

specific learning objectives) to student course work.

3. Learning activities, connected to the assessments and outcomes (not

cookie-cutter lesson plans, but rather a “playbook” of in-class and online

activities that will be used to prepare students to successfully complete the

assignments and attain the course goals).

The teams are also encouraged to articulate one or more research questions to

examine concerning the redesign so as to prepare them to contribute to the

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and to help their colleagues from

across the globe benefit from their insights and successes.

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Advocacy. CAT will share the primary recommendations and strategies across

departments (discussed above) with institutional leaders and strategic plan

implementation team leaders.

Evaluation framework. CAT will develop the evaluation framework described above

so that the effectiveness of current and future faculty development work with

gateway faculty can be monitored and assessed.

External funding. External funding to support implementation of pedagogical

transformation in gateway courses will be sought both through FIU and the Florida

Consortium of Metropolitan Research Universities (Florida International University,

University of Central Florida, and University of South Florida).

Fall 2015

Full engagement of strategic plan implementation committees. All committees will

have been formed and will be operating at full capacity.

Continued collaboration. Many of the faculty teams established during UT3 will

continue meeting in Fall 2015, and to the extent that resources allow, CAT will

support the teams. The continued meeting of the teams is notable because most FIU

gateway faculty are accustomed to working independently. Many have realized that

teaching gateway courses is a challenging endeavor best undertaken collaboratively.

An additional benefit of this collaboration that we witnessed with College Algebra is

that faculty slowly begin to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the

course as a whole as opposed to their individual course sections.

Increased active learning. Based on both the course plans and discussions with

gateway faculty, it appears a major takeaway for workshop participants is that

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relying primarily on lecture is an outdated model and that, as Terry Doyle puts it, “It

is the one who does the work who does the learning.” Implementation of active

learning strategies will vary tremendously, of course, but it seems likely that many

faculty will attempt or increase their use of in-class group work, discussions, and

perhaps formative assessment using a classroom response system like i>clicker.

Data collection, analysis, and communication. As noted in the individual course

plans, Fall 2015 will also be a time of data collection and analysis. During UT3

activities and discussions, most faculty and department chairs expressed their

gratitude for the data that was shared, and many requested additional data. Many

have come to realize the value of making data-driven curricular and pedagogical

decisions, both at the overall course level and within curricular units, using

formative and summative data. It will be invaluable for this information to be

collected, analyzed, and disseminated.

Team expansion. We had intended to form teams that included stakeholders

outside the unit faculty for each of the 17 critical courses during the UT3 planning

year just as was done with the five G2C courses. However, we were unable to do so.

These expanded teams will be established and will consist of stakeholders from

across campus, for example, an instructional designer or an educational researcher

from the STEM Transformation Institute whose expertise would be useful to the

gateway faculty and department chairs given their specific plans and strategies.

Hiring of gateway faculty. CAT staff will develop suggested guidelines for the hiring

of gateway faculty and expectations upon hiring. For instance, as indicated in the

Precalculus Algebra plans (Appendix B), participation in the gateway faculty team

can be instituted as an expectation of all new hires.

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Hiring additional CAT staff. The strategic plan includes the explicit strategy of

increasing CAT personnel in order to expand and accelerate the work on improving

the performance of critical gateway courses.





Spring 2016

Strategic plan implementation committees. The student success implementation

committees and steering committee will continue their work.

Continual improvement. If faculty continue to collaborate, which will depend

largely on whether their efforts thus far seem effective and they are recognized for

this important work, it seems likely that the faculty teams will proceed similarly to

the College Algebra faculty who began this work several years ago. For instance,

many of the critical courses will begin to look closely at their exams, conducting

item analyses, and working together to develop better exams and exam questions.

Once the overall course design is enhanced, the course teams will begin to work on

what the Algebra team calls “high-touch” elements of effective teaching--the

interpersonal and affective domains which can be especially powerful for our FIU

students’ learning. Subsequently, they will begin to examine their individual class

sessions, developing lesson plans with detailed objectives and evaluating the extent

to which they were attained. They will reflect on and attempt to improve the

dynamics of their own faculty teams as the College Algebra teams intend to do.



23



REFLECTIONS

How is your plan transformative from an impact perspective? What does it have

potential to fundamentally change on your campus and across the field?

This plan addresses improving 17 poorly performing gateway courses that enroll more

than 41,000 students each year. By improving the pedagogy in these courses, the success

of literally tens of thousands of FIU students will improve each year. The pedagogical

improvements in these gateway courses will be leveraged to improve pedagogy in courses

throughout the University and will in time dramatically change the teaching culture of the

University for the better.

Most institutions struggle with poor performing gateway courses. The work at FIU will

also be leveraged nationally so that other institutions can improve the performance of

these critical courses.

In addition, this plan is transformative because it addresses not just nuts and bolts of

course design but faculty attitudes toward student learning, their responsibility for student

success, and their power to affect change. The strategies are intended to empower faculty

to commit to doing everything in their power to reach their students and to ensure that

their students flourish. Faculty are encouraged to focus on obstacles to student success

and their own power to remove these barriers rather than on “weeding out” supposedly

weaker students. They are empowered to examine their own role in denying access to

some students.

The plan is also transformative because, as we had intended to do, we engaged a critical

mass of administrators and faculty in discussions of best practices in college teaching.

24

Appendix C includes the primary reading materials that were used for this purpose.

Moreover, UT3 gave CAT staff the opportunity to establish relationships with a large

number of gateway faculty with whom they had not previously worked, and the positive

nature of these relationships make it likely that these faculty will continue participating in

CAT activities and consult with CAT about their specific concerns.

What were the lessons learned? What was the biggest challenge in your planning

efforts and how did you overcome this challenge?

We learned that vertical and horizontal alignment is needed for a large organizational

change, such as transforming the university’s teaching culture, beginning with its gateway

courses, and that reinforcing contingencies must exist for the desired behaviors for all the

players involved, from Trustees to faculty, and across all of the units and personnel who

have anything to do with students and instruction. Connecting the desired change, in this

case pedagogical transformation, to the pressing demands of the external environment,

such as state performance based funding that emphasizes undergraduate student success,

creates the need to change for university leadership who then create the need for change in

reports down the line.

With regard to course redesign, we learned that forming teams was critical to the success

of the projects. It was essential that many minds were exerted on the tasks at hand and that

a course should not “belong” to any one personality. Collaboration and collegiality were

prerequisites for success.

We also learned that the demands on faculty are intense, and extensive support and

structure are required for successful redesign. Time, resources, and incentives must be in

place in order to effect this type of transformation. Although the faculty are brilliant and

willing, they needed assistance, motivation, and resources, in order to do this important

work.

25

The biggest challenge in any change is convincing people that change is necessary. State

performance-based funding provided the necessity. The welfare of the University and its

community is clearly connected to the University’s performance on ten specific metrics,

nine of which focus on undergraduate education. The negative impact that poorly

performing gateway courses have on these metrics was clearly established by the internal

predictive analytics group, Undergraduate Education’s Office of Retention and Graduation

Success. This negative impact has been broadly and persistently communicated vertically

and horizontally to all stakeholders. The natural resistance to change has relaxed

accordingly as the University community realizes the need for pedagogical reform.

How would you articulate the experience of working as a cohort to explore

transformational change? How will you utilize learning and relationships developed

by being a part of the TPG project in the future?

Participating in the TPG project has brought some clear benefits. The positive national

notoriety brings prestige and elevates chances of external funding. Meeting face to face and

electronically with leaders from the other seven participating institutions brings new ideas,

builds the basis for future partnerships, and provides a regular infusion of energy that

comes from connection with others who are involved in this important work of student

success. Participation in the project brings a calendar of deliverables and external

accountability that is useful in keeping the project moving and its progress urgent.

Universities who have embraced the challenges of improving student success manifest

robust formal and informal networks that support sharing of best practices, and the TPG

has helped to add to that network for participants.

IMPLEMENTATION/NEXT STEPS

What are your next steps, what challenges might you face and how can APLU/USU

continue to support your transformational change and student success efforts?

26

Next steps have been discussed above in the timeline and will focus on the plans developed

in the strategic planning process and on the course redesign plans developed by course-

specific faculty teams during this planning year. The biggest remaining challenge is finding

resources to implement the specific recommendations for improving the performance of

the critical gateway courses and then other courses. This sustained change effort will

eventually change the University’s teaching culture but not without the necessary funding

to support the work.

REFERENCES

Angelo, T.A., & Cross, K.P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bridges, W. (2004). Transition, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo/Perseus. FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan. Miami: Florida International University, 2015. Kreber, C., & Brook, P. (2001). Impact evaluation of educational development programmes. International Journal for Academic Development, 6 (2), 96-108. Palmer, M. S., Bach, D. J., & Streifer, A. C. (2014). Measuring the promise: A learning-focused syllabus rubric. To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, 33 (1), 14-36. Robertson, D. L. (1999). Professors’ perspectives on their teaching: A new construct and developmental model. Innovative Higher Education, 23(4), 271-294. Robertson, D. R. (2000). Professors in space and time: Four utilities of a new metaphor and developmental model for professors-as-teachers. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 11(1), 117-132. Robertson, D. R. (2001). Beyond learner-centeredness: Close encounters of the systemocentric kind. Journal of Faculty Development, 18(1), 7-13. Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press. Wieman, C., & Gilbert, S. (2014). The teaching practices inventory: A new tool for characterizing college and university teaching in mathematics and science. CBE--Life Sciences Education, 13 (3), 552-569.

27

APPENDIX A

UT3 RELATED WORK GROUPS AND STANDING COMMITTEES

28

UT3 STEERING COMMITTEE

Douglas Robertson (Chair), Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Education

Dr. Elizabeth Bejar, Vice President for Academic Affairs; Member, Steering

Committee and Student Success Committee, FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan

Dr. Consuelo Boronat, Director, Office of Retention and Graduation Success,

Undergraduate Education; and Member, Student Success

Committee,FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan

Joann Brown, Chair, Communication Arts: and Chair, University Core Curriculum

Oversight Committee, Faculty Senate

Robert Grillo, Vice President, Information Technology; and Chief Information Officer

Dr. Michael Heithaus, Professor and Dean, Arts & Sciences

Dr. Shane Landrum, Instructor, History Department, and online education specialist

Dr. Joerg Reinhold, Associate Professor, Physics; Chair, Faculty Assembly, Arts &

Sciences; and Vice Chair, Faculty Senate

Dr. Leslie Richardson, Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching,

Undergraduate Education; and Member, Student Success Committee,


Kathleen Wilson, Professor, Music; Chair, Faculty Senate; Member, Steering

Committee, and Chair, Student Success Committee, FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic

Plan

29

UNIVERSITY STUDENT SUCCESS CABINET

Dr. Elizabeth Bejar (Chair), Vice President for Academic Affairs

Dr. Joyce Elam, Professor and Dean, University College

Dr. Jeff Gonzalez, Vice Provost, Planning and Institutional Research

Sandra Gonzalez-Levy, Senior Vice President, External Relations


Dr. Jaffus Hardrick, Vice President, Human Resources; and Vice Provost, Access and

Success

Dr. Luisa Havens, Vice President, Enrollment Services


Dr. Saif Ishoof, Vice President, Engagement

Sara Lipman, Executive Director, Operation and Strategic Initiative, Business

Dr. Larry Lunsford, Vice President, Student Affairs

Dr. Lesley Northrup, Associate Professor and Dean, Honors

Dr. Douglas Robertson, Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Education

30

UNIVERSITY TEACHING INITIATIVES COORDINATING COUNCIL

Dr. Douglas Robertson (Chair), Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Education

Susan Clemmons, Associate Dean, FIU Online; Member, Student Success Committee,



Dr. Kimberly Harrison, Associate Professor, English Department; Director, Writing &

Rhetoric Program; and Director, Writing Across the Curriculum Initiative

Dr. Laird Kramer, Professor, Physics Department; and Director, STEM

Transformation Institute

Dr. Hilary Landorf, Associate Professor, Teaching and Learning; and Director, Office

of Global Learning Initiatives


Undergraduate Education; and Member, Student Success Committee,


Dr. Suzanna Rose, Professor, Psychology; and Founding Director, School of

Integrated Science & Humanity, Arts & Sciences

Dr. Leanne Wells, Director, Mastery Math Program and FIU Learning Assistant

Program; and Member, Student Success Committee,FIUBeyondPossible2020

Strategic Plan

Dr. Kathleen Wilson, Professor, Music; Chair, Faculty Senate; Member, Steering

Committee, and Chair, Student Success Committee, FIUBeyondPossible2020

Strategic Plan

31

UT3 CONSULTANTS

Dr. Craig Nelson, Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Indiana

Dr. Vincent Tinto, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Syracuse

University

32

UT3 OPERATIONS WORK GROUP

Dr. Douglas Robertson (Convenor and PI), Professor and Dean, Undergraduate

Education

Dr. Ileana Hernandez, UT3 Assistant Research Director, Undergraduate Education


Undergraduate Education

Dr. Isis Artze-Vega, Assistant Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching,


33

EARLY ALERT AND TEXT ALERT WORK GROUP

Dr. Douglas Robertson (Convenor), Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Education


Dr. Luisa Havens, Vice President, Enrollment Services

Dr. Michael Heithuas, Professor and Dean, Arts & Sciences

Hugo Jimenez, Director, Office of Academic Advising Technology, Undergraduate

Education

Eduardo Monteiro, Associate Director, University Computing Systems

Carlos Varona, Director, University Computing Systems

34

UT3 ACADEMIC IMPROVEMENT PLAN WORK GROUP

Dr. Douglas Robertson (Convenor), Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Education

Dr. Michael Heithuas, Professor and Dean, Arts & Sciences

Maria Kullick, Director, Center for Academic Success, Undergraduate Education

Dwight Nimblett, Associate Director, Center for Academic Success, Undergraduate

Education

Vicenta Shepard, Reading and Learning Coordiator, Center for Academic Success,


Dr. Jeremy Rowan, Senior Lecturer and Assistant Dean for Advising, Arts & Sciences

Jacqueline Diaz, Assistant Director, Advising Center, Arts & Sciences

Shimon Cohen, Assistant Director, Academic Support Services, Arts & Sciences

35

FLORIDA CONSORTIUM OF METROPOLITAN RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES

PRESIDENTS’ COUNCIL AND STEERING COMMITTEE

Dr. Mark B. Rosenberg, President, Florida International University

Dr. John C. Hitt, President, University of Central Florida

Dr. Judy Genshaft, President, University of South Florida

Dr. Kenneth G. Furton, Provost and Executive Vice President, Florida International

University

Dr. Dale Whittaker, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of

Central Florida

Dr. Ralph Wilcox, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, University

of South Florida

Dr. Douglas Robertson, Consortium Operational Lead and Dean, Undergraduate

Education, Florida International University

Dr. Maribeth Ehasz, Consortium Operational Lead and Vice President, Student

Development and Enrollment Services, University of Central Florida

Dr. Paul Dosal, Consortium Operational Lead and Vice Provost, Student Success,

University of South Florida

36

G2C COURSE-SPECIFIC COMMITTEES

BSC 1010 General Biology I

Dr. Douglas Robertson (Co-Chair), Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Education

Dr. Timothy Collins (Co-Chair), Professor and Chair, Biological Sciences

Dr. Marcia Kravec, Lecturer and Associate Chair, Biological Sciences

Dr. John Makemson, Professor and Undergraduate Program Director, Biological

Sciences

Thomas Pitzer, Senior Lecturer and General Biology Course Coordinator, Biological

Sciences

Dr. Kristin Bishop, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences

Dr. Eric Brewe, Associate Professor, Education, Associate Director, STEM

Transformation Institute

Dr. Leslie Richardson, Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Dr. Arlene Garcia, Assistant Director, Office of Retention and Graduation Success

CHM 1045 General Chemistry I


Dr. David Chatfield (Co-Chair), Associate Professor and Chair, Chemistry and

Biochemistry

Dr. Palmer Graves, Senior Lecturer, Associate Chair, and General Chemistry Course

Coordinator, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Dr. Milagros Delgado, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Dr. Joseph Lichter, Lecturer, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Dr. Uma Swamy, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Dr. Suzanna Rose, Professor, Psychology; Associate Dean, Arts and Sciences;

Director, School of Integrated Science and Humanities

Dr. Laird Kramer, Professor, Physics, and Director, STEM Transformation Institute


37

Danilo Le Sante, Research Analyst, Office of Retention and Graduation Success

ENC 1101 Writing and Rhetoric I


Dr. Jami Sutton (Co-Chair), Associate Professor and Chair, English

Dr. Kimberly Harrison, Professor and Director, Writing Programs, English

Dr. Vanessa Sohan, Assistant Professor, English

Dr. Paula Gillespie, Associate Professor, English: and Director, Center for Excellence

in Writing

Dr. Michael Creeden, Associate Director, Writing Programs


Danilo Le Sante, Research Analyst, Office of Retention and Graduation Success

MGF 1106 Finite Math


Dr. Hamid Meziani (Co-Chair), Professor and Chair, Mathematics & Statistics



Dr. Robert Storfer, Senior Lecturer, Finite Math Course Coordinator

Dr. Leanne Wells, Director of Mastery Math Program & FIU Learning Assistant

Program

Dr. Ada Monserrat, Lecturer, Mathematics & Statistics


Dr. Connie Boronat, Director, Office of Retention and Graduation Success

STA 2122 Introduction to Statistics I


Dr. Hassan Zahedi (Co-Chair), Associate Professor, Associate Chair, and Director,

Statistics Division

38



Dr. Leanne Wells, Director of Mastery Math Program & FIU Learning Assistant

Program

Dr. Gladys Simpson, Lecturer, Decision Science & Information Systems, Business


Dr. Arlene Garcia, Assistant Director, Office of Retention and Graduation Success

39

UT3 CRITICAL GATEWAY COURSE REDESIGN TEAMS

All Redesign Teams are facilitated and supported by Drs. Leslie Richardson and Isis Artze-Vega, Director and Assistant Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Undergraduate Education.

Biology (BSC 2023 Human Biology)

First Name Last Name Title Paul Sharp Instructor

Biology (BSC 1010 General Biology)

First Name Last Name Title Javier Francis-Ortega Professor John Cozza Instructor John Geiger Instructor Kristin Bishop-Von Wettberg Instructor Ligia Collado Senior Lecturer Marcy Kravec Instructor & Associate Chair Biology Martin Tracey Professor Paul Sharp Instructor Richard Brinn Senior Lecturer Sat Gavassa Instructor Thomas Pitzer Senior Instructor & Director of Biology Lounge

Chemistry (CHM 1045 General Chemistry)

First Name Last Name Title

Cem Karayalcin Professor

David Chatfield Associate Professor & Chairperson of Chemistry

Joseph Litchter Instructor

Palmer Grave Senior Lecturer & Assistant Chairperson of Chemistry

Uma Swamy Senior Economics (includes ECO 2023 Microeconomics and ECO 2013 Macroeconomics)


Alan Gummerson Senior Lecture

Alfonso Rodriguez Instructor

40

Lower Division math (includes MGF 1106 Finite Math, MAC 1105 College Algebra, and MAC 1140 (Pre- Calculus Algebra)


Ada Monserrat Instructor

Ali Rostamian Senior Lecturer

Angie Trutie Professor

Anna Wlodarczyk Senior Instructor

Beatriz Cassis Lecturer

Jackie Jacobson Instructor

Jerry Hower Instructor

Kathleen Guy Instructor

Kieron Thomas Executive

Leanne Wells Faculty Administrator

Maydelin Galvez Instructor

Michael Rosenthal Senior Lecturer

Natalia Gosteva Instructor

Philippe Rukimbira Professor

Roneet Merkin Instructor

Shivanni Jagussar Instructor

Solange Kouemon Senior Instructor

Surender Lindley Instructor Statistics (includes STA 2122 Introduction to Statistics I and STA 2123 Introduction to Statistics II)


Bekker Leonid Senior Instructor

Dane McGuckian Senior Instructor

Dongmei An Senior Instructor

Eric Philias Lecturer

Florence George Associate Professor

Fritz Morency Lecturer

Gauri Ghai Associate Professor

Gisela Muniz Lecturer

Hassan Zahedi Associate Professor

Ivanna Barreiros Faculty Administrator

Kibria Golam Professor

Laura Reisert Instructor

Maria Balius Lecturer

Nuong Lein Lecturer

Ramon Gomez Senior Instructor

Zhenmin Chen Professor

41

Writing (includes ENC 1101 Writing and Rhetoric I and ENC 1102 Writing and Rhetoric II)

Last Name Title

Andrew Golden Senior Instructor

Charles Donate Faculty Administrator

Christine Gregory Instructor

Cynthia Chinelly Senior Lecturer

Darrel Elmore Lecturer

Ehlen Ethan Instructor

Glenn Hutchinson Assistant Director of the Center for Excellence in Writing

Jennifer Bartman Instructor

John Wehr Instructor

Kacee Belcher Instructor

Kim Miles Instructor

Larissa Ramos Instructor

Maheba Pedroso Instructor

Michael Sohan Instructor

Ming Fang Instructor

Nicholas Vagnoni Instructor

Patricia Warman-Cano Instructor

Paula Gillespie Director of the Center for Excellence in Writing

Robert Saba Senior Instructor

Shelley Wick instructor

Vanessa Sohan Assistant Professor

Vernon Dickson Associate Professor

Yasbel Borrero Instructor First-Year Experience (SLS 1501 First-Year Experience)


Britgett Cram Coordinator Institutional Assessment

Bronwen Pelaez Director Student Affairs

Charlie Andrews Dir. Academic Advising Ctr.

Drew Golberg Student Success Manager

Hazel Hooker Assoc. Direc for 1st Yr Prgrms

Jacqueline Diaz Asst. Dir CAS Advising Center

Lynne Miller Associate Professor

Marc Mobley Asst Dir Orient & Parent Programs

Tekla Nicholas Grad. Success Research Spec.

Valerie Johnsen Dir, Assess, Enroll & Ret Mgmt

42

Religious Studies (includes REL 3308 Studies in World Religion and REL 2011) Religious Analysis) First Name Last Name Title Daniel Alvarez Senior Instructor

Erik Larson Associate Professor & Chairperson of Religious Studies

Erin Weston Instructor Ivanessa Arostegui Lecturer

History (AMH American History) First Name Last Name Title Amanda Baralt Writing Fellow Brian Peterson Associate Professor Christine Ardalan Lecturer Emma Sordo Lecturer Hilary Jones Associate Professor Jen Bartman Instructor Joyce Peterson Associate Professor Michael Brillman Instructor

Mike Creeden Instructor & Associate Director of Writing Across Curriculum program

Shane Landrum Instructor Tovah Bender Instructor Victor Uribe Associate Professor & Chairperson of History Psychology (PSY 2012)


Maria Shpwrik Lecturer

Paige Telan Senior Instructor

Rachel Ritchie Instructor

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APPENDIX B

CRITICAL GATEWAY COURSE REPORTS

44

Human Biology I. The Current State of the Course Where are you now? ANS. I’m currently the only lecturer teaching Human Biology lecture (BSC 2023) at the FIU MMD campus since the Summer 2013 semester. I teach 2 sections of Human Biology lecture for each of the Fall and Spring semesters. One of the sections is a morning class and the second is a late afternoon class. I also teach one section of Human Biology lecture during the summer C semester. The course consists of 4 exams that are each worth 25% of the students grade. Students can use the optional cumulative final exam (the 5th exam) to replace a missed exam or their lowest exam grade if they choose to take it. All exams have 2 bonus questions that come directly from in class material. The bonus questions are weighted according to their i-Clicker participation. Students who get a majority of their i-Clicker questions correct in class increase the weight of each of the 2 bonus questions to 5 points per bonus. Students who do not get a majority of the i-Clicker questions correct get 1 point per correct bonus question. Finally, students can also participate in PLTL . My PLTL incentive is to average their PLTL score against their lowest exam score after all of the “in-house” grading is complete. I have a relatively small proportion of students that do not complete past 50% of the course material but do not drop the course. The baseline data below shows preliminary analysis from the Summer 2013 semester onward without the failing students that have not completed past 50% of the course material.

Semester # of

students* Average %A %B %C %D %F

Sum. 2013 44 78% 20 27 30 14 9

Fall 2013 U1 162 76% 27 28 17 12 16

Fall 2013 U2 209 75% 21 22 28 13 16

Spr 2014 U1 174 80% 25 29 26 9 10

Spr 2014 U2 126 75% 21 27 23 12 17

Sum. 2014 40 83% 40 20 23 5 13

Fall 2014 U1 187 85% 41 31 17 7 4

Fall 2014 U2 163 77% 25 29 21 12 13

Total Averages 79% 28 27 23 11 12

*Number of students that completed more than 50% of the course.

What’s working? What’s not working? ANS. I think that many students are learning a great deal about human biology and this is

45

indicative of my positive instructor evaluations and their firsthand account of their learning in my course based on their written comments. I also know that taking Human Biology laboratory concurrently with the lecture is highly beneficial to the students. PLTL is also a big plus in helping students to internalize the course material. However, I do need to place more attention to the “Roberts” of the course. I would like to motivate the underprepared students that give do not complete more than 50% of the course material to increase student success and to increase student retention. What enhancements, if any, have been made recently? ANS. I have kept my syllabus pretty much the same from the Summer 2013 semester. How much variation is there currently across sections? ANS. There is some variation between the morning sections and the late afternoon sections. The early sections have a higher grade point average than the late afternoon sections. What’s the prevailing pedagogy (lecture?), if any? ANS. My prevailing pedagogy is about 85% class lecture, with 10% i-Clicker, and 5% think-pair- share.

--Baseline Data: ANS. For baseline data I can make use of the raw data utilized to generate the table above. I can utilize PLTL data to examine its effectiveness on student success. I can use i-Clicker data to examine its benefits on student success. I would welcome additional ideas regarding the collection of baseline data. II. Goals

Where do you want the class to be? ANS. I would like to increase the amount of cooperative active learning in the course, reduce content and focus on “big picture” concepts for deep learning, and utilize publisher-provided online learning materials. What do you want the course to accomplish? ANS. I want students to leave the course having a conceptual understanding of how their body functions. I want them to learn about the mechanisms of these processes, and not just a bunch of facts.

46

How much progress do you want to make on key metrics (like measurements of student learning and DFWI rates)? ANS. I want to utilize key metrics to measure student learning so I can determine the effectiveness of the changes I’m implementing. III. Strategies

How will you make progress toward your goals? ANS. I will use a multifaceted approach to engage and challenge all students by including a new learning design with a greater proportion of low-stake in class cooperative active learning activities along with changes in assessment. I want to utilize publisher-provided learning materials to get underprepared students engaged in the course material before deeper learning activities take place in class. What key strategies will you use? (Perhaps a total course redesign? ANS. I will alter my pedagogy, adjust learning goals, change grading practices, and add new low- stake assignments as explained below. Adjusting the learning goals? ANS. I will design more conceptually based learning goals that focus on the “big picture.” I want to focus on learning goals are more application based. Application based learning goals are more likely to be internalized by students and will be useful in their everyday life experiences. They will be able to relate these concepts to previous and future experiences. Grading practices? ANS. I want to reduce the weight of exams from 100% of the students grade to 45% and increase the weight of in class participation to 20%. The remaining 35% of a student’s grade will be based on publisher-provided online learning materials. Develop new exams/assessments? ANS. I hope to reduce the anxiety students may feel toward exams by including more low-stakes in class assignments which would include i-Clicker and think-pair-share or group learning activities. Ongoing professional development?

47

ANS. Absolutely! I learned a great deal by attending the Gateway Design Institute during Spring Break and had an enjoyable time learning with fellow colleagues. Adjusted pedagogy? ANS. My adjusted pedagogy would include about 60% class lecture, with 15% i-Clicker, and 25% think-pair-share or other in class group learning activities.

--Evaluation Plans I can compare baseline data before and after to evaluate the implementation of my new learning design for Human Biology lecture. I think that data collected to track student overall success and in class retention would be of greatest importance to everyone at this stage in the process.

48

General Biology UT3 Report I. The Current State of the Course --Where are you now? What’s working? What’s not working? What enhancements, if any, have been made recently? How much variation is there currently across sections? What’s the prevailing pedagogy (lecture?), if any? It might help to use the notes you jotted down on your GDI handout, and this information can be anecdotal/qualitative. The current pass rate for General Biology I is 70.9%, which is higher than it was in previous years. We identified the following items as contributors to this improvement:

Pear-Led Team Learning (PLTL), where students discuss with their peers and interact with the material in a new way.

Increases in active learning exercises: all sections have adopted i>Clickers. Some sections devote half or more of class time to active learning.

Better coordination between lecture concepts and lab exercises. Consistent group of faculty heavily invested in helping our students succeed. A general trend in all sections shifting from content coverage to concept understanding,

from knowledge to comprehension.

What’s working?

PLTL Increased student interaction with conceptual material:

o Activities that ‘make real’ the material covered in class o Stop and re-discuss concepts asking students to come up front and explain graphs

and models o Clickers o Short videos, used effectively, bring to life difficult concepts o Weekly quizzes

What’s not working?

Too much emphasis on exams (summative assessment) Lack of ongoing formative assessment Lack of connection between the PLTL leader and course instructors

What enhancements, if any, have been made recently? Extend office hours the week before exams Cover less material but with more depth Increase number of clicker questions In some sections, short in-class activities that count as extra credit.

How much variation is there currently across sections?

Not much variation as all instructors are using the same active learning techniques However, some instructors are starting to promote more in class activities, we might

expand this to other sections All sections share a common syllabus Each section has its own quiz and exam questions

49

What’s the prevailing pedagogy (lecture?),

Varying proportions, but in some sections: 60% regular lectures, 30% active learning, 10% examples related to students’ interest

The prevailing methodology is lecture with active learning in the form of i>Clickers. However, some lecturers include more active learning in the form of short group activities. There are some pilot sections with flipped and hybrid formats with minimum lecturing (assessments pending). There is consistency across sections in the content. We follow the same schedule and similar syllabus. Every section has some active learning in it. During the workshop we developed a core list of learning objectives that will not only provide consistency among the sections, but also across semesters, integrating General Biology I and II. These core objectives also provide more freedom to faculty, reducing the amount of material that needs to be covered and instead place emphasis on core principles students must understand. Thus, each faculty member can focus on different content/examples while still following the core objectives. As a result of the workshop the faculty plan to meet weekly and work on implementing these core objectives into the curriculum.

--Baseline Data: This section should also include baseline data that supports the statements about the current state of the class. SACS or other assessment data could be useful here, plus any instruments you may administer (like knowledge surveys, etc.). If you find that you don’t have enough baseline data, please think about what you might be able to collect this semester, as a point of comparison for evaluating the adjustments to the class. Since the baseline data is such an important component of the plans, please send me your initial ideas by Monday, April 6th – two weeks from today. We are considering using the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI) for assessment. We have baseline BCI data from one lecture section taught in 2013. We are also considering having a common Final Exam. For future semesters, we will have some common questions that faculty will agree to use in exams across all sections. Assessment data compiled for SACS accreditation is based on the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Major Fields Test in Biology. Thousands of graduating biology majors around the nation complete this exam and it is considered a measure of long term learning over the course of the undergraduate biology degree. The longitudinal data we have collected may serve as a basis for comparison to the ETS scores of future cohorts (with certain caveats). II. Goals --Where do you want the class to be? What do you want the course to accomplish? How much progress do you want to make on key metrics (like measurements of student learning and DFWI rates)? We developed a core list of learning objectives that we want students to achieve over the semester or full year of General Biology (I & II):

50

Make content relevant to students’ lives Use evidence to support arguments and evaluate hypotheses Apply biological principles across different scales (such as time and space) Be comfortable with not knowing the right answer Interpret scientific representations (diagrams, graphs, trees, etc) Explain core concepts in their own words Apply core concepts to make predictions Identify trends, patterns & processes Appreciate and value scientific reasoning

We want to see our students succeed in future courses. We proposed monitoring DFWI rates in our course but also in future courses that have General Biology as a pre-requisite, such as Genetics. We are also considering using the Maryland Biology Expectations (MBEX) Survey to assess students’ attitudes towards biology, whether they see it connected to their everyday life and connected to other sciences (chemistry and physics). The MBEX also assesses whether students see themselves as responsible for their own learning or whether they place this responsibility on the instructor. III. Strategies --How will you make progress toward your goals? What key strategies will you use? (Perhaps a total course redesign? Adjusting the learning goals? Grading practices? Develop new exams/assessments? Ongoing professional development? Adjusted pedagogy? New assignments? Etc…) We are going to adjust the curriculum to follow our core learning goals. We will hold weekly meetings to work on the implementation of those goals and foster sharing of materials and activities. Two instructors in General Biology II are already working on the design of active learning exercises. We also want to increase involvement of the faculty in the design and preparation of PLTL exercises. Other potentialities being discussed:

We have established a Dropbox folder where we can share clicker questions, activities, and any other material developed.

Having common exams, or designing the exams together, or having a test bank developed by all instructors.

The possibility of making PLTL mandatory, possibly having PLTL sections specific for each professor.

Possibly making the Final Exam mandatory, perhaps as a Resurrection Final (replacing lowest exam grade).

Having i>clickers mandatory as one way to decrease grade dependency on exams. Having other learning activities be part of the grade, such as post-lecture online quizzes in

addition to the already existing pre-lecture reading quizzes. Proposed offering practice exams, created by each instructor.

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--Evaluation Plans—How will you track progress? Here, it would be helpful to heed NCAT’s advice and collect data that speaks to various stakeholders. In other words, what data would students find compelling? What would administrators be pleased to hear? What would mean success to you, the faculty? Tentative ideas:

For students: students want to see that they have better chances of getting a good grade, so showing them historical data on grades may help.

For administrators: data on DFWI rates, and other metrics important for the ratings in performance-based funding

For us, instructors: Biology Concept Inventory, test actual understanding of main biological concepts.

Future Directions We have determined that we will meet on a regular basis (weekly) to continue this discussion toward the refurbishment of the entire GB curriculum and pedagogy. We are currently examining multiple concept inventories as well as other instruments to assess our teaching and learning outcomes from our course transformations.

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UT3: Plan for pedagogical transformation of CHM1045

1. Current state of things

General Chemistry 1 (CHM1045) is the first course in the sequence of general chemistry courses. In the fall there are usually 6 sections offered (5 on the south campus; 1 on the north campus) and in the spring there are usually 3 sections offered (2 on the south campus and 1 at north). The course size is generally either 220 or 300 students depending on the classroom that is being used (usually either CP145, AHC3-110 or HM135) We have 7 faculty that generally teach this course (4 instructors who regularly teach: Delgado, Graves, Lichter, Swamy; 1-2 professors: Joens, Lopez de la Vega, and sometimes an adjunct). Of the faculty that teach, the 4 instructors teaching on the MMC Campus meet regularly during the Fall semester and discuss pedagogy, strategy, and share the task of writing common exams, which allows for some uniformity in the CHM1045 courses in that semester. Faculty at BBC and those professors/adjuncts who teach CHM 1045 in the Spring time are exceptions to this, because the instructors are split between CHM 1045 and CHM 1046 in the Spring. The teaching style used by the instructional faculty focuses heavily on active-learning (Swamy/Graves- use fully flipped class; Lichter/Delgado- partially flipped). Major concerns for this course are the DFW rates. They fluctuate somewhat by instructor, faculty, and campus but ranges within the 40-50%. For example, Lichter’s DFW rate for CHM1045 Fall of 2013 was 41%, for Fall of 2014 was 45%. Delgado’s DFW rate for CHM1045 for Fall of 2013 40% and fall of 2014 48%. Over the last 5 years we have made some dramatic changes to the course. Some of these changes include the introduction of CHM1025 which is a pre-general chemistry course geared for students who do not get a certain score on the ALEKS math exam which is now taken by all students entering as freshman. With respect to the course itself we use common exams between most sections of CHM1045, LAs in CHM1045, problem based learning activities, a shift from lecture based course to problem-solving and flipped classrooms, Youtube and Facebook as student resources, and the use of online homework systems that include preparatory quizzes prior to attending class (where prior we only had summative assignments). Looking at some of the improvements we have seen, Delgado has seen some major improvement in passing since the use of LAs (difference between a passing rate of 36% (in 2010) to 56% (in 2013). Swamy has been used a flipped classroom for the first time in Fall 2014. Students worked on specially created POGIL style worksheets in class with the LAs present in class every day to help them with the material. She has found that the DFW rate decreased

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by 5% (from 51% to 46%). Lichter used a partially flipped classroom in the spring of 2015 with the use of LAs in a new manner whereby the LAs were in the class every day and constantly circulating the room to answer questions from students. The DFW rate for this course was 26% (which is a dramatic decrease from the Fall of 2014 where the DFW was 45%). There is still stuff that needs work. The variation across the campuses is an obstacle for the students and faculty. DFW rates are still not ideal. The incorporation of active learning in classrooms that are designed for lecture makes for an additional challenge to implementing things we are developing. We also need time and support to assess and analyze whether or not some of the changes we are doing are working. Given that the instructor pool is the main source of instruction for 1045, and most instructors also double as lab coordinators, we lack the time to fully measure the effectiveness of our work. We do have a chemistry education hire in the process which would benefit this need, but until this occurs we are still lacking in this area. Baseline data: DFW rates are averaging near 40-45%. We have been using the Chemistry concepts inventory (an assessment created at UC Boulder) and have pre-post data for some sections since fall 2013. We have pre and post data for all sections for Spring 2015. We also have used the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey with some sections pre and post and have this data collected but not yet analyzed. We use common exams for 5 sections taught on MMC campus in the Fall semester for which we have the performance data for each instructor (and can correlate with their pedagogy), yet this has not been fully analyzed.

2. Goals

The main goal is to increase passing rates in CHM1045 while also ensuring student learning. This should be a uniform increase across all sections and campuses and should hopefully be produced through changes in the way the course is organized such that it does not matter who is teaching; the curriculum itself will lend to better student performance. Within the course itself, we would like to see uniform goals for the students. Recently the National Research Council listed a framework for K-12 science education with 3 dimensions of importance: scientific practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas National Research Council. (A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012.) Below is box S-1 from that document showing the key things within those dimensions. We would like to ensure that assessments for student are incorporating these 3 dimensions so that learning is being done.

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3. Strategies

The first main strategy is for the instructional faculty to meet regularly, especially summertime prior to the fall, to develop a grading scheme and syllabus that is aligned across all sections. Given some of the already existing strategies and pedagogies we employ, we will analyze some of the data we have to see what is working and what is not. The concept inventory data as well as the attitudinal surveys should give us a sense of how student conceptual understanding and morale were either being met or not. We may also look back at our common exams and see how the student performance on certain questions matched with the instructional pedagogy used.

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A key factor for the success of a course is a well-crafted syllabus. In the development of the syllabus, we intend to look at the main goals for the course and be explicit to the student with what they need to do in order to learn effectively and to earn the grade they desire. We also want to incorporate the NRC framework as part of the learning goals in the course. We will also consider a more balanced grading system (again, uniform throughout all sections). Exam writing has already been a combined process between the faculty on south campus, but we intend to use the NRC framework to guide our writing process. We will continue to evaluate our colleagues’ questions before we administer the exam to students. To evaluate what we are doing, we will continue to use the chemistry concept inventory and CLASS survey to see what concepts are giving the students the most problems and to evaluate their attitudes. To ensure that FIU administration is aware of the changes and progress, we will continue to monitor DFW rates and upon seeing changes we will bring attention to what strategies have worked by presenting our results at national conferences. Success will be measured by student performance on concept inventory and attitude surveys. Success for us as faculty, will be measured by fully attended classrooms with actively engaged students who are developing their own models for how things work and utilizing the materials and curriculum that are provided, as their basis for understanding. Our role has changed from just administering exams and Powerpoints, to being facilitators for students’ active learning practices and we intend to continue this.

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Principles of Microeconomics Current State of the Course I currently teach three sections of Principles of Microeconomics (ECO2023): an in-person section (U01), capped to ninety seats, where students attend in-person lectures; an online section for non-online students (RVC); and an online section strictly for online students (RPC). Both online sections are combined and usually capped to eight hundred seats. It is noteworthy to point out that U01 can be considered a hybrid between in-person lectures and the same rich set of internet based applications available to online students (sections RVC and RPC) which are made available via Blackboard. The lectures from section U01 are recorded on a daily basis by Florida International University (FIU) Media Technology Services (MTS). These recordings are posted, within an hour of the initial recording, on Blackboard for sections RVC and RPC to watch. That is, all the content available to the in-person section is also available to the online sections. Additionally, both online sections are able to rewatch the course lectures as many times as necessary, as all videos are retained on Blackboard for the entire semester, a courtesy not available to the in-person section. Throughout the semester, all course sections are given three exams on the exact same date and the exact same subjects. For section U01, exams are given on-campus and are completed in-person. Exams for sections RVC and RPC are administered online via Blackboard. The exams are identical in nature, with the same number of questions and time restrictions. All three courses are assigned homework assignments at the same time with identical due dates, usually a week after being assigned. All homework assignments, for all three sections, are administered via Blackboard and are submitted by the student electronically. There is a homework assignment administered for each chapter covered in the course. All exams and homework assignments are made up of multiple choice questions gathered from the test banks provided by the publisher of the course textbook. Course grades are calculated identically for all three sections: each exam consist of thirty percent of the course overall score, with the average of the homework assignments making up the remaining ten percent. All sections of ECO2023 have access to the same information, same assignments, and exams. With the only difference coming from the delivery of the course lectures; students in U01 attend live lectures on set days and times, while students in the online sections, RVC and RPC, have access to the video recordings of said lectures on demand, which they may or may not watch at their convenience. Data

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Demographic and performance data, for all three sections of ECO2023 for the Fall 2014 term, was gathered from FIU’s Office of Planning & Institutional Research. Summary statistics of the usual demographic information (age, gender, race, country of birth), along with university GPA, high school GPA, SAT score, ACT score, and student full-time status, are reported in Table 1. Table 1: Baseline Summary Statistics: RVC v. U01, RPC v. U01, and RPC v. RVC.

The data contains high fractions of reportings; the sample sizes for all three sections are consistent with the official enrollment numbers gathered from FIU’s grade rosters, which were accessed via Panthersoft. Overall, there are 90 observations for U01, 563 for RVC, and 52 for RPC. Of the 90 students enrolled in U01, 85% were full-time students; of the 563 enrolled in RVC, 74% were full-time students; and, of the 52 enrolled in RPC, 48% were classified as full-time students. Students enrolled in U01 have a higher GPA than those enrolling in sections RVC and RPC, a difference in GPA of 0.23 and 0.38, respectively. Similarly, their high school GPA also tends to be higher, with a difference of 0.17 and 0.42, respectively.

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A measure for student achievement, low-achievers versus high-achievers, based on GPA is also reported1. Low-achievers registered for the online sections of ECO2023 in higher percentages than for the in-person section: 61% of students enrolled in U01 have a GPA higher than the section median, compared to 52% in RVC, and 46% in RPC. Table 2: Performance Summary Statistics: RVC v. U01, RPC v. U01, and RPC v. RVC.

Summary statistics of student performance in each section of ECO2023 are reported in Table 2. Homework assignment scores, exam scores, and course overall score are all on the standard 0 to 100 point scale. The implications of the data are clear, students in the in-person section outperform their online peers in just about every measure. On homework assignments, students in section U01 outperform those in RVC by 10.9 points, and outperform those in RPC by 14.7 points. On exams, section U01 outperform their online counterparts, RVC and RPC, by almost equal measure, 12 points and 17.6 points, respectively. Unofficial drop rates2 are also vastly different between U01 and the online sections: 2% unofficially drop from U01 compared to 7% and 8% for RVC and RPC, respectively. It is important to note, that the differences between U01 and both online sections, RVC and RPC, are statistically significant at the 1 percent and 5 percent levels. While the differences between RVC and RPC are not. To visually examine the effects of being in a different course sections, Figure 1 shows kernel density estimates3 of course outcomes. The blue solid line represents the

1 Low-achievers are classified as having a GPA lower than the median GPA. Conversely, high-achievers

are classified as having a GPA higher than the median GPA. 2 Students who stop all course work but do not officially drop or withdraw from the course with the

registrar’s office. 3 Kernel density estimates for homework and exam averages were derived from ordinary least squares.

While kernel density estimates for course completion and passing percentages were derived from a logit model.

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distributions for U01, the red dashed line represents the distributions for RVC, and the green dotted line represents the distributions for RPC. In all four estimate measures, the students in section U01 outperform the students enrolled in the online sections. All differences are statistically significantly different than zero. Figure 1: Kernel Density Estimates of Course Outcomes

Across all performance variables, students in online sections do not perform as well as students enrolled in the in-person section; these differences are statistically significantly different than zero. At this point, I believe it bears repeating that the only difference between the three sections is the delivery of course lectures: students in section U01 attend in-person lectures, while students in RVC and RPC consume the course lectures online via video recordings. Goals ECO2023 is a course where most topics build on one another, and heavily relies on a fundamental understanding of core algebraic and geometric concepts. In addition to the face-to-face contact with the professor afforded by the in-person class, the pre-planned and disciplined pacing of in-person lectures seem to be particularly beneficial here. Video

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viewing statistic, gathered from MTS, shows that there is a steady decline in the number of users accessing the recorded lectures as the semester progresses, see Appendix A. Online user engagement falls off, with few students persisting and following through till the end of the term. It may very well be possible that students in the online sections spend more time studying from the textbook; but, I believe that the disengagement from the video lectures reduces the overall time students are engaged with the course the contents thereof. The evidence shows that in-person students benefit from live lectures relative to their online counterparts. In order to bring parity to learning outcomes and increase retention and graduation rates, the department of Economics needs more resources in order to hire additional faculty members capable of teaching in-person sections of ECO2023. These sections ought to be relatively small in nature with no more than 100 students enrolled per section. Learning assistants, 5 per course section or 1 for every 20 students, should also be used so that the may provide a more personal and direct form of content delivery to each student. With the two steps outlined above, I am sure learning outcomes in ECO2023 will drastically improve.

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UT3 Analysis for ECO-2013: Principles of Macroeconomics Instructor: Dr. Alan Gummerson, Senior Lecturer

The current format for Principles Macro was adopted in Fall, 2010. It was adopted after the previous format was yielding rather dismal results. Prior to Fall, 2010, approximately 10 sections capped at 100 students were being taught each fall and spring, with additional sections taught in the summer. Most were taught by Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Economics or by adjuncts, with a handful taught by regular faculty. The student course evaluations overall were apparently the worst in the College of Arts and Sciences. As a result the chair of the department asked me to teach under the new format, which was modeled on what the University of Florida has been doing for a couple of decades, and which has been copied by the University of Central Florida. Registration for the course has varied from 400 to 900, depending mostly on the cap on alternative online versions. Since there is no room on campus that can accommodate such numbers, each lecture is captured on video, and is posted to the Blackboard site for the course, usually within a few minutes after the class finishes. Most students do not attend in person, but are supposed to keep up by watching the course captures on their electronic devices. There are three on-campus exams given during the semester on Fridays. When students register for the course, they register for one of three different sections which determine what time on those Fridays—2, 5, or 7:15 pm—they take the exam, usually in SIPA-125. Each of the three exams is given a weight of .3 in determining the course grade, so exams make up 90% of the course grade.

Students are also required to do homework for each of the chapters covered in the course on the website of the publisher of the text. The total score on these homeworks is given a weight of .1, or 10% of the course grade. These homeworks are automatically graded with scores recorded automatically on the website. Students pay about $80 to access this website, which includes an electronic version of the text. The bookstore also stocks loose-leaf hard copies of the text, which I recommend.

The homework is composed of three parts. The first, Learning Curve, is

interactive, and with enough persistence the student can earn full credit, no matter how many errors are made along the way. The second is a 20 multiple-choice question quiz over the chapter. The third, and the most heavily weighted, is an electronic version of the end of chapter questions in the text, and usually requires students to do calculations, draw diagrams, and generally get their fingernails dirty in answering the questions. The homeworks are open book with no time limit, but with only one attempt allowed and with strict deadlines for submission, usually a few days to a week after we finish the chapter in class.

Because of the number of students enrolled, the exams consist of 50 multiple

choice questions chosen from the text’s question bank. When I moved from teaching a

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section of 100 to a section of 400+, I stopped giving exams that were 60% multiple choice and 40% essay/analysis. The latter were designed to see whether students could use the simple supply and demand type models used in the course. As a result, the current exams are easier than previous exams, and I am convinced students do not learn the material as well as before.

I have usually been assigned 2 or 3 Teaching Assistants per semester. I use

them mostly to monitor the exam sessions and to upload the Scantron exam results to the Gradebook on the publisher’s website. Next semester I plan to have them use the Early Alert system to notify advisors that their charges are not doing well on exams or homework.

In 2010 when the department went to the large enrollment, video lecture format,

it also established an Economics Tutoring Center in VH-136. This is a window-less room with 4 computers and three additional round tables that can each seat 5. It is staffed from 9 to 5 five days a week by Ph.D. students in economics who fulfill part of their Teaching Assistant duties by staffing the Center 5 hours per week. We thought that since students in the two Principles courses would get little contact with the instructor that there would be significant demand for tutoring. This has not turned out to be the case. Few students from my course take advantage of the Tutoring Center.

I have requested data over a week ago at this writing from Broadcast Video

Services which records and posts the video captures, on how many times the video lectures were accessed by students during the Spring, 2015 semester, and have not yet received that information. I have little doubt, however, that the data will show, as it did for the Principles of Microeconomics for Fall, 2014, that by the middle of the semester very few students were bothering to access the videos. Nor do many students attend the lectures, the average being about 40 by the last weeks of the semester. Most students apparently try to do homeworks without studying the chapters and to cram for the exams without paying much attention to either the text or the lectures prior to last minute cramming.

Results for the course are dismal. My sections of the course—ECO-2013.U02,

.U03, and .U04 had failure rates of 46.2%, 52.5%, and 61.2% during Fall, 2014. The differences themselves are interesting, since there is no material difference among the sections except the times on Fridays—2, 5, or 7:15pm—that the three exams are taken. All students are free to attend the class MWF at 11am, and all have access to the course captures via Blackboard. So the differences probably say something about the time pressures on students.

I suspect those who sign up for the 7:15pm section are those who probably work

during the day, or who signed up very late for the class and could only get into the evening exam session. My suspicion is that late registration probably correlates highly with lack of dedication to doing well in the course. The exams are identical regardless of what time they are given, and are graded by machine in one large batch.

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Students are not allowed to take copies of the exam when they finish, in order to minimize cheating. There is little evidence from the failure rates that those taking the exam at 7:15pm get much help from those who took the earlier exam. Students are monitored during the exam by the TAs and myself, and must present a picture ID when submitting the exam, in an attempt to maximize academic integrity.

The text I use is Macroeconomics by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, which I

believe is the 3rd or 4th most widely used introductory text in macroeconomics. The 4th edition has just been released. The contents of homework and exams are produced by the authors and the publisher, Worth. This past Spring semester, a student could earn a C in the course by averaging as low as 48.05 on homeworks and exams, weighted as described above.

In other words, a passing grade in the course could be obtained by averaging

less than 50% on multiple choice exams taken from a standard text, augmented by scores on open-book, no time limit homeworks on the publisher’s website. And yet the failure rate ranged from 46.2% to 61.2%, depending on what time the exam was taken.

What accounts for these dismal results, and what can be done about them?

Obviously, the instructor could be incompetent. The reader could investigate this possibility by viewing at random one of the classes captured on video.

Another possibility is that the format of the course does not lend itself to success

with a class composed of 400 to 900 students, most of whom are 1st or 2nd semester freshmen and women, who are required by their prospective majors to take a course which requires competence in high school algebra and geometry, in a discipline which has a reputation of being difficult for many. Naturally, I lean toward this possibility.

What can be done? Several incremental changes may help some. As I

mentioned above, the Early Alert system will be used in the fall so advisors can contact students who are beginning to get into trouble in the course.

Since many students have difficulty with the high school algebra and geometry, I

will put links to Kahn Academy lessons on these topics on the Blackboard site for the course. I do not have much faith that those who have not mastered these topics yet will take advantage of the opportunity to pursue self-directed learning. Perhaps we can make the Kahn academy lessons part of the graded homework to provide a new incentive to learn.

I am not optimistic that these incremental changes will do much to improve

student learning outcomes. I think the format of the course must be changed. We cannot expect much success in a class of 400 to 900 where students are encouraged not to come to class since there is not enough room for them. To suggest to freshmen that they can keep up with the lectures by watching videos is to encourage procrastination and failure. To expect freshmen to be self-directed enough to study a

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difficult subject for which they are poorly trained in the math prerequisites is to invite failure.

Students poorly trained in math and required to take a difficulty subject need high

touch, not high tech. Classes must be smaller, so students feel a personal connection with the instructor, and the instructor has the chance of taking a personal interest in the student. Smaller classes require more instructors.

The problem is compounded in macroeconomics, since, in my opinion, the best

instructors will be those familiar with U.S. economic history and institutions. (I would say that, wouldn’t I?) Unfortunately, most of our Ph.D. students are highly math literate but are foreign students with little knowledge of U.S. economic history and institutions, and most have difficulty with English as well. This is why we have continued with the current format despite its dismal results; dependence on graduate student instructors in the past yielded even worse results. Adjuncts have higher pass rates, but I suspect this has little correlation with learning.

To get significantly better results, the department of economics must be given

more resources in the form of several instructors who can concentrate on teaching the Principles courses. Sections should be no larger than 100, preferably smaller. In addition, undergraduate majors could be used to lead subgroups of 20 in each class. Undergraduate Learning Assistants were used in the Tutoring Center during the first couple of years of the current format, and were more effective than the Ph.D. students in fostering learning. Their use was abandoned when the funding for them was withdrawn.

When the current format was adopted, several administrators were ecstatic about

the increase in “productivity”. Only after the legislature, governor, and Board of Governors insisted on tying state funding to retention and graduation rates did concern about this course begin. That is all to the good. But real improvement will require reallocating scarce resources toward student learning. I hope we can find a way to afford it.

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MAC 1105

College Algebra

I. The Current State of the Course

Background: The university’s experience with the Mastery Math Program illustrates the impact effective course

redesign has on student success. A component of FIU’s Project Gateways – a university initiative to

enhance the core competencies of our students through a high-tech, high-touch approach – the Mastery

Math Lab allows all College Algebra and Intermediate Algebra students to do math while having access

to trained Learning Assistants (LAs) as well as their instructors. There are two overarching principles

guiding the instructional and operational choices of the Mastery Math transformation. First, we take

advantage of appropriate technology to maximize the amount of time faculty interact with students and

to maintain an ongoing, inclusive dialogue between faculty and student. Second, we are committed to a

high-touch environment where students and faculty are treated with respect, are agents of their own

success, and communication is clear, engaging, and personal.

The Mastery Math Program began as pilot program in Spring 2011 but by Fall 2012, with the

construction of a new Mastery Math lab with 204 computers, the program was implemented for all

College Algebra and Intermediate Algebra students at MMC. Students attend one or two lectures per

week in a regular classroom setting. In class, faculty pull together the major concepts that the students

are working on outside of class. Students use personal response devices, such as iClickers, to answer

individual and small group questions providing real-time feedback for themselves and their instructors.

Students then practice the concepts presented in class at the Mastery Math computer lab where they

have access to expert help from Learning Assistants (LAs) and their instructors. The LAs are

undergraduates who like math and have coursework and weekly training in subject matter knowledge

and best instructional practices for teaching algebra. LAs also lead weekly problem solving sessions,

called Math Gym, that target concepts, mathematical thinking, and common mistakes. Students are

required to spend a minimum amount of 3 hours per week in the lab and College Algebra students are

required to attend Math Gym while Intermediate Algebra students have optional Math Gym sessions.

Key to the Mastery Math Lab success is a consistent core of full-time instructors who are constantly

engaged in creating and supporting these positive learning environments. The critical faculty roles in

Mastery Math success include:

ongoing professional development with CAT o syllabus redesign o writing course goals and learning objectives o iClicker question design o backward instructional design

weekly working meetings to plan instruction and assessment,

ongoing attention to and analysis of student learning activities,

regular personal communication with students when warranted by grades and/or participation in learning activities,

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design and use iClicker questions for immediate feedback,

ongoing item analysis and improvement of test questions

faculty ownership of courses and student success.

Dramatic gains have been documented since the lab’s opening: an increased College Algebra pass rate in face-to-face courses from 33 percent in 2010-11 to 63.7 percent in 2013-14 – a nearly 31 percent increase. Additionally, a revamped online Algebra course has increased student pass rates from 10 percent to 64.9 percent, performing at the same level as the bricks-and-mortar class. Additionally, adoption of the Mastery Math model to a Finite Math class in the Fall 2014 semester by a Mastery Math Lab instructor resulted in a pass rate of 88%. Finite Math is the leading critical math course for non-STEM majors and, although textbook and curricular changes were made for the Fall 2014 semester, the department-wide pass rate was only 60%. Finite Math instructors are currently asking for access to the Mastery Math Lab for all sections. The impact of the Mastery Math is extensive. Between Fall 2012 through Spring 2014, 6598 MAC 1105 and MAT 1033 students visited the lab over 207,888 times for ~320,000 hrs of time on math tasks. Current State of the Course: At this point we have seen excellent progress since the start of the project (see Table 1). However, College Algebra pass rates have plateaued and in the Spring 2015 semester taken a drastic tumble. There is need to solidify the positive changes made and to make improvements so that more students are successful in this foundation course and that they are highly prepared for the downstream math courses.

Table 1. Pass Rates for Mastery Math in MAC 1105

Semester Pass % Pass # Total #

Spring 2011 39.1% 99 253

Summer A 2011** 69.3% 79 114

Fall 2011 48.3% 168 348

Spring 2012 42.6% 127 298

Summer A 2012 53.8% 57 106

Fall 2012 53.4% 587 1099

Spring 2013 50.2% 303 603

Summer 2013 71.3% 114 160

Fall 2013 63.0% 691 1096

Spring 2014 61.3% 359 586

Summer 2014 64.9% 50 77

Fall 2014 63.2% 579 916

Spring 2015 54.5 % 289 530

AY Results

Spring 2011 – Summer 2011** 48.5% 178 367

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Fall 2011 – Summer 2012 46.8% 352 752

Fall 2012 – Summer 2013 53.9% 1004 1862

Fall 2013 – Summer 2014 62.5% 1100 1759

Fall 2014 – Spring 2015 60.0% 868 1446

** This number is high due to the Summer 2011 pass rate. The tests that semester were, according to math faculty, too easy. Currently, the course has high levels of consistency with assignments designed by all instructors at weekly meetings, curriculum and assessment design are all determined as a collaborative effort. Faculty share the responsibility of student success with all instructors scheduled in the lab throughout the week. Regular telephone and text contact is made with the students. Faculty participate in the training of the undergraduate peers (called Learning Assistants, LAs) that staff the lab and are responsible for providing guidance to the LAs when needed. Regular discussions about the role of faculty in and out of the class/lab environment encourages the breakdown of faculty cultural norms and sociocultural stereotypes that generally attach blame to students. Expectations are that the instructors are dedicated to the success of the lab and its students. This is almost always true. Inconsistencies exist in the amount of perceived effort a transformed class requires as well as dedication to the course transformation. The 2014-2015 academic year saw two stalwart Mastery Math faculty being asked to teach other classes in the department. This was a double edged sword. While being able influence the structure and design of other classes (ultimately leading to the upcoming transformation of Finite Mathematics and the introduction of a new textbook for the precalculus sequence), it halved the lab time of two of its most successful faculty. In addition, the replacement instructor, while experienced and skilled in traditional teaching modalities, never became engaged with her colleagues or her students. The Spring 2015 semester saw personal tragedy interfere with the College Algebra course coordinators ability to do her job to the high levels she had in the past. Currently, the Mastery Math team is in disarray but are planning a comeback. The adoption of a new textbook with an overhauled computer-assisted learning environment will allow the faculty to reinvigorate the curriculum and explore new ways to provide ongoing feedback to students. As a result of the vertical alignment of precalculus sequence curricula, the new schedule of topics will allow for additional time on the topics most challenging for our students – Exponential and Logarithmic Functions. Faculty are extremely interested in working together to find alternatives to the remediation approach to teaching (ie review, review, reteach, reteach). Following some successful projects using concurrent precalculus and calculus offerings at other institutions, College Algebra faculty at FIU are exploring options for just-in-time teaching. Teaching styles are a combination of lecture, small group work, and individual work in class. Most faculty use powerpoint or smart board. Time with students is limited as faculty meet with

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students only one day a week. Attention to what is happening in that one hour needs to be the focus of faculty development in the 2015-2016 year. There is generally consensus that the purpose of the course is to prepare students for the calculus sequence. Faculty recognize that students are learning procedures without attaching understanding and efforts are being made to include more mathematical reasoning in off-line assignments and assessments. Predicting the nature and form of solutions and defending solutions and solution paths were incorporated into math gym questions in the Spring 2015 semester and will spread to the classroom and the training of the Learning Assistants in the fall. Comparisons to other College Algebra courses at sister institutions is ongoing. Examination of College Algebra tests from The Ohio State University and the University of South Florida indicate that the level of rigor in College Algebra at FIU is at least as high as at these fine institutions. Retention and transfer of knowledge is now the focus of the faculty.

II. Goals

The following are goals that were identified by the College Algebra team:

Regroup after difficulties of 2014-2015. Work towards community and cohesion as a

faculty group with new instructors.

Maximize instructional time with students

Increase student engagement in and out of class

Prepare students passing College Algebra to recognize when and know how to apply

their newly acquired knowledge and skills.

III. Strategies

A. Stabilize Faculty Assignments and Team Meetings

The College of Arts and Sciences are hiring 14 full-time permanent instructors for the Fall 2015 semester. In Fall 2015, two new full-time permanent instructors will join the Mastery Math Team. Luckily, both are former adjuncts that worked in the lab during its development in 2012-2013. The Mastery Math Director will work with Arts and Sciences and the Department of Mathematics to ensure stable job assignments to the lab for the foreseeable future. Faculty teaching College Algebra are required to adopt the full Mastery Math Model of Instruction including meetings, lab hours, high-touch communication with students, and faculty development. The Department of Mathematics will strive to schedule instructors so that they have a maximum of 2 preps each semester and will work to have instructors remain on at least one course team for at 3 consecutive semesters. This is to ensure lasting change and continuous improvement.

B. Improve Instructional Design

Faculty will work with the Mastery Math Director, the faculty developers in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and the STEM Transformation Institute to improve the effectiveness and change the nature of the in-class student experience. This includes:

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Identifying goals of class meetings.

Designing instruction around those goals.

Examining elements of the Mastery Model to produce cohesion

Faculty visit each other’s classes

Improve use of iClickers as feedback tool

Incorporate more questions that require mathematical reasoning into

homework, quizzes, class discussions, and tests

C. Improve Group Working Environment

With the dysfunction of the Spring 2015 semester behind us, the College Algebra group will work to ensure a cohesive, supportive environment for all faculty, Learning Assistants, and students. This will require input from the faculty developers in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching as well as some group meetings directly targeting the improvement of the group dynamics. Suggestions include

Regular self-checks on health of the group

Protocols on email (over cc’ing, under cc’ing, work hours, etc)

More social events for College Algebra faculty

Appointing a Learning Assistant Ombudsmen

D. Commit to Data Driven Decisions

Use Existing Education Research. Faculty will use existing education research, cognitive theory, and successful program designs to inform (not dictate) decisions regarding course policies, practices, instructional design, and assessment. They also commit to seeking advice from each other, faculty developers, and members of the math department. The instructors will also be invited to participate in FIU Discipline-Based Education Research group. Collect Data for Ourselves. FIU faculty are no different than faculty at other institutions, they want to see how our students respond to course transformation and instructional redesign. The Mastery Math Lab collects data on student satisfaction and experiences in the class and the lab. The anonymous surveys have large numbers of responses and the results are used to make adjustments in lab policies and classroom practices. The survey was designed 6 years ago without reference to existing measures for student attitudes, experiences and dispositions. With the request from other groups to increase the amount we know about our classes, it is an appropriate time to redesign the Mastery Math survey. The College Algebra faculty would also like to have measures of

Performance on Common Final

Measures on the effect of the new course practices and materials

New survey on student dispositions and motivation

Teaching observations from peers

Measures of understanding – external concept inventory

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Why students drop course

Faculty will work with Leanne Wells, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, the Department of Mathematics, and the STEM Transformation Institute as well as University offices to suggest, design, select, collect, and analyze instruments and the data collected.

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MGF 1106 Finite Mathematics

IV. The Current State of the Course

Background: Identified as the most critical math course, the passing rate for the 2012-2013 was 49% with approximately half of those that failed the course not return to the university. With almost 3,000 students enrolled in the course in that academic year, the impact was tremendous. MGF 1106 is generally one of only three lower division math course choices that students have when trying to complete their two-course general education math requirement. It therefore often becomes essential for them to pass Finite Math. Beginning in Summer 2014, steps were taken to address the situation. The Office of Undergraduate Education convened the Finite Math committee. Three key decisions were taken at that time

A. Change the order of the curriculum

B. Change to a more reader friendly textbook

C. Move to more full-time instructors

Additionally, it was decided to begin encouraging faculty to employ key elements of the Mastery Model of Instruction as outlined in the College Algebra section. The crucial first elements of this were faculty student communication and professional learning communities. Also, two finite math instructors participated in a week-long course redesign workshop led by the Center for the Advancement of teaching to produce a more student –centered syllabus for the new curriculum and textbook. Fall 2014 meetings for Finite Math faculty were planned but did not materialize. To help to provide the Finite Math team with structure and guidance, the College of Arts and Sciences appointed Leanne Wells, the Director of the Mastery Math Lab to help faculty begin to collaborate and to begin thinking about their instructional design. In Spring 2015, 3 full-time and 1 part-time faculty met each week with three objectives. First, to understand the commonalities and differences in how the course was being taught. Second, to build recognition of the value and advantage of working as a team. Third, to build a sense of ownership of the success of the students and of the course. These Finite Math faculty were supported in these efforts with three workshops. One over winter break to provide a first experience in such things as learning theory and sociocultural considerations, as well as providing with time to think about the overarching and learning objectives within their course. The second workshop was held over the spring break and offered faculty the chance to work on student-centered problems that involved conceptual understanding and to discuss course objectives. The third workshop followed the end of the spring semester and was intended to serve as a postmortem on the new curriculum and to determine next steps. This work has given us a solid picture of where the course is now, where we want to go, and some possible ways to get there. Current State of the Course:

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At this point we have seen good progress in improving student success as indicated by the reduction in the number of students that drop, fail or withdraw from the class (see Table 1). However, given the large number of students that enroll in this course and the barrier that failure presents to student progress, we have to ensure continuous improvement with best practices and redesign elements fully integrated into all sections of the course. Table 1. Critical Courses: DFWI Rates from 2012-2013 to 2014-2015

Course Title Course Terms

Sections 2014 -

15 Students 2012 -13

Students 2013-14

Students 2014-15

DFWI Rate

2012-13

DFWI Rate

2013-14

DFWI Rate

2014-15

Change in DFWI Last 2 Years

Finite Math MGF 1106 3 33 2708 2560 1990 47.6% 52.9% 39.1% 13.8%

Notes: Positive percentage shows an improvement in the DFWI rate

Currently, the consistent elements within the course are the departmental final, the textbook, curriculum coverage, and a syllabus shell. There is a course coordinator that creates the departmental final. He solicits input from those teaching the course. However, most often, there is little input as many of the instructors are adjuncts. The instructors do not know what is on the final until it is given to the students. Teaching styles range from an active learning classroom that utilizes the Mastery Math Lab, peer lead learning, and pre-class activities to many sections using straight lecture. The range in pass rates is as wide as ± 30% of the department average for the course. Approximately half of the Finite Math sections are taught by adjuncts that cannot attend team meetings and have no real say in what or how the course is taught. There is only one permanent, full-time and one full-time visiting instructor that reliably are scheduled to teach the course from semester to semseter. Inconsistencies within the structure of sections include the number of tests given (3 or 4), the existence/amount of extra credit provided, instructor expectations, level of rigor, and opportunities for students to be involved in mathematical sense-making. Moreover, there is little consensus on the purpose of the course. The course coordinator believes that it is important for students to know mathematical procedures because it is important to know these things to be a well-rounded person. Another instructor is positing questions about why topics are in the curriculum if they do not lead to some valuable, applicable decision making tool that the students can really use. There are a number of positive elements as well. With the advent of the faculty team planning meetings, there is more desire from the participating instructors to share course materials, discuss expectations, design common assessments/assignments, and collaborate in the redesign of the course. There is also a desire to continue teaching the course and implement new strategies. 2 of the visiting instructors asked to teach Finite in the Fall 2015 semester so that they might implement the Mastery Math Model in their classrooms. There is growing consensus and understanding that student success goals can operate in line with maintaining academic integrity of the course. Faculty also agree that the new curriculum and text offer a solid course in Finite Math and that the level of rigor is consistent with their expectations of what students at this level should be able to do. It is important note, however, that there is no

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basis for this belief except for the experience of the instructors involved. In the case of the coordinator, this experience is extensive. In the case of some instructors, they have taught the course only once. The team noted in particular that we currently use only two measures to gauge student success – student pass rates and student evaluations. The Finite Math team is now poised to find and use multiple measures of our progress.

V. Goals

The following are goals that were identified by the Finite Math team:

Increase the involvement of all instructors and faculty teaching Finite Math in the team

meetings

Ensure consistency and grade equivalence across sections

Develop clear purpose for the class and have curriculum, instructional design, and

coursework support that purpose

Understand the needs of the students that take this course and develop policies and

practices that support those needs.

Increase mathematical literacy of the students.

VI. Strategies


The College of Arts and Sciences are hiring 14 full-time permanent instructors for the Fall 2015 semester. This is to provide a stable, secure working environment for the instructors as well as allow them to actively participate in the professional learning communities associated with the courses they teach. It is anticipated that being a full-time, permanent employee, will provide these instructors with a sense of ownership of the course and a voice at the table. Participation in the Finite Math team will be an expectation of those teaching Finite Math. The Department of Mathematics will strive to schedule instructors so that they have a maximum of 2 preps each semester and will work to have instructors remain on at least one course team for at 3 consecutive semesters. This is to ensure lasting change and continuous improvement. Tenure track faculty that are scheduled to teach Finite Math will be asked to attend the meetings on a semi-regular basis. As they have research assignments, we are hesitant to intrude on their time but anticipate that once real changes occur in the classes, they will want to participate in the ongoing development of the class.


Make reasonableness and mathematical sense-making explicit in class and in curricular materials. This includes creating course materials with problems where students discover or are led to new information that they can then use in class. Increase student engagement with content and with each other in the classroom. The team meeting time will be used to create and vet these problems as well as discuss most effective means of using the materials.

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Employ more use of the High Touch elements of the Mastery Math Model. This includes calling and texting students when they miss excessive work or have inconsistent grades. Teams will working on rewording syllabi and mass emails so that tone and intent are consistent with a supportive learning environment. Faculty will also take advantage of Center for the Advancement of Teaching workshops to improve assessments and develop more meaningful and appropriate goals for the Finite Math course. With everyone participating in the team meetings, faculty will collaborate to create the common final exams as well as create some common questions for each test.

C. Test Full Mastery Math Implementation

Currently the full Mastery Math Model is used only in 1 or 2 sections a semester by one visiting faculty. In Fall 2015, that instructor along with another instructor will implement the full scale Mastery Math Model in 4 sections of Finite Math. See College Algebra section for full details of what the model entails. The 2 instructors are already working together this summer to plan course materials and create new assessment questions.

D. Commit to Data Driven Decisions

Use Existing Education Research. Faculty will use existing education research, cognitive theory, and successful program designs to inform (not dictate) decisions regarding course policies, practices, instructional design, and assessment. They also commit to seeking advice from each other, faculty developers, and members of the math department. The instructors will also be invited to participate in FIU Discipline-Based Education Research group. Collect Data for Ourselves. FIU faculty are no different than faculty at other institutions, they want to see how our students respond to course transformation and instructional redesign. As mentioned Finite Math currently only uses pass rates and student Likert-scale style evaluations. The Finite Math faculty would also like to have measures of

Mathematical Literacy

Reasoning skills


Student Dispositions

Measures of understanding – external concept inventory, internally validated pretest,

% of students attending tutoring sessions and review sessions

Some measure other than student evaluations for teaching evaluations


Student perceptions of the course


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MGF 1140 Precalculus Algebra

VII. The Current State of the Course

Background: Precalculus Algebra was behind only Finite Math and College Algebra on impact on student success and this only because the course has approximately half as many enrollments. The passing rate for the 2012-2013 was 39.7%. Precalculus Algebra is core of the precalculus sequence and is the math course into which most entering STEM transfer students take upon entering FIU. It is also one of the two courses, along with Trigonometry, that are downstream for the FTIC students that have passed through College Algebra at FIU. As almost all of the STEM and STEM related degrees require Calculus, it is essential that this course serves to prepare students for the calculus sequence. While major steps had been taken to address College Algebra and the beginnings of course transformations were stirring for Finite Math, PreCalculus Algebra was largely untouched until Spring 2015. With the call to address the critical courses, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Mathematics again followed the course set by the Mastery Math Model by creating a Precalculus Algebra team that would meet every week beginning in Spring 2015. Similar to the Finite Math team, the College of Arts and Sciences appointed Leanne Wells, the Director of the Mastery Math Lab to help faculty begin to collaborate and to begin thinking about their instructional design. In Spring 2015, 6 full-time and 1 - 2 part-time faculty met each week with, originally, the same three objectives as Finite.

to understand the commonalities and differences in how the course was being taught,

to build recognition of the value and advantage of working as a team,

to build a sense of ownership of the success of the students and of the course.

However, under the guidance of the proactive course coordinator, the Precalculus Algebra group began the process of collaborative instructional design immediately following the spring break. The instructors worked together to produce out-of-class assignment that they designed to target prerequisite knowledge so that students would be prepared for the introduction of new material in class. With some guidance on how to present these assignments to students and how to pull them into class discussions, the faculty that used them found great success. Faculty also had the opportunity in these meetings to discuss problems spanning the precalculus sequence. Out of these discussions came a vote and change to a new textbook with a less jargonized writing style and a meeting to vertically align the precalculus sequence.

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As with Finite Math, the Precalculus Algebra faculty were supported in these efforts with two workshops. One over winter break to provide a first experience in such things as learning theory and sociocultural considerations, as well as providing with time to think about the overarching and learning objectives within their course. The second workshop was held over the spring break and offered faculty the chance to work on student-centered problems that involved conceptual understanding and to discuss course objectives. A third workshop will be held later in the summer to provide the Precalculus Algebra faculty worktime to design and implement changes.

Current State of the Course: At this point we have seen tremendous progress in just one semester of work (see Table 1). However, a good portion of the work in redesigning assignments was done by only a few of the instructors and a few more used the materials so there is still great deal of room for instructor buy-in and course improvement. Currently, the consistent elements within the course are the departmental final, the textbook, curriculum coverage, and a syllabus shell. There is a course coordinator that creates the departmental final. She solicits input from those teaching the course. The instructors do not know what is on the final until it is given to the students. This is identical to the Finite Math team as it is the structure that the department laid out for the lower division courses. This made sense when almost all of the lower division math courses were taught by adjuncts. The course coordinator for Precalculus Algebra has been coordinating courses for the department for a very long time in this manner and, while having great insight into good teaching and amazing ability to produce material, it may be a challenge for her to view former adjuncts as collaborators. Teaching styles are most lecture with 2 of the faculty, one being the coordinator, working to introduce active, student-centered activities into the classroom. They have designed and assigned 4 of the aforementioned out-of-class assignments with students coming together in class to discuss and defend their work prior to starting the new topic. While several of the faculty have undergraduate peer tutors assigned to them, none of them use these as assets in the classroom. Only a few of the Precalculus Algebra sections are taught by adjuncts so there is a great opportunity to create a cohesive team. Unfortunately, a few of the instructors and adjuncts have been working independently and without meaningful feedback for a very long

Table 1. Critical Courses: DFWI Rates from 2012-2013 to 2014-2015

Course Title Course Terms Sections 2014 -15

Students 2012 -13

Students 2013-14

Students 2014-15

DFWI Rate

2012-13

DFWI Rate

2013-14

DFWI Rate

2014-15

Change in DFWI

Last 2 Years

PreCalculus Algebra

MAC 1140 3 44 1107 2007 2224 60.3% 60.0% 48.1% 11.9%

Notes: Positive percentage shows improvement in the DFWI rate

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time (some for decades) and are set in their practices and beliefs. It will be a challenge to bring these faculty along. Levels of rigor on assessment vary widely. Conceptual understanding is mostly seen as secondary to procedural skills with the assumption that “if they can get the correct answer, they understand the concept.” Little to no reasoning is asked of the students. Inconsistencies within the structure of sections include the number of tests given (3 or 4), the existence/amount of extra credit provided, instructor expectations, level of rigor, and opportunities for students to be involved in mathematical sense-making. There is generally consensus that the purpose of the course is to prepare students for the calculus sequence. This is a widely shared notion nationally as well. However, there is conflicting notions of what the preparation entails. Currently at FIU, this means that the students can perform algebraic manipulations accurately and can recognize and apply rules, definitions, and procedures. Some faculty are beginning to ask questions that ask students to explain their thinking or to defend their answers. There are a number of positive elements as well. With the advent of the faculty team planning meetings, there is more desire from some of the participating instructors to share course materials, discuss expectations, design common assessments/assignments, and collaborate in the redesign of the course. Faculty also requested and took the lead on vertical alignment of courses. In a meeting with representatives from calculus, precalculus, trigonometry, and college algebra, along with Ms. Wells, several changes were made to all 3 of the courses in the precalculus sequence. These changes include removal of topics, adjustments to the level of rigor on the assessment of topics in each successive course, identifying optional topics, and agreement to work toward a more connected sequence of courses with explicit references to material from previous classes. These changes in the Precalculus Algebra, Trigonometry, and College Algebra curriclula are taking place in the Fall 2015 semester. It is important to note that there is no defined precalculus sequence after College Algebra. Students can take Precalculus Algebra or Trigonometry next. There is not consensus within the department as to what the best sequence should be. However, university data shows students are more likely to pass Precalculus Algebra over Trigonometry. The team also noted that there is limited opportunity for meaningful feedback on their teaching. Suggestions were made to adopt peer observations using existing protocols or being guided by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. There was some unease as faculty are feeling defensive with all of the changes taking place across lower division instruction.

VIII. Goals

The following are goals that were identified by the Precalculus Algebra team:

Increase the involvement of all instructors and faculty teaching Precalculus Algebra in

the team meetings and in implementing team products and practices

Ensure consistency and grade equivalence across sections

Increase student engagement in and out of class

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Improve inter-course communications and vertical alignment of precalculus sequence

IX. Strategies


The College of Arts and Sciences are hiring 14 full-time permanent instructors for the Fall 2015 semester. This is to provide a stable, secure working environment for the instructors as well as allow them to actively participate in the professional learning communities associated with the courses they teach. It is anticipated that being a full-time, permanent employee, will provide these instructors with a sense of ownership of the course and a voice at the table. Participation in the Precalculus Algebra team will be an expectation of those teaching Precalculus. The Department of Mathematics will strive to schedule instructors so that they have a maximum of 2 preps each semester and will work to have instructors remain on at least one course team for at 3 consecutive semesters. This is to ensure lasting change and continuous improvement. Tenure track faculty that are scheduled to teach Precalculus Algebra will be asked to attend the meetings on a semi-regular basis. As they have research assignments, we are hesitant to intrude on their time but anticipate that once real changes occur in the classes, they will want to participate in the ongoing development of the class.


The Precalculus Algebra team identified the following strategies to increase the likelihood of student success: Increase student engagement with content during class time

Create problems for in class and out of class – some designed to lead students to new material and some designed to tie prior knowledge to new topic or more complex version of old topic (Recall and apply)

Create “conceptual”/”sense-making” questions

Plan shared objectives/questions/level of difficulty of questions for tests

Use of quizzes to encourage work outside of class. Introduce in-class weekly quizzes; eliminate online quizzes

Have LAs for each section

Increase amount and quality of student work outside of class

Develop and use worksheets for out of class activities to prepare students for new concepts (Recall and apply) repeated here because it can fulfill to objectives

Non graded pretesting and just in time intervention/review

Develop plan for Redesign course for use with diagnostics and ALEKS adaptive learning tools

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Explore supplemental instruction, possibly make it mandatory

Improve student university survival skills

Faculty need guidance in helping students become better students

Continue departmental reviews before each exam. Have students complete review packages as entry into the review session

.

C. Commit to Data Driven Decisions

Use Existing Education Research. Faculty will use existing education research, cognitive theory, and successful program designs to inform (not dictate) decisions regarding course policies, practices, instructional design, and assessment. They also commit to seeking advice from each other, faculty developers, and members of the math department. The instructors will also be invited to participate in FIU Discipline-Based Education Research group. Collect Data for Ourselves. FIU faculty are no different than faculty at other institutions, they want to see how our students respond to course transformation and instructional redesign. The Precalculus Algebra faculty would like to have measures of


Measures on the effect of the new course practices and materials

Student Dispositions and Motivation


Measures of understanding – external concept inventory, internally validated pretest,

% of students attending tutoring sessions and review sessions




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UT3 Report for STA 2122 & 3123

I. The Current State of the Course The introduction to statistics courses: STA 2122 & STA 3123 are “service courses”—that is, ones designed specifically at the request of other FIU departments. As illustrated in Table 1 below, a little more than half of students who took STA 2122 & 3123 in Fall 2014 came from three majors: Psychology, Biology, and Nursing. Combined, more than 4,000 students took these courses during 2014. Most FTIC students take STA 2122 during their second year, and most FTIC students take STA 3123 during their third year.

*Include Exploratory and Pre Majors where Applicable

Other Degree Programs represented in much small numbers. Next top 3 were Communications, Criminal

Justice, and Hospital Administration with numbers in the upper 20/low 30 range. Most other degrees a

single digit/low teens. File is attached. Full list of degrees and numbers are on worksheet 3.

In terms of student performance in the courses, DFWI rates are provided in Table 2 below, which also indicates that these rates have decreased slightly during the last two years—especially in STA 3123. Instructors note that many students drop the course without consulting with them first, such that they often don’t know why students are dropping the course. Conversely, they wonder why some students choose to stay enrolled in the course when it’s clear they will be unable to earn a passing grade.

Table 1. Distribution of top 3 majors in

Fall 2014*

STA 2122

(n=835)

STA 3123

(n=914)

#

Enrolled

%

Enrolled

#

Enrolled

%

Enrolled

BIOLOGY 155 18.6% 187 20.5%

PSYCH 194 23.2% 441 48.2%

NURSING 105 12.6% 48 5.3%

All 3 top majors 454 54.4% 676 74.0%

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Table 2

The courses have a designated coordinator who oversees the course syllabus, such that there is some level of consistency in the sections taught by instructor and adjunct faculty (particularly in the topics and material covered). However, the number of course sections, reliance on adjunct faculty, and the fact that there is not a consistent group of faculty teaching the course makes it difficult to attain the desired level of consistency across sections.

Other strengths include a great deal of pedagogical expertise among the faculty: For instance, some instructors have developed extensive online materials used by students within and outside of FIU.

Pedagogically, it appears there is a great deal of variation across sections, but the prevailing approach continues to be web-assisted lecture. Most instructors make materials available to students on the course Blackboard site or on the instructor’s course website. Some faculty have begun to share detailed notes and/or PowerPoint slides with students prior to class, so that students do not have to spend the class session copying material from the board, and they indicate that students appreciate this practice and say it helps them considerably.

STA 2122—MASTERY MATH PILOT

In terms of recent innovations or changes to the course, in Summer A 2014, three faculty piloted the Mastery Math model with STA 2122. Among the key elements of this approach:

Faculty assigned homework using the MyStat lab package

Students attended three 50 minute classes per week and one 3-hour lab

Learning Assistants (LAs) assisted students

In her report on the implementation and results for the semester, Director of the Mastery Math Lab Leanne Wells wrote:

“The overall response from students to the lab was positive… Many students responded that the lab is what enabled them to pass the class. Of the 125 students enrolled in the

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3 sections, 56% met or exceeded the lab hour requirement at 5 of the 6 weeks. Table 1 below indicates that students meeting the lab requirement at least 5 of the 6 were at least twice as likely to pass the class as those that met the requirement 4 or fewer weeks.

Table 1. Pass Rate by Lab Attendance

Weeks Met lab

requirement

# of Students that

Pass

# of Students that

D/F/W

% of students in Lab Attendance

Category that PASS

0 2 5 28.57

1 4 8 33.33

2 4 8 33.33

3 6 8 42.86

4 6 8 42.86

5 23 4 85.19

6 39 4 90.70

The 125 students enrolled in STA 2122 in Summer A visited the lab 1576 times for a total of 2117.5 student lab hours. The median stay in the lab was ~ 1.2 hours. A number of students stayed a brief period of time – just long enough to complete and assignment and leave. These students did not meet lab hour requirements and as indicated in the chart above were far less likely to pass the class. Overall results for Pass Rates are 65% for Mastery Math pilot. This compares to an overall STA 2122 pass rate average of 63%. Although not much different overall there were distinct differences for the particular faculty pass rates as compared to their historical data.”

II. Goals STA 2122 & 3123 hope to attain a high level of consistency across sections, specifically in course goals and faculty course policies. The course would also like to see more collaboration among its faculty, so that they can share resources, discuss common challenges, successes, etc. STA 2122 & 3123 would also like to progress toward course goals that are more conceptual than procedural. Faculty concur with the American Statistical Association’s Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistical Education that the goal of an introductory statistics course is to “produce statistically educated students, which means that students should develop statistical literacy and the ability to think statistically.” Having a dedicated stats lab will be essential to the future implementation and success of this goal. The courses would also like to ensure that they fulfill the expectations of the departments for which the course is a service course.

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It also hopes to minimize the ways in which the course unintentionally obstructs student success (for instance, overly-rigid policies).

III. Strategies

A. Collect Data STA 2122 & 3123 recognize that they will need to collect additional data before proceeding. For instance, faculty sense that student performance varies considerably based on the time of day the course is offered, and want to know if data support their suspicion.

The department will also need to collect more data to determine if students are attaining the course learning goals. Faculty recognize that student performance in subsequent courses provides important information about the extent to which the course is “working,” so this information too will be sought and analyzed more extensively.

Finally, it will be important to meet with representatives from the psychology, biology, and nursing, etc. departments more often to attain further clarity on each department’s goals and expectations for students who complete these courses.

A. Increase Communication

Among faculty. Faculty will need more opportunities to collaborate and share ideas, develop materials, etc. Given that many STA 2122 & 3123 instructors are adjunct faculty, it would be helpful to provide them with on-campus space and to incentivize them to come to campus and participate in professional development opportunities. Together, faculty can address common challenges like students’ statistics anxiety, and they can also collaborate to determine the best ways to move toward helping students attain a more-conceptual understanding of statistics.

As mentioned above, many faculty have developed materials for their courses and students, including a great deal of online material like videos. Similarly, the University Learning Center at FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus has worked with its undergraduate tutors to identify the most frequent difficulties faced by tutors when assisting statistics students. Together, they developed a comprehensive document describing these difficulties. A mechanism for streamlining the ability to share materials like these among colleagues would seem to help tremendously.

However, in the long term, the dependency on adjuncts needs to be decreased by hiring more regular full-time, highly-qualified faculty.

With advisors. In addition, faculty recognize the important of communicating with advisors, so that students are given accurate and consistent messages about which courses

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to take, the appropriateness and implications of dropping a class, etc. Particularly, students should not be advised to take a course for which they are not prepared.

With students. More communication with students will also prove invaluable, especially given that “statistics anxiety” and overall fear may be affecting student performance in the class. Instructor immediacy is known to minimize the negative impact of statistics anxiety, so it will be important for faculty to work on conveying to students that they are accessible and approachable. One faculty member shared that she does this by sending her students emails them twice a week, encouraging them in the messages and letting them know what resources are available.

Another important component of communicating with students will be, early in the semester, to help them see that succeeding in the course will require a great deal of time and effort, so that students allocate sufficient time to the course.

With students and advisors. Faculty will also use the newly-implemented Early-Alert System to let students know when their performance or attendance in the course is problematic. The goal will be to achieve more consistency in the messages students hear from faculty and advisors. B. Use More Active Pedagogy/Encourage More Time on Task Faculty will find ways to get students to collaborate during and after class sessions. Classroom response systems like i>clicker might also be helpful to engage students during class sessions. Faculty agree that the additional time-on-task required by the summer pilot helped students learn, but they would like to seek an alternative software (not MyStatsLab). Having learning assistants (LAs) will be a great help to achieve this goal. Instructors would also like to explore the possibility of requiring students to attend their class, as many have discerned a correlation between attendance and success in the course. In larger sections, this could possibly be realized by using i>clicker questions. Assigning more graded homework is another way to encourage additional time on task, but the department will need more teaching assistants (TAs) to assist with grading. C. Revise Course Policies Rigid course policies will be identified and revised, so that the course grade better reflects student’ attainment of the learning goals. The faculty will discuss to determine the possible merits of offering a common exam. Grading policies might also be adjusted, so that the stakes for students are lowered, especially for their first exam. For instance, one instructor currently allows students to replace their lowest exam grade with their grade on the final exam, as he has found that this drastically minimizes the number of students who drop the course.

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ENC 1101 & ENC 1102

I. The Current State of the Course --Where are you now? What’s working? What’s not working? What enhancements, if any, have been made recently? How much variation is there currently across sections? What’s the prevailing pedagogy (lecture?), if any? It might help to use the notes you jotted down on your GDI handout, and this information can be anecdotal/qualitative. Where We Are Now Overall, the current pass rate for ENC 1101 Writing and Rhetoric I is 85.7%. We identified the following items as contributors to this high pass value:

Based on our reading of SACS assessment data, we revised the first year sequence to focus on rhetoric in 1101 while moving more challenging research into ENC 1102;

Recent hiring (including 7 new hires starting Fall 2015) has allowed us to staff courses with more full-time faculty;

Additional training made possible by Title V grant has better prepared faculty for working with second language learners;

The use of technology (Moodle resource shell, Blackboard course templates, increasing numbers of QM certified courses) allows us to provide new faculty and TAs with plenty of resources upon which to build their teaching.

What’s Working?

The vast majority (90%) of students who completed the final assignment in 1102 achieve the outcomes of the FYC sequence, as measured by our SACS assessment;

The faculty mentoring program provides new adjuncts with one semester of mentoring when they begin teaching at FIU;

The TA training program provides teaching assistants (including Interdisciplinary TAs) with training in writing pedagogy along with a practicum and one-two semesters of work with experienced full-time faculty members in hybrid sections of FYC. When they begin teaching their own classes, TAs get two semesters of mentoring;

Although their assignments are generally limited to teaching and service work, many full-time faculty regularly attend conferences and maintain awareness of current pedagogical developments in the field. Some have even published in field journals in recent years.

What’s Not Working? Research has shown that engagement with faculty, peers, and curriculum are three crucially important factors for student retention, particularly for historically underrepresented students. However, constraints imposed by our context make it challenging to incorporate these best practices.

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Even with recent and planned hires, the writing program still relies heavily on adjunct faculty. Despite the fact that many are extremely dedicated teachers, their teaching schedules at multiple universities prevent them from being able to offer the kind of content time that struggling students need. Furthermore, the seven new full-time hires were partially offset by the departure of three other full-time faculty;

Our course caps are the highest in the State University System and among the highest in the country. High caps prevent faculty and students from engaging in student-centered learning, decrease the amount of writing we can require on a weekly/semester-long basis, and also prevent faculty and students from engaging in meaningful writing-centered class discussions;

Lack of Time. The high caps also impede adjunct faculty’s capacity to attend conferences and participate in ongoing professional development opportunities in areas such as Wise Feedback, project-based learning, and community-oriented learning (all key areas of focus discussed in the Goals section). Many faculty have insufficient time left over from teaching to attend professional development workshops. Even with access to Title V stipends, for example, adjunct faculty were often unable to participate. These institutional obstacles make it very hard for adjunct faculty to stay current with pedagogical trends in the field, which contributes to a two-tiered system (part-time vs. full-time) of access to professional development;

Lack of Space. The writing program doesn’t have a central location, which inhibits the development of a culture of writing and positive morale for students. Each semester, the program struggles to find space for classrooms (technology-equipped or not), for meetings and special events, and for faculty offices.

What enhancements, if any, have been made recently?

Curriculum revision of First Year Composition assignment sequence to provide students with a rhetorical foundation in ENC 1101 before they move into research and text analysis in ENC 1102;

Title V-funded initiatives designed to improve writing instruction for multilingual students by providing:

o Multilingual teaching consultants to train faculty in best practices; o Online training modules to reinforce training and allow later hires to benefit

from training; o Revisions to first-year writing curriculum to better address the needs of English-

as-a-second-language (ESL) and resident ESL student writers;

Recent hiring of seven new full-time faculty will help, but these new hires don’t start until Fall 2015;

One of the new faculty hires will coordinate the Digital Writing Studio, which will aid our goal of incorporating multimodal assignments into the core curriculum of the first-year writing sequence.

How much variation is there currently across sections?

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The writing program employs a standard text and assignment sequence, and it provides a rich collection of teaching resources via a faculty development course in Moodle. Faculty are encouraged to modify the resources and the assignment sequence based on their teachings styles and interest, but the assumption is that all students in FYC are learning the same things. What’s the prevailing pedagogy? The student-centered classroom is the goal, and most faculty run their classes using some form of active learning. Students frequently collaborate through peer workshopping. Based on our review of national trends in first year composition and contemporary literacy demands associated with an increasingly digital society and economy, we want to incorporate more multimodal approaches into the core curriculum. Considering the obstacles delineated above, however, actualizing this goal will require providing both greater time AND financial incentives for professional development (stipends, course releases, lower caps), particularly for faculty overburdened by large caps and total number of sections taught per semester. Baseline Data: This section should also include baseline data that supports the statements about the current state of the class. SACS or other assessment data could be useful here, plus any instruments you may administer (like knowledge surveys, etc.).

Program Scope and Challenges Core ENC courses serve 8,000 students a year; over half are multilingual students (generation 1.5 or resident ESL). Our courses are ideal ones to “teach for retention,” helping students connect to their instructor and to the FIU community. But, while we are innovative and dedicated, we lag behind SUS and other benchmark programs in two important factors, both of which are tied to student retention and success: class size and numbers of full-time vs. adjunct faculty.

Class Size At FIU, the FYC Class size is among the highest in the nation: sections of 1101 are capped at 27, with 1102 capped even higher at 30. According to national surveys, the average class size is 21. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) recommends 15-20 for courses with multilingual writers.

Impact of class size on faculty workload Instructors teach 120 students a semester, in contrast to colleagues at benchmark universities whose load is closer to 80. If an ENC 1102 instructor with 30 students assigns four essays and responds to each final essay and early draft, she will have to read and comment on 240 essays a class. Full-time instructors teaching a 4/4 load would have to read 960 essays a semester.

Number of FT Faculty Despite recent hires, the majority of first year students are still being taught by adjunct faculty. During the Fall 2014 semester, 56% (99 sections) of FYC were taught by adjuncts

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while 32% (57 sections) were taught by FT. In terms of fulltime staffing, the Writing and Rhetoric Program lags behind its SUS counterparts. In Fall 2014, we had 17 NTT FT faculty and 5 Tenured/TT faculty. UCF employs 50 Full-time FT NTT writing program faculty and only 6 adjuncts. FAU, while considerably smaller than FIU, employs 8 more FT faculty than FIU.

Impact of faculty breakdown on the reach of initiatives Because adjunct faculty are stretched so thin, often teaching up to 8 courses per

semester on three different campuses, they are often unable to take advantage of

training and workshops that would help their teaching, even for workshops that provide

incentives for attendance. For example, during this past spring’s Title V training, 95% of

fulltime faculty who were teaching FYC attended training, while only 27% of qualifying

adjuncts attended.

II. Goals Where do you want the class to be? What do you want the course to accomplish? How much progress do you want to make on key metrics (like measurements of student learning and DFWI rates)?

Build on our good pass/fail numbers by continuing to reduce the DFWI rate;

Establish the first year composition classroom as a place that introduces students to the opportunities available to them as writers at the university--and beyond--and that defines the university as a place where they want to be;

Make the course as engaging as possible for all students, using strategies such as project-based learning, community writing, and digital writing and literacies;

Build on strengths of the current curriculum by incorporating a “wise feedback”4 model that reaches all students where they are, sets high standards for everyone, and mentors students so that they feel they can meet those standards;

Provide students with greater access to faculty by continuing to hire full-time faculty, which would bring our staffing into sync with national standards;

Reduce caps so that they are more in line with national standards (20-22 per class). III. Strategies and Ideas for Evaluation --How will you make progress toward your goals? What key strategies will you use? (Perhaps a total course redesign? Adjusting the learning goals? Grading practices? Develop new exams/assessments? Ongoing professional development? Adjusted pedagogy? New assignments? Etc…)

To improve pedagogical training of adjunct and full-time faculty, build a MA degree in writing studies by Fall 2017; currently no such MA program exists in Miami-Dade County, and the only program in South Florida (at Nova Southeastern) does not emphasize writing pedagogy or composition and rhetoric;

4 Providing feedback in a way that emphasizes high standards while expressing a belief that students are capable of meeting those standards. Cohen, Steele, Ross.

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Provide incentives (stipends and course releases) for faculty to participate in teaching circles, reading groups, workshops;

In keeping with best practices on student retention and engagement, add multimodal, project-based, and/or community-oriented assignments to FYC curriculum;

Conduct workshops designed to assist faculty in working with students whose performance in the class has triggered an Early Alert;

Enhance our program’s Digital Writing Studio; add interns or tutors to provide faculty support for building multimodal assignments and student support for completing these assignments;

Conduct funded studies on stereotype threat and the impact of class size on retention;

Increase student engagement with 21st-century literacies that are most relevant to their lives and future careers:

o Critical Consumption of Information o Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning o Digital Divides and Digital Participation o Global Consciousness o Network Awareness o Design o Ethics

Increase student opportunities for investigating, analyzing, and intervening in issues relating to the campus community;

Hold annual retreats like the two-day workshop just concluded to provide faculty with opportunities for renewal and reengagement in teaching;

Enhance partnerships with local schools (really needs grad program);

Improve DFWI rates. Evaluation Plans How will you track progress? Here, it would be helpful to heed NCAT’s advice and collect data that speaks to various stakeholders. In other words, what data would students find compelling? What would administrators be pleased to hear? What would mean success to you, the faculty?

For students: Students want to see that these courses will aid them in their collegiate and career paths, so showing how writing is used for so many purposes will speak to them. Increasing course retention will also speak to students;

For administrators: data on DFWI rates, and other metrics important for the ratings in performance-based funding;

For faculty: Continuing to build on program strengths and creating further opportunities for pedagogical exchanges will help sustain positive morale.

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UT3 Plans: SLS 1501

I. The Current State of the Course FIU’s First-Year Experience course: SLS 1501 was included on the list of critical courses primarily because of its high enrollment. In 2012-13, 4,213 students took the course. Of these, only 8% failed (n=148), but the Office of Retention and Graduation Success found that 47% of those who dropped this course withdrew from the University altogether. This may not mean causation, but this strong correlation together with the high enrollment suggest that the course is worthy of attention. Since FYE reaches so many students, varied units and departments have tried to use the class—and in particular, its textbook—as a vehicle through which to reach a large student population. As a result, during its existence, the FIU-specific course text has grown to include far more topics than can be addressed in a 1-semester course. As in many introductory courses, there is so much material to “cover” that insufficient time is left for students to spend time on the areas most crucial to their college success. One considerable challenge is that a total of 101 different instructors teach the course, as most individuals teach only 1 section, and some only teach during one semester per year. In Spring 2014, FIU offered 19 sections, taught by 19 instructors; in Summer B 2014, we offered 63 sections, taught by 59 instructors; and in Fall 2014, we offered 128 sections taught by 89 instructors. A related challenge is that many of those who currently teach the class have no prior teaching experience, and correspondingly, that those who oversee the course do not have expertise in faculty development. In addition, the course is closely wedded to FIU’s Common Reading Program. Since a new book is selected every year, instructors (even veteran instructors) must also read a new book and integrate it into the assessment and pedagogy of this 1-credit class. This added variable is not only a pedagogical complication; it also makes it more difficult to assess the effectiveness of the course. With respect to the effectiveness of the teaching, student ratings of their instructors are currently being compiled and examined. It is difficult to know what the prevailing pedagogy is, and there is a sense that this varies by section. A combination of lecture, discussion, and group work is likely, and the student feedback may offer more detail. Strengths Despite the logical challenges implicit in teaching any class required of all incoming students—and the number of sections this requires—the University has established excellent systems for not only coordinating the course; but also requiring and providing ongoing development to all

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instructors. Other strengths include the small class size (which is essential to the course goals) and the fact that many dedicated staff members teach the course, exposing students to varied areas of FIU administration and providing their expertise on such topics as career planning. The course text and accompanying materials also include many interactive assignments and in-class activities that have stood the test of time. We’re not starting from scratch. Opportunities In addition to being included in the list of the 17 critical courses, FIU’s First-Year Experience course was also featured in FIU’s strategic planning process. The Student Success Committee established a First-Year Experience subcommittee to imagine ways to improve this course, so that it might better attain its intended goals. The committee’s recommended strategies are included below. II. Goals The overall purpose of the class is to help FIU students transition effectively academia and FIU, such that they feel they belong here and have the key academic and non-academic competencies with which to graduate in a timely manner. Therefore, the primary goal at hand is to determine the extent to which the course is currently fulfilling its purpose, and to redesign the course so that it can maximize its effectiveness. More specific goals are currently being articulated by a FYE Redesign Steering Committee, and these will be informed by both research on first-year experience courses, and FIU-specific research on our first-year students and the barriers to their success. Just last month (2015, May 21), FIU’s Office of Retention & Graduation Success released the findings of a study on our first-year students: “Freshmen Face Unexpected Challenges: Findings from FIU Focus Groups.” This study found that

Freshmen had very high academic goals and aspirations, but did not have a clear understanding of what it would take to achieve these goals. Many were unsure of their majors. By the middle of their first semester, students were finding that classes were more difficult and required much more work than they had expected; however, their confidence in their ability to do well remained intact, perhaps unrealistically. The freshmen found university systems confusing and did not feel that they had someone to help guide them through the systems. Many students felt isolated and expressed a strong desire to connect with students who shared their interests, but found groups on campus to have overly burdensome membership

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requirements. Many did not have friends on campus and did not talk to other students in their classes.

Recommendations include focusing on students’ needs for more and better communication, and increased social support—all of which will inform the redesign of this course. III. Strategies

First, a Steering Committee was formed, and this group has already met for 15+ hours to work on a complete course redesign using L. D. Fink’s framework for developing courses for significant learning.

This committee also formed subcommittees which are focusing on such areas as the use of peer mentors in the class, evaluation of the course and individual student attainment of course goals, a faculty advisory committee, and instructor development/training.

Other core strategies include offering sections of the course with a disciplinary focus, and expanding the use of peer mentors in the course, so that students have someone with which they can identify.

The recommendations of FIU’s ByonbdPossible2020 strategic plan are as follows: “Revamp First-Year Experience into an FIU Experience course aimed not only at incoming freshmen but also first-time transfer students to build affinity for FIU, facilitate personal development, and teach and reinforce the skills needed for success at FIU.

• Redesign SLS 1501 to standardize class styles and experiences. This includes curriculum redesign, with built-in classroom and out-of-classroom experiences with both the faculty member and peer mentor, and online modules and activities. • Group students into sections based upon common majors and/or broad-based areas of interest. • Focus on metacognitive and learning awareness skills. • Incentivize faculty to teach discipline-specific cohorts of 20-25 students of similar majors to build relationships with peers and peer mentors. • Train peer mentors in a way similar to learning instructors. • Incorporate athletic and cultural events into mandatory out-of-classroom experiences.

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The Steering Committee is examining the merits and feasibility of each of these, and will infuse them into the redesign plans. Robust evaluations of the overall course, instruction, and student attainment of course goals will be developed. As a starting point, the evaluation subcommittee has determined that the evaluation plans will respond to the following questions, together with a list of possible mechanisms/instruments: - What? o Changes in attitudes/behaviors o Knowledge of services o Ability to achieve course objectives - How?

o Direct Measures Embedded assignments Aligned with the course objectives Formative and summative Use rubrics ETS proficiency profile CLA (Collegiate learning assessment) Pre-/post-test (knowledge) - Indirect Measures

o NSSE (administered every 2 years, next administration Spring 2016)

o CIRP (administered every two years, next administration Summer 2016) o YFCY (not currently administered) o Customized student satisfaction survey o Interviews/focus groups

o Pre-/post-test (for attitudes/behaviors) - Where? o FYE Course - When?

o Beginning of course

o During course o End of course (either semester/year)

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Academic Improvement Plan: REL 2011 & 3308

Department of Religious Studies May 2015 Introduction The Department of Religious Studies has two courses that fall within the critical indicators of success category: REL 2011 Introduction to Religion and REL 3308 Studies in World Religions. In a normal year, we will have about twenty professors, instructors and adjuncts involved in teaching these two courses. The large majority of the sections are taught by adjuncts, however, and most of our adjuncts sections of teach both courses in a given year. The total number of students enrolled in REL 2011 last year (including summer) was 1675 and the total number of students in REL 3308 was 1550. Current State of the Courses REL 2011 REL 2011 is a Gordon-Rule course and hence writing intensive. We keep caps at 35 and any sections over that are supplied with either TAs or graders to help handle the workload. Assigning TAs has been good for the faculty members because part of the strategy is for them to teach the TAs how to teach and that causes faculty to be more reflective and thoughtful of what they are doing. The same is true for the sections with graders since the faculty members know that someone else is seeing what goes on. REL 2011 is intended to be an introduction to methods of studying religion. We usually cover historical, sociological, and anthropological methods. We also introduce the students to the concepts of sacred writings, myths, rituals, etc. Beyond this, our department gives faculty members flexibility in designing the structure and contents of their sections. They may also choose the textbook or books that they would like to use. For about 10 years now, the department has offered sections of REL 2011 online. The course was designed to use the special knowledge of our full-time faculty members, with each expert contributing a unit relevant to his or her area of expertise. The online sections are thus very homogenous. The material is updated periodically, however. Since fall 2010, REL 2011 has been a Global Learning Course. As a consequence, we had to create specific Student Learning Outcomes for the course that match the general SLOs established for Global Learning Courses. At that time, we outlined for the professors teaching the courses example of specific assignments that would meet each SLO. Since the Global Learning assessment takes place yearly, faculty members stay very aware of the requirements. Although faculty members have freedom to create their own assignments to assess each SLO, it has been interesting to note that most of the

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faculty stick with the examples that were provided long ago. One unintentional result of this has been to introduce a greater degree of homogeneity to the course across the sections. Four years ago, the department instituted twice-yearly meetings were for adjuncts (full time faculty members go to monthly meetings). The goal of the adjunct meetings was make them feel more connected to the department by informing them of the latest developments and allowing them to discuss common interests and concerns. From time to time, these meetings touched on teaching strategies, sometimes by having guest speakers and sometimes by sharing ideas. REL 3308 REL 3308 is part of the core curriculum at FIU and meets the Societies and Identities requirement. Since fall 2010 this course has also met the Global Learning requirement. We keep caps at 50, but have some larger sections that, like REL 2011, have TA or grader support. When most people think about religions, they think in terms of distinct traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam. This is the approach taken in REL 3308, and it makes the course very user-friendly and accessible. While the expectation of the department is that the course will cover the “major” religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we also leave room for choice on the part of the faculty members to include other “smaller” traditions. For example, some choose to explore African or Native American religions. Many add a unit on Jainism. And some deal with new religious movements. Faculty members are free to choose a textbook that fits with their plan for the course. As with REL 2011, we also have online sections of REL 3308 that follow a format designed collectively by the full-time faculty members. But from time to time we have had faculty members who wanted to design their own online version of the course, and the department has always allowed them to do so. Since REL 3308 is a Global Learning course, the same yearly assessment model has been used to the required SLOs. In a similar fashion, this process has produced more uniformity in course design as far as student activities. For example, we often use site visit exercise where students are asked to attend a worship service from a religion different from their own and then are to observe what happens. We encourage them speak with worshipers, look at what people are wearing, and notice how they behave. We ask them to correlate their observations with what they have learned in class and then discuss whether any changes are made due to the fact that the service is being held in the United States rather than the religion’s country of origin. Goals

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The department would like to achieve the following goals in the following year: A. Data. We have some data for our two courses that are part of the UT3 initiative. In fall 2014, the average failure rate for REL 2011 was 22.4%. But there were some sections that had failure rates in the range of 42-57%. Similarly for REL 3308, the average failure rate was 20.3%, with the highest sections have 25-33%. The variation is much smaller in REL 3308 than in REL 2011. We would like to continue tracking this data to see whether consistent trends are noticeable. We would also like additional data, if possible, correlating DWFI rates with retention rates. B. Awareness. Starting in the fall, we will make all faculty members teaching REL 2011 and 3308 aware of the passing and failing rates. Those with consistently high failure rates will be challenged individually. But hopefully by becoming aware of the numbers, we will begin to reduce the failure rates through collective action as well. C. Involvement. We want to engage faculty members in the process of course transformation. Faculty buy-in is very important to meaningful and lasting change. We will begin a collegial process to outline common goals (including reducing failure rates and improving retention rates), identify effective teaching strategies, and decide what common elements we would like to see across all course sections. D. Continuous Improvement. We will set up a regular process for reviewing the data and making changes to course design. Training sessions will be provided to faculty members collectively in the department and by encouraging them to attend workshops hosted by CAT. E. Active Learning. Faculty members will be encouraged to implement active learning techniques into their classes. Opportunity will be given to share success stories as well as challenges. Strategies A. Implement pre- and post-course student assessments to measure student success. Hopefully we will see a correlation between active learning techniques and student success. B. Hold meetings with faculty members that allow them a say in course design. C. A sub-committee of those faculty members who attended the spring 2015 Gateway Course Institute will review the SLOs for each course to ensure that they are clear and coherent. The committee will also come up with detailed active learning exercise that put into practice active learning techniques.

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D. Establish accountability by connecting student success in adjunct evaluations by the department chair. Action Plan 1. June 2015. Design a pre-test and post-test for professors to give out to students. Test-run during summer B. Main run at beginning of fall. 2. August 2015. Circulate data and improvement plan to faculty. 3. September 2015. Hold training meetings for instructors. Erin Weston, Ivanessa Arostegui, Daniel Alvarez, and Erik Larson will explain the principles of active learning based on what we learned at the spring 2015 Gateway Course Institute. We will provide examples of activities for instructors to use. 3. September 2015. Instructors brainstorm to come up with their own activities. 4. December 2015. Hold meeting/celebration with instructors to de-brief and to hear about successes and challenges. 5. January 2016. Hold discussions about future course development and monitoring. One option is that we aim for unity across sections. Another option is that each adjunct instructor comes up with his or her own improvement plan that is updated every other year and reviewed with the chair as part of the regular evaluation process.

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Redesigning Introduction to Psychology (PSY 2012)

PSY 2012 (Introduction to Psychology) is a gateway course taken by approximately 2,500-3,000

students each year, mostly freshmen. Current passing rates in PSY 2012 are around 85%, so the

decision to redesign this course was not driven by high failure rates. Instead, it came from

realization that the course could, and should, be taught better. There are also data showing that

students who fail PSY 2012 are more likely to drop out of a university after their first year,

which is another reason we are planning to redesign the course.

We are planning to increase engagement of students with the material and each other, mainly by

spending most class time on structured group work. Creating a culture of small groups will not

only help students engage with the material and learn better but will also facilitate formation of

social connections, which is a crucial element for freshmen students and is expected to lower the

number of students who drop out after the first year.

Current State of the Course

There are several sections of the course taught each Fall, Spring, and at least one of the summer

semesters. There is currently only one full-time faculty member who teaches this course

consistently every Fall and Spring. There are several adjunct faculty (and one Associate

Professor) who have taught the course multiple times.

Course content is fairly standardized, with all instructors expected to cover the same mandatory

topics. The order of topic coverage is not restricted and instructors are free to use whatever

methods of content delivery they prefer. The course is currently taught mostly in “interactive

lecture” format that includes PowerPoint slides interspersed with class discussion and videos.

Some instructors use classroom response system (i>clickers) some semesters but it is not

standard practice across sections.

Both grading scheme (proportional weight of all course requirements) and grading scale (final

grade percentage corresponding to each letter grade) are the same in all sections. The textbook

and publisher-provided online assignments are the same in all sections as well.

Students are required to complete online assignments that assess their understanding of textbook

material. These assignments are supposed to be due before each chapter is covered in class, to

ensure student preparation for class discussion.

There haven’t been any major changes to the course recently.

Current passing rates in PSY 2012 are around 85% and frequently 50% or more of students each

semester get As.

Current Problems

1. Students are, for the most part, unprepared for class discussion, even after completing

online assignments that are supposed to promote reading of the textbook. Many students

lack effective study skills, understanding of how memory works, and basic skills of

effective reading. Additionally, many of them are unprepared for independent work in a

university setting (they may feel confused, overwhelmed, isolated).

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2. Some instructors do not make online assignments due before chapter coverage starts in

class. They believe that students need exposure to class lecture in order to complete those

assignments. This practice totally defeats the purpose of these assignments, which is to

promote students’ reading of the textbook and better preparation for class discussions.

This practice also creates discrepancies between sections in terms of student expectations

and academic rigor of the course.

3. Given the vast amount of material, many instructors acknowledge that they struggle to

cover it all in class.

4. Class discipline is horrendous across sections. There is talking, texting, and inappropriate

laptop use, as well as students coming in late and leaving early.

5. Attendance is also dismal in many sections that do not use i>clickers to keep track of

student participation. (In some sections, only about 20% of enrolled students come to

class on a regular basis after the first few weeks of the semester.)

6. Both discipline and attendance are related to a third, probably most important, factor:

lack of student engagement.

Our proposed course redesign is expected to address most of these challenges.

Goals of Course Redesign

1. Increase consistency of content delivery, pedagogy, and assessment across sections. Have

a group of full-time faculty who consistently teach the course every semester.

2. Deliver most course content outside of class, online, using a variety of methods.

3. Use class time for Active Learning activities, completed in groups and facilitated by

instructors and Learning Assistants (LAs).

4. Create a uniform cumulative assessment to be administered at the end of the semester in

all sections.

Strategies

The plan is to make the course more consistent across sections, with the same content and

assessments. We believe that having a “core” of several full-time faculty teaching the course

regularly will help keep course pedagogy and administration consistent. There are ten mandatory

chapters that need to be covered and the plan is to have all instructors cover them in the same

order, possibly adding some extra content as desired and as time permits. All instructors will be

required to adhere to the established standards of content delivery, homework assignment, and

in-class activities.

Because content coverage, assignments, and assessments will be more standardized and

consistent, all students taking the course will have the same expectations and opportunity to

achieve the same outcomes. We believe such uniformity will improve the quality of the course

and will thus be beneficial to students, the department, and the university.

We are considering making PSY 2012 a hybrid course, with most of the content delivery and

some portion of student work done outside of class time. We have some of that now, with online

homework using publisher-provided assignments, but to make the course truly hybrid we plan to

assign more varied homework and to require students to meet outside of class for group work

and/or material review. (We hope to be able to hire Learning Assistants who will lead or

facilitate these out-of-class meetings.)

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To make class time more meaningful, we plan to assign individual and/or group written work in

class. Students will be assigned to groups and will be expected to write freely and/or answer

questions and complete worksheets that illustrate some aspect of course material. During class

time, Learning Assistants and instructors will facilitate group work by observing group

discussions, asking questions to stimulate idea exchange, and offering meaningful feedback. We

expect that this format will drastically improve student engagement with the material and student

mastery of course content.

Because class time will be spent on more active engagement with the material, we want to ensure

that students have been adequately exposed to chapter content before class. To that end,

publisher-provided assignments will continue being assigned as homework. Additionally, we

will provide chapter content to students via audio- and/or video-recorded lectures, PowerPoint

slides with recorded voice-over, and/or other methods such as Respondus StudyMate generated

activities (crossword, fill-in-the-blank, flashcards, etc.) and personality self-assessments. Some

videos, activities, worksheets, and/or questions may be assigned as homework, so that students

are better prepared for in-class discussion.

Moving the majority of content coverage to outside of class will free up class time for engaging,

hands-on group work that will promote mastery of the material, as well as general critical

thinking skills and social interaction skills. If in-class work is given sufficient weight in terms of

grading, students will be motivated to attend class. Because graded in-class work will require

sufficient knowledge of content material, students will be more likely to complete the reading

and homework. If students are engaged, it is expected that discipline will improve, as students

will be kept busy during the majority of class time. Being part of a permanent group will provide

students with social resources and is expected to ease social isolation.

Assessments

Currently, no good assessment exists to measure student learning in the course. There is a short,

end-of-semester cumulative test that is administered in some sections, as required for course

accreditation. However, it is not a good representation of course objectives. There are also four

unit exams that are different in all sections and reflect the specific content covered by a particular

instructor. Given that PSY 2012 is a “gateway” and a high-enrollment course, we believe that

uniform, high-quality assessment across all sections is needed.

We plan to administer a standardized end-of-semester assessment in all sections. This will be a

cumulative exam assessing mastery of course content. Because mandatory course content is

planned to be identical across sections, the same cumulative assessment can be administered in

all sections. Our team of PSY 2012 instructors will carefully construct this end-of-term

assessment and will continuously modify it as necessary, based on student performance results

from each semester. We are hoping to develop the first draft of this assessment this summer and

pilot-test it in PSY 2012 sections taught in Summer B 2015.

As end-of-semester assessment is modified and fine-tuned over several semesters, we expect that

student scores on it will improve, which will be an indication of course redesign success to all

stakeholders: students, instructors, and administrators.

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In addition to end-of-semester assessment, there will be other assessments throughout the

semester. There will be unit exams, each covering 1-3 chapters. Students’ group and/or

individual written work will be graded consistently. Students will be receiving lots of formative

feedback when their group work will be graded, which is expected to promote more effective

long-term learning.

We plan to administer a “mid-semester check” – a brief, anonymous questionnaire for students

about their perceptions of the course. This quick check will allow instructors to get a sense of

how the class is going and to possibly correct issues that many students may find problematic.

We expect (and hope) that over time, students will embrace the new format of the course and

will indicate their satisfaction in end-of-semester evaluations of the course and instructors. This

will be a good indicator to the department and university that course redesign is achieving its

proposed goals.

It is also our hope that assigning students to groups will give them opportunities to connect with

their peers and expand their social networks. This should help students feel less overwhelmed

and isolated and is expected, in turn, to reduce the number of students who drop out after their

first year and to increase graduation rates.

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Report on History Department UT3 Project Introduction When the History Department was notified that WOH 2001 had been identified as one of the 17 critical courses for the University Transformation through Teaching Project we were already engaged in a project to transform all of our Core Curriculum Gordon Rule courses, have them recertified as Gordon Rule for the New Core, and revise our SACS assessment process to align it more closely with our course objectives in these courses. We believed that WOH 2001 shared characteristics and student success statistics with our other Gordon Rule courses and, with the approval of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT), decided to include all of them in our UT3 project. Current State of History Gordon Rule Courses History currently teaches 7 Gordon Rule History courses: AMH 2041 AMH 2042 EUH 2011 EUH 2021 EUH 2030 LAH 2020 WHO 2001 (AMH 2042 was not included in the project as it is replaced in the new core by AMH 2020 which was included.) CAT provided us with data indicating the rate of Drops, Failures, Withdrawals, and Incompletes in WOH 2001 (see attachment.) In addition we gathered more discrete data to help us understand what might lead to better student retention and student success. This data is included in attachments named Fall 2014 History Courses and SACS Data. In brief, we found the following:

Average rate of passing in History Gordon Rule courses is 80%

DFWI rate is 20%

First year students (freshmen) rate of passing is 63%

Only 5% of students in History Gordon Rule are first year students making impact on

second year retention minimal

There was a significant difference in student success between those taking courses fully

on-line (58%,) in hybrid format (78%,) and in traditional face-to-face classes (87%.)

SACS data indicates that of our 3 assessment areas (critical thinking, written

communication, content knowledge) critical thinking is where students have the most

difficulty

These courses are all writing intensive and successful completion of writing assignments is the largest component of a student’s grade. Writing is an important component in many courses

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beyond History’s Gordon Rule courses. It may well be, then, that a student’s success or failure in mastering the writing skills required in our courses will affect success or failure in subsequent courses taken at FIU. We have no data on this, but we speculate it is true and it motivates us to take writing instruction very seriously. The extent to which writing as a process is actually addressed within different sections of History’s Gordon Rule courses varies. It needs to be addressed in all of them. Goals In general our goal is to improve the writing skills of our students with particular attention to the critical thinking required to develop thesis driven, argumentative essays.

Raise average pass rate from 80% to 85% within 3 years

Raise SACS assessment of critical thinking from 70% to 80% within 3 years

Improve rate of passing for first year students from 63% to 70% within 3 years

Make sure that each semester we provide information to everyone teaching Gordon

Rule courses that includes

Strategies We have revised all of our Gordon Rule courses using a grant from Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) that enabled us to provide small stipends for 5 faculty members. This project was led by Tovah Bender and Joyce Peterson and included participation from 1 associate professor, 2 instructors and 2 adjuncts (we thought it important to include adjunct instructors in this process since they teach many of the Gordon rule sections.) All of those involved in the revision of courses also participated in the following:

attended a workshop led by Bender and Peterson to explain the project and discussed a

syllabus template for all Gordon Rule courses

attended a workshop led by WAC on goals of Gordon Rule

attended a one day workshop led jointly by WAC and CAT to which the entire History

Department was also invited. This workshop included strategies for teaching writing and

critical thinking as well as strategies for improving student retention and student

success

attended a wrap-up discussion of how to apply what had been learned to the syllabi

they were creating

prepared a sample syllabus for a particular course using the WAC Gordon Rule check list

prepared sample writing assignments for their course

prepared all materials necessary for submission to the curriculum approval process as

Gordon Rule courses

In addition Peterson and Bender devised a syllabus template suitable for any Gordon Rule course regardless of content which includes the following:

goals and objectives that synchronize with our SACS goals

all the items included in the WAC checklist for Gordon Rule courses

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need for writing assignments to be on separate sheets and clearly articulated

expectation that syllabus will include class time spent on writing instruction

inclusion of all items on the Provost’s list of what a syllabus should include

Our plan going forward is:

Each semester remind all those teaching Gordon Rule courses to follow the syllabus

template in preparing their individual syllabi. Make sure that this includes adjuncts and

graduate students.

Stress the importance of clear writing assignments and grading criteria.

Create an informal teaching discussion group within the department.

Remind faculty to check class rolls and make sure that any first year students have

already successfully completed ENC1101 and1102. If not they should not be in the

course.

Encourage faculty to pay attention to any first year students in the course and make

sure they are keeping up with the work.

Enlist the assistance of the early alert system for students who are not submitting

written work in a timely fashion.

Utilize a new SACS checklist (already created) that measures success in the same goals

that are articulated in every Gordon Rule syllabus.

Resources to aid in Student Retention and Success Individual tutoring to help students improve their writing has proved very successful. As a result we recommend the following:

Restore funding for Writing Fellows.

Add funding for on-line Writing Fellows. This might help reduce the difference in success

between students taking courses online and in class.

Provide funding for undergraduate mentors to assist in large classes.

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APPENDIX C

UT3 WORKSHOP AGENDAS AND READING LISTS

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Workshop Agendas

Lower-Division Math Institute

March 9 – 11, 2015 Monday 10 - 10:30am Brief Intros & Why We’re Here (overview & goals, maybe let them know

that on Wednesday they’ll share with the group their course-specific plans for next steps--Leanne & Leslie)

10:30 – noon How & Why Should We Work on Student Retention? Why the First Year is

So Important, plus Keys to First-Year Student Success (maybe followed by brainstorming on the kinds of practices they might use in light of this retention research—Does the Krantz chapter on social problems of teaching still fit here?, plus Zucker response)

Noon - 1:00 Working Lunch: Building on our Successes (taking stock, first as a whole,

then by course?) 1:00 – 3:00 The Learning Design Makes the Most Difference (C. Nelson) 3:00 - 4:00 Group work on the plan? (It would be better if this were woven into the

Learning Design section vs. stand-alone) Tuesday 10 - What does it mean to learn? What is conceptual understanding, and why

is it a worthwhile goal? (discussion of Mason article—maybe C. Nelson??) Noon-ish? Working Lunch: Developing exercises for class, including ones that

promote and evaluate conceptual understanding Vertical alignment (might be useful to use the large post-its to visually see connections among the courses) Possible something about the effective use of technology sometime on Tuesday?

Wednesday 10 – 11 Pedagogy discussion using Trigueros & Jacobs piece?? 11 – 12:30 Work in Groups on Plans for Each Course 12:30- 1:30 Gateway Faculty Lunch Celebration 1:30 – 3:30 Presentation & Feedback 3:30 – 4:00 Some kind of wrap-up

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Gateway Design Institute

March 11 - 13, 2015

Wednesday 10 - 10:30am Brief Intros & Why We’re Here (overview & goals, let them know that on

Friday they’ll share with the group their course-specific plans for next steps—Isis & Leslie)

10:30 – 11:30 How & Why Should We Work on Student Retention? Why the First Year is So Important, plus Keys to First-Year Student Success

11:30 - 12:30 Building on our Successes (taking stock, by course) 12:30- 1:30 Gateway Faculty Lunch Celebration 1:30 – 4:00 The Learning Design Makes the Most Difference (C. Nelson)

(brief 2:45 break for coffee/snacks) Thursday 10 – 11:30 Learning & Helping Students Become Better Learners—discussion of

readings 11:30 -12:30 More taking stock/baseline data: Reviewing of G2C recommendations

and findings, plus other data 12:30 -1:30 Working lunch: Discussion of NCAT’s Essential Elements of Course

Redesign Element #1: Redesign the whole course and establish greater course consistency. Element #2: Require active learning. Element #3: Increase interaction among students. Element #4: Build in ongoing assessment and prompt (automated) feedback. Element #5: Provide students with 1-on-1, on-demand assistance from highly trained personnel. Element #6: Ensure sufficient time on task. Element #7: Monitor student progress and intervene when necessary. Element #8: Measure learning, completion, and cost.

1:30 – 2:30 Discussion of conceptual understanding 2:30 -4:00 Snack & coffee break, Continue course-specific planning Friday 10 – 11:00 Grading & evaluating (to counter dysfunctional illusions of rigor)- C.

Nelson?—using grading reading 11 – noon Course-specific Planning Noon – 1:00 Working lunch: Continue work on plans & presentations 1:00- 4:00 Presentations & feedback (2:30 snack and coffee break)

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FYE Steering Committee Breakfast

April 14, 2015

Goals & Plans

Upon successful completion of the session, participants will…

…recognize that this project is a unique and powerful opportunity to help students become successful

Welcome

…be able to describe what this group will be working on (i.e., FYE course redesign) and several reasons why we’re working on this now

---- Including, but not limited to: the course’s inclusion in the list of 17 critical courses because it's a high-enrollment and high-impact course, its inclusion in the strategic plan, a general sense that it needs revision, especially given that 1st to 2nd year persistence is a metric in performance-based funding

Why we’re here

I’ll start with UT3 since it bought us breakfast =) o FYE was identified by FIU’s Office of Retention as a “critical course”—that is,

ones for which student performance is strongly correlated with their retention. To improve our retention numbers FIU, applied for and received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Transformational Planning Grants Program, administered by APLU.

Student Success Subcommittee of our Strategic Plan

Performance-based funding in Florida

Why CAT is involved (redesign)

Why they were brought in—“dream team”—thank them again!

Any questions at this point???

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Share plans for the rest of the meeting: Introductions, talk a bit about the first-year seminars in general, next work on phase 1 of course design or redesign which is to examine some of the most important “situational factors” we have to take in to account, and finally, decide on some next steps. Sound ok?

…know who is around the table and start to grasp what each person brings to the project

Introductions, plus nature of relationship to first-year students and/or the course: Taught it before, work with first-year students, etc

…be able to describe why first-year seminars arose, what they hope to accomplish (broadly), and prevalent course types (using discussion of the assigned reading)

I sent you a chapter from Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student because I wanted to make sure everyone had a sense of why these types of courses arose and what they hope to accomplish, in broad terms—so I’d like for us to discuss this for a bit.

If someone who has never heard of them asked you, “What is a first-year seminar?” how would you respond?

Why were first-year seminars “invented”? Where did they come from?

In one sentence, what do they hope to accomplish?

…articulate the main situational factors to consider before redesigning the FYE course

Distribute pages from Fink guide—let them know that we’re asked to “stay true to the spirit” of what was included in the strategic plan—distribute copies of that too

…determine most useful next steps in the project

–and ask for volunteers to work on key areas

learning goals will need to be drafted, benchmarking with peer institutions, review of existing data: survey results, Tekla’s research, Musoba article…

To continue working on the project, we want to be able to offer you a stipend—but we can’t if we do this during regular work hours. That leaves us with two options: vacation time or weekend.

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Workshop on Gordon Rule History Courses and Student Success

Friday April 24 in GL154 10:00AM to 3:00 PM

Agenda

Morning Session 10:00 to12:00: Writing Across the Curriculum

Introduction to Gordon Rule Writing and the Course

Approval Process

Using Writing to Teach Course Content and Critical

Thinking

Assignment Design and Developing Clear Grading Criteria

Sequencing Assignments

Afternoon Session 12:00-3:00: Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Working Lunch-What is the UT3 Grant?

Student Retention and Discussion of Attached Readings

Current State of History Gordon Rule Courses

History’s Goals for Gordon Rule Courses

Strategies for Student Success in Gordon Rule Courses

Resources Needed to Help Students Succeed

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Gateway Course Institute for First-Year Composition: May 7-8

Thursday, May 7: Keys to Retention: Building Relationships Readings --Twenty-First Century Literacies: A Checklist. --“The Mentor’s Dilemma: Providing Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide.” Recommended --Keys to First-Year Student Persistence. --“There’s No Easy Fix for Graduation Rates.”

9:00-9:15 Why We Are Here Very brief into on why we are here (grant, numbers, correlations, etc).

9:15-10:00 Intro to Workshop and Format 3Rs: Self-determination theory, autonomy, purpose, mastery Appreciative Inquiry approach to workshop and teaching Storytelling: Tell how each of us is navigating the challenges before us. Introduce concept of storytelling and how it will be a big part of the two days. Paul: Promoting engagement, giving students reasons to want to slow down…. Mike: Making connections between college and post-college writing, writing as a marketable skill.

10:00-10:15 Disarm: Core Nickname Meet with your team and come up with a team name that embodies your collective strengths as instructors. Think metaphor or acronym. Appoint a scribe for the team. Share names with the full group

10:15 -11:00

Discovery of Priorities for Teaching 21st Century Literacies In Teams: Team members each present their list with justifications. Challenge to group: come to a consensus and justification for your group’s top five. Post to Moodle Discussion Forum. Team Sharing: Each team shares with the full group.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/education/there-s-no-simple-fix-for-low-graduation-rates-20150408

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry

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11:00 -11:45

Dream: Enhancing Our Vision of 21st Century Literacies Full Group Discussion: What resonates with you about these lists? What, if anything, is surprising about them? To what extent are students already engaging these literacies in 1101 and 1102?

11:45 – 12:30 Dream: Teaching 21st Century Literacies in FYC @ FIU 15 Minute Individual Freewrite (to prep for Dream Activity below): What’s the most interesting, engaging, and creative way you can think of to further engage students in these literacies, or at least in some of these literacies? Full Group Discussion of Freewrites: A scribe will take notes on the screen.

12:30 – 1:30 Working Lunch Design: Meet with your teams over lunch and try to turn one of the Dream ideas into an assignment or a sequence of assignments for 1101 or 1102.

1:30 – 2:00 Delivery: Teams Report Back on Their Designs A scribe will take notes onscreen.

2:00 – 2:30

Affirmative Inquiry Topic #1: Relationships Discuss the Mentor’s Dilemma as a Full Group: Guiding Questions. Discuss the Mentor’s Dilemma and the concept of wise feedback as a way to build a sense of trust between teachers and students, especially for the students who are most likely to drop out.

2:30 – 3:30 Discover: Wise Feedback and/or Mentorship Stories Individual Writing: Tell a story about feedback that relates to the concepts of wise feedback in some way. What does wise feedback mean to you? Can the same feedback be wise or unwise depending on the context? Full Group Storytelling: Selected people share the stories they wrote. Dream: Full Group Takeaway Principles What might it look like to have wise feedback and effective mentoring be the normal experience for all students in 1101/1102? Team Scribes: Take notes to post your group’s list of takeaway principles for Wise Feedback and Mentorship.

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3:30-3:45 Snack Break (Re-energize for the last part of the day!)

3:45 – 4:45 Don’t Settle! Individuals reflect and write about their biggest takeaways from the day. Based on group preference and time, participants will either share in teams and then report back to the larger group or just begin sharing with the larger group as a scribe takes notes.

Friday, May 8: Keys to Retention: Rigor and Relevance Readings --“Why is It So Hard for Students to Understand Abstract Ideas?” --College Writing and Beyond. Appendix A (focus on 177-185) --College Writing and Beyond: Five Years Later. --Involvement Chapter from Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action.

9:00-9:30 Disarm: Flow Introduce the concept of flow, using the excerpt from Paul’s “Flow Narrative” assignment. Ask people to share a few stories about when they have experienced flow in their lives (preferably not related to schoolwork or their jobs, because that will come later). Prompt: Write about a time when you experienced “Flow.” Try to relate this as a story. Full Group Discussion: Sharing of some Flow Narratives

9:30-10:15 Affirmative Inquiry Topic #2: Rigor

Discovery: Relationship Between Writing and Learning – Jen:

Topics Covered: 1. What learning is and how writing can accomplish learning. 2. How, in order for learning (and transfer) to happen, we need to think

about the zone of proximal development (mentioning “goldilocks zone” so we can refer back to that term later). Connect Goldilocks back to some of what was just discussed regarding "Flow."

3. How writing can be used to teach specific critical thinking skills, including metacognition.

Final thought: Metacognitive Teaching.

10:15-11:15

Dream and Group Share Team Discussion (25 min for Discussion and Writing Up Ideas):

http://compositionforum.com/issue/26/college-writing-beyond.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

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In light of the previous discussion and Beaufort’s two readings, work as a team to consider and write about how we might adopt the suggestions in Beaufort’s Coda to develop subject matter knowledge that is focused and contextualized:

1. Choose a theme. Consider themes that can allow a diverse number of tangents students might pursue and are developmentally appropriate. What are some workable themes for FYC classes?

2. Consider what discourse community or discourse communities the course will be exposing students to and how to teach the features of these discourse communities. What discourse communities would work best with our students?

3. Develop three or four “essential questions” to guide the intellectual exploration for the course and to eliminate the vast amount of subject matter that can’t be adequately addressed within the time constraints of the length of the course. What are your three or four essential questions?

Have a scribe take notes for posting later, and to refer to during full group discussion. Full Group Discussion (25 min): Sharing of plans. Post when you can. Wrapup (10 minutes)

11:15-12:00

Affirmative Inquiry Topic #3: Relevance Discussion of Tinto’s Involvement Chapter: Key Terms: Activities that are meaningful and validating. Pedagogies of engagement (ideally problem- or project-based), learning communities, service learning. If time, ask people from the Community Writing Committee to share experiences incorporating community engagement into their classes.

12:00-12:15

Introduce the Concept of FedEx Time

12:15-1:15 Lunch: FedEx Time Meet someone or some people outside your team and take some FedEx time… Think about everything we have talked about yesterday and today and come up with the most far-out idea you can that would make 1101/1102 students think of the university as a place where they want to stay. Prepare to share with the larger group after lunch.

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/05/28/the-best-resources-for-applying-fed-ex-days-to-schools/

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1:15-1:45 FedEx Reports Share people’s ideas with a scribe taking notes. Bask in our collective creativity.

1:45-2:45 Discover/Dream Individual writing: Write about an experience in which you either gave or were given an assignment (ideally a writing assignment, but it doesn’t have to be) that you immersed yourself in—i.e., for its own sake, beyond the prospect of getting a good grade—or that you feel students immersed themselves in. (Depending on time) Individuals with first share in teams or begin sharing directly with the whole group Dream: Building Pedagogies of Involvement/Engagement As a full group, let’s consider the question--to what extent are our students having these experiences in 1101/1102 already and how can we make them even more consistent? Have a scribe take notes onscreen

2:45-3:00 Snack Break 3:00-4:00

Design: In Teams: Working in your teams, think about an assignment or sequence of assignments for 1101 or 1102 that would increase students’ sense of engagement/involvement with the course, with their peers, and the institution. Post designs on discussion forum. Full Group Discussion: Teams report back

4:00 – 5:00 Don’t Settle! Individual Freewrites: These are some of the various concepts we have addressed over the last two days: --21st-century literacies --Wise Feedback and Mentoring --Flow --Goldilocks Zones, Deep Knowledge, and Metacognition --FedEx ideas --Engaged assignments In light of these ideas, consider and write for 15 minutes about these questions: --How might these concepts improve retention/student success?

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--What concrete actions can we take to further incorporate some of these concepts in 1101 and 1102? --What support can the writing program provide for facilitating such incorporations? --What kinds of opportunities for sharing teaching practices would you like to see in the future? Full Group Takeaways: Individuals share takeaways with the full group as a scribe takes notes

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Statistics Summer Workshop for UT3 Courses (STA 2122 & 3123)

Friday, May 15, 2015

AGENDA

10-11 Introductions, why we’re here, goals for the day

--Go around the table, so that everyone can introduce themselves, perhaps (to set a positive tone) indicating the one thing they love most about FIU students (or something else that they can report briefly—since we’re pressed for time. Jerry and Kristin, any suggestions??) --Let them know that we wish we had more time with them… --Why we’re here: To have an honest and open conversation about what brings us here: your important courses and how we might improve them, in light of several forces… --So our plans are to 1) share information and make sure we’re all aware of what the expectations are for the course--and why, 2) ask you to take stock; that is, to think about the courses: what’s working, where you think there’s room for improvement, 3) talk a bit about setting the tone, 4) share ideas about engaging students in class, and 5) think about the most useful next steps. --Share information: National conversation and priorities: Jerry, if you think it would help and feel comfortable doing so, you can tell them about “A Common Vision for the Undergraduate Mathematics Program in 2025”: http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/CommonVisionAMS.pdf

In Florida, as they know, one result of performance-based funding is that we are paying much more attention to student retention and graduation. Two of the goals in the strategic plan are improving our first-to-second-year retention and our 6-year graduation rates. In preparation for this meeting, we also tried to find out as much as we can about what the expectations might be for your courses, specifically. Here, we can ask Hassan to share his version of this, and we can add that it seems likely that they will be asked to

Meet regularly to collaborate, redesign as necessary, share resources,

etc.

http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/CommonVisionAMS.pdf

http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/CommonVisionAMS.pdf

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Achieve consistency across sections: esp. learning goals, number of and

shared questions in major assessments

Use elements of active learning

One bit of good news: that the strategic plan recognizes that this will require

converting adjunct positions to instructor lines where possible; in particular for

high impact courses where instructor conversions will result in marked

improvements in student learning outcomes.

Use College Algebra, Finite, Pre-calculus, and Social Choice as points of reference. Per Dane’s suggestion that FIU should respect their autonomy and academic freedom, yet hold “departments accountable to standards and goals,” ideally by “set[ting] the big picture goals and allow[ing] the individual faculty to meet those goals in their own way,” Jerry can debunk the myth that there’s no autonomy left and describe how they collaborate… They might be feeling scared at this point, blindsided, perhaps—so it will be important to give them enough time and opportunities to vent, ask questions, etc.—even if it delays the other agenda items. We’d rather they hear it from us in a safe space, and with opportunities to ask about the implications, etc. than later on and feel that we somehow lied to them or withheld information. It will also be important for them to recognize that this was not our idea, but we’ve seen these practices work effectively in other units and we’re here to support them.

11—noon

Taking stock: What’s working? Where is there room for improvement?

Individual work on worksheet, followed by small-group discussions (Each of us will

work with a group of 3-4)

During this session, it will be important for them to think about the drop and failure

rates for their sections and for the courses. We’ll share the course-level data, and we

can make them copies of the section-level charts if they want to see them.

Noon—1 Working lunch: Debrief on taking stock discussions

Each group can report on the main points raised, with an emphasis on course-

level points (as opposed to, “In my class, I do X activity… and they love it”) and

on course learning goals

It would be helpful if they realize what their course is intended to accomplish as relates to the departments for which it’s a “service course”

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This might be the appropriate time to try to convey the message that changes in course design actually can result in improved learning and retention. Jerry and Kristin can share examples from their courses. The statistics anxiety article might help here and be a good segue to the next agenda item.

1—2 Setting the tone

Course description exercise: 1st individually with worksheet, then in small groups. The

goal is to find language that they could use to set the tone for the class, convince

students of its utility, minimize their anxiety, etc. The goal is also to convey that this is

the kind of language that would be useful on the first day of class.

2—3 Active classrooms & next steps

They asked specifically about clickers, group work, getting students to participate and attend class, so we want to make sure they get some of this =) We can ask them to discuss what they’re currently doing to engage students during class, and offer suggestions… To wrap up, we should use the last 20 minutes to ask them to think about next steps: For instance, we hope that one next step will be to meet with psych and bio to discuss each department’s expectations for students who take STA 2122

Ambitious goals for the workshop:

By 3:00 on Friday, we’d like for participants to…

• …know what the University expectations are for these courses—and why

• …feel comfortable enough to vent and speak freely about their frustrations, fears, etc.

• …see CAT as a trustworthy and useful ally, one that respects their autonomy and

academic freedom (so that we can continue to work with them)

• …have taken stock: reflecting on what’s working, where there’s room for improvement,

and determining useful next steps o To this end, it would be helpful if they realize what

their course is intended to accomplish as relates to the departments for which it’s a

“service course”

o In “next steps,” it would help if they determined who will take the lead on each class, who will meet with Psych and Bio, etc.

• …realize that there is room for improvement (and that current pass and drop rates are

problematic),

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• …start to realize that there’s a lot they can do (in course design, interactions with

students, etc.) to improve student success (vs. student success depends entirely on

students and their motivation, background knowledge, etc.)

• …start to realize that they will make much more progress if they work together—but

that working together ≠ cookie-cutter

• …start to see themselves as members of a community with a responsibility to the whole

course, not simply their class(es)

• …leave with a few concrete suggestions for improving their course

Goals Signs that it

worked

Activities

…know what the University

expectations are for them—and

why

Maybe they can

write on a

worksheet their

version of what’s

being asked?

Share this information—all lower-division courses

will need to do x, y, z. Use College Algebra, Finite,

Pre-calculus, and Social Choice as points of

reference. Jerry can debunk the myth that there’s

no autonomy left and describe how they

collaborate…

…feel comfortable enough to vent

and speak freely about their

frustrations, fears, etc.

Venting,

complaining,

heated discussion

We need to listen, avoiding the impulse to preach

or point out the flaws in their argument. We will

need to ask questions that will elicit their

frustrations, fears, and questions.

…see CAT as a trustworthy and

useful ally, one that respects

their autonomy and academic

freedom (so that we can continue

to work with them)

They come back,

email us for help,

join a book group,

etc.

In addition to listening and conveying verbally and

non-verbally that we understand where they’re

coming from—none of us signed up for this; we

must also let them know how we were brought to

this conversation, that we did not make the list of

the 17, and that we have no control and will not

be prescriptive—have no hidden agenda.

…have taken stock: reflecting on

what’s working, where there’s

room for improvement, and

determining useful next steps

They take

action—do not

continue as if the

workshop hadn’t

happened

Develop an activity and/or handout to facilitate

this process and discussion, using the course

objectives we shared via email

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…realize that there is room for improvement (and that current pass and drop rates are

problematic),

They take

action—do not

continue as if the

workshop hadn’t

happened

Share course-level data with them, ask them if

they want to see anonymous, section-specific

data.

…start to realize that there’s a lot

they can do (in course design,

interactions with students, etc.)

to improve student success (vs.

student success depends entirely

on students and their motivation,

background knowledge, etc.)

They take

action—do not

continue as if the

workshop hadn’t

happened

Share examples of efforts in which course design improvements resulted in improved outcomes (perhaps the statistics anxiety studies)

…start to realize that they will make much more progress if they work together—but that working together ≠ cookie-cutter

They try to meet

again to

collaborate

Ask them to do something challenging in small

groups: work on the course description taking into

account statistics anxiety. Also, Jerry’s description

of how they collaborate should help. Kristin can

provide the Bio version of the benefits of

collaboration.

…start to feel a sense of

responsibility to the whole

course, not simply their class(es)

Time will tell =) It would be best of Jerry and/or Kristin said

something about this and how they’ve reconciled

this for themselves

…leave with a few concrete

suggestions for improving their

course

They take notes,

ask for a ref. or

more reading

material, ask how

to set up clickers,

etc.

On Friday, synthesize key strategies from clicker articles. Share articles in binder.

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Reading Lists

Gateway Course Design Reading List

Ambrose, S. (2014). Who do students learn? In Chambliss, D. F., & Takacs, C. G. (Eds) How College Works (pp. 67-78).

Benassi, V. A., Overson, C. E., & Hakala, C. M. (2014). Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

Brown, P. C. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning.

Carlson, M. P., & Rasumussen, C. (2008). Making the connection: Research and teaching in

undergraduate mathematics education. Washington, DC: Mathematical Association

of America

Chew, S. (2014). Helping students get the most out of studying. In V. A. Benassi, C. E.

Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.). Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 215-224). Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

Erikson, B., & Strommer, D. (2005). Inside the first-year classroom. In In Upcraft, M. L.,

Gardner, J. N., & Barefoot, B. O. (Eds). Challenging and supporting the first-year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college (pp.241-248). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ishler, J., & Upcraft, M. (2005). The Keys to First-Year Student Persistence. In Upcraft, M. L.,

Gardner, J. N., & Barefoot, B. O. (Eds). Challenging and supporting the first-year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college (27-46). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Kober, N. (2015) Reaching Students: What research says about effective instruction in undergraduate science and engineering. Board on Science Education , Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Krantz, S. (1993). How to teach mathematics. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematics Society

http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

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Upcraft, M. L., Gardner, J. N., & Barefoot, B. O. (2005). Challenging and supporting the first-

year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Ishler, J., & Upcraft, M. (2005). The Keys to First-Year Student Persistence. In Upcraft, M. L.,

Gardner, J. N., & Barefoot, B. O. (Eds). Challenging and supporting the first-year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college (27-46). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

ENC 1101 & ENC1102: Required Pre-Workshop Readings

The Mentor’s Dilemma: Providing Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide. Geoffrey L. Cohen, Claude M. Steele, Lee D. Ross. Stanford University.

Involvement Chapter from Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action. Vincent Tinto.

Twenty-First Century Literacies: A Checklist. Cathy N. Davidson

College Writing and Beyond. Anne Beaufort.

College Writing and Beyond: Five Years Later

If the above hyperlink doesn't work:


Recommended Readings (for context):

The Keys to First-Year Student Persistence. Jennifer L. Chrissman Ishler, M. Lee Upcraft

There’s No Easy Fix for Graduation Rates

If the above hyperlink doesn't work:







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APPENDIX D

UT3 BUDGET