FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE
CONTACT:Megan Galbraith(518) 276-6050[email protected]
Ten National Universities Receive $2 Million in Grants From Rensselaer's Center for Academic Transformation
TROY, N.Y.--Ten colleges and universities across the country will receive $2 million in grants from The Pew Grant Program in Course Redesign from the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The grants were announced this week by Center Executive Director Carol Twigg.
This is the second round of a three-year $8.8 million grant by The Pew Charitable Trusts' Learning and Technology Program. The purpose of the program is to encourage colleges and universities to redesign their approaches to instruction using technology to achieve cost savings as well as quality enhancements.
The 10 institutions listed below will receive grants of $200,000 each for course redesign projects that focus on large-enrollment, introductory courses with the potential to impact significant student numbers and generate substantial cost savings.
-- California State Polytechnic University, Pomona will re-edit and reshoot videotaped psychology classes in order to deliver them to a broader audience.
-- Carnegie Mellon University will introduce an automated, intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to its Introduction to Statistical Reasoning course requirement.
-- Fairfield University will condense all sections of its General Biology course into a single large-classroom format.
-- Riverside Community College plans to redesign Elementary Algebra, a four-credit course enrolling 3,600 students annually in 72 sections.
-- The University of Alabama plans to redesign Intermediate Algebra, a course enrolling 1,500 students each year.
-- University of Dayton will create an online learning environment for Introductory Psychology, which is taken by more than 50 percent of all students.
-- The University of Idaho will incorporate streaming video lectures, tutorial exercises coordinated with a textbook, and computerized exams for three pre-calculus courses enrolling 2,450 students.
-- University of Iowa will decrease the number of large lectures and use computer-based assignments and tutorial help, Web-based homework, and restructured, discovery-based labs in its General Chemistry course.
-- University of Massachusetts-Amherst will go through a five-pronged redesign of its biology course that includes online class preparation and quizzes; expanded use of interactive classroom technology; supplemental instruction and peer tutoring; and an instructor apprenticeship program to prepare new instructors to efficiently use the online and interactive technologies.
-- The University of Tennessee will substitute online diagnostic homework exercises for one in-class period per week in its Intermediate Spanish Transition class. Immediate feedback on all graded assignments will be given via online assessments.
Brief descriptions of the projects are attached. Full descriptions can be found at http://www.center.rpi.edu/fundproj.html by the end of September. For more information about how to apply for a third-round grant, go to http://www.center.rpi.edu/infoappl.html.
The Pew Learning and Technology Program is administered by the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer, where Twigg serves as executive director.
Rensselaer's pioneering work in the development of studio classrooms has been recognized with major national awards, including the Pew Leadership Award for the Renewal of Undergraduate Education presented in 1996 by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The Pew Charitable Trusts support nonprofit activities in the areas of culture, education, the environment, health and human services, public policy, and religion. Based in Philadelphia, the Trusts make strategic investments to help organizations and citizens develop practical solutions to difficult problems. In 1998, with $4.734 billion in assets, the Trusts granted more than $213 million to 298 nonprofit organizations.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation's first technological university. The school offers degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, architecture, management, and the humanities and social sciences. Institute programs serve undergraduates, graduate students, and working professionals around the world. Rensselaer faculty are known for pre-eminence in research conducted in a wide range of research centers that are characterized by strong industry partnerships. The Institute is especially well known for its success in the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace so that new discoveries and inventions benefit human life, protect the environment, and strengthen economic development.
Contact: Carol A. Twigg, executive director, Center for Academic Transformation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (518) 695-5320 or [email protected].
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona)
Cal Poly plans to redesign General Psychology, which enrolls approximately 1,500 students annually, to cope with increasing student demand. General Psychology has been taught in a traditional lecture format with 30 sections of 50 students each. To experiment with serving larger numbers of students, a pilot section based on videotaped content modules was created during the 1995-96 academic year, which increased the number of students served to 120. Building on this prior work, the redesign team will re-edit and reshoot segments of the modules to improve production values and incorporate updated material, develop an interactive tutorial CD-ROM, and add Web-based testing supervised by TAs in computer laboratories. These technologies will allow larger numbers of students to assimilate course content without the constraints of time and place and will encourage students to take control of their own learning and achievement levels. The redesign will allow Cal Poly to increase the number of students served (from 1,500 in the traditional course to 2,250) while reducing costs. Each section will accommodate 450 students rather than 50 students. The use of computer-based testing and CD-ROM tutorials will allow the university to reduce faculty hours significantly and replace them with less expensive TA hours. As a result, the cost-per-student will move from $152 to $21, a reduction of 86 percent.
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University plans to redesign Introduction to Statistical Reasoning, which enrolls 400 to 500 students per year, over a third of the freshman class. This is a "second generation" redesign of a traditional lecture-plus-recitation statistics course. Stage one created a lecture-plus-computer-lab design that gives students experience with designing and implementing analyses of statistical data using a statistical software package. Stage two will introduce an automated, intelligent tutoring system (ITS) that will monitor students' work as they go through the lab exercises, provide them feedback when they pursue an unproductive path, and closely track and assess individual student's acquisition of skills in statistical inference-in effect, providing an individual tutor for each student. The goal is to make labs and homework more open-ended, exploratory, and active and to change the current staffing model to make the course less labor intensive. CMU's 1991 redesign reduced costs from $227 to $195 per student. Adding the ITS will further reduce costs from $195 to $138 per student or an additional 29 percent savings, resulting in an anticipated total savings from the two redesigns of 39 percent.
Fairfield University
Fairfield University plans to redesign its two-semester General Biology course, one of the largest at Fairfield with an annual enrollment of 260 students. The current course is taught in a multiple-section model with 35-40 students per section. The goal is to change the focus of activity from memorization to a student-centered, inquiry-based pedagogy. The course will emphasize the application of scientific methodology and critical thinking skills and incorporate modern instrumentation, software modules and online databases in order to increase student comprehension and retention of material. The planned redesign will condense all sections into a single large-classroom format. Students will work in teams of 2-3 around individual laptop computers, utilizing software modules that focus on inquiry-based instruction and independent investigations. Students will better understand foundational concepts in biology, develop increased confidence in their knowledge, understand the effectiveness of collaborative team efforts and develop higher-order cognitive skills. Significant cost savings will be realized from reducing faculty time in three major areas: 1) materials development for lectures; 2) out-of-class course meetings; and 3) in-class lectures and labs. Consolidation of the seven lecture sections to two in the redesigned course and the introduction of computer-based modules in the lecture and laboratory will result a planned cost-per-student reduction from $506 to $350, a savings of 31 percent.
Riverside Community College
Riverside Community College (RCC) plans to redesign Elementary Algebra, a four-credit course enrolling 3,600 students annually in 72 sections. Currently offered in a didactic lecture format, the course has a success rate of about 50percent. The redesign involves converting four hours of weekly lectures into participation in a Math Collaboratory, weekly Spotlight Sessions and an extensive math tutorial and counseling support system. The Collaboratory, an interactive lab where students work with faculty, tutors, and other students, will make use of a Web-based artificial intelligence program (ALEKS) that generates individualized assessments, study plans, and active learning sets. Spotlights will target known student trouble spots, with students attending as many or as few as needed for clarification of material. The goal of the redesign is two-fold: 1) to encourage students to take an active role in their own learning, building on timely assessment, preferred learning styles, and faculty guidance and 2) to move from a seat-time model to one based on subject matter mastery. Redesign will produce a 45 percent cost-per-student reduction from $206 to $113, an annual savings of $333,576. Additional savings will result from freeing classrooms for other classes, reducing student repeat rates, and increasing retention rates.
The University of Alabama
The University of Alabama plans to redesign Intermediate Algebra, a pre-General Studies course enrolling 1,500 students each year, in order to address poor student performance. Nearly 60 percent of the students in the fall 1999 course earned a D, F, or W grade, and students often take the course two or three times before passing. Modeled in part on the Math Emporium at Virginia Tech, the course redesign involves the development of a student-centered, computer-assisted, self-paced tutorial course that allows the individual student to focus precisely on his or her questions and difficulties. The software used in the course will provide quick feedback to students, instant assessment of skills competencies, and a steady flow of information to instructors and tutors. The redesign will reduce the cost-per-student from approximately $122 to $86, a 30 percent savings. Instead of spending time on lectures and presentations, instructors will devote time directly to each student's specific, immediate needs. Instead of spending time grading homework, quizzes, and exams, the instructors will engage the student in more direct, personalized tutorial assistance.
University of Dayton
The University of Dayton plans to redesign Introductory Psychology. More than 50 percent of all students take this course at some point during their academic careers. The current course is taught in 12 sections of 71 students each in a traditional lecture style. Individual instructors develop their own syllabi and content, resulting in redundant effort, disparate learning opportunities and objectives across sections, and assessment difficulties. The redesign will create an online learning environment that enriches the current course, leads to better subject matter mastery and higher student satisfaction, and creates a stronger sense of belonging to a community of learners. Network-accessible, interactive applications and simulations will illustrate key theories, concepts, and research findings/methodologies. The redesigned course will also be fully groupware-enabled. Students will engage in both synchronous and asynchronous collaborative activities with other students and the instructor. Cost savings will be realized by 1) reducing faculty staffing requirements by nearly two-thirds and 2) reducing traditional student "seat time" by more than 90 percent while increasing student "time on task" from 10 percent of total contact hours to 80 percent. The result will be a projected decline in the cost-per-student from $139 to $78, a savings of 44 percent.
The University of Idaho
The University of Idaho plans to redesign three pre-calculus courses enrolling 2,450 students, and replace them with a learning center modeled after the Virginia Tech Emporium. The courses (Intermediate Algebra, Algebra and Pre-Calculus) are currently taught in spring and fall terms by temporary lecturers or graduate assistants in sections of about 50, meeting three times a week using a didactic lecture format. The goals of the redesign are to increase both the student success rate (one-third of the students fail to achieve a C grade or better) and the retention rate of mathematics knowledge needed in subsequent courses. POLYA, the new mathematics learning center, will accommodate diverse student learning styles and build confidence regarding success with mathematics. Streaming video lectures, tutorial exercises coordinated with a textbook, and most exams will be computerized. Just-in-time assistance by graduate and undergraduate assistants will be available who will also facilitate small group learning. The new active-learning model plans to reduce the cost of offering all three courses from $235,069 to $103,593, a reduction of 31percent.
The University of Iowa
The University of Iowa plans to redesign the first semester of its two-semester General Chemistry course, which enrolls approximately 1,300 students annually. The course includes large lectures of 250-400 and discussion sections of 25, serving students from several colleges including engineering, pharmacy, and liberal arts. The redesign goals are to reduce the drop-failure-withdrawal rate, now as high as 30 percent, and make the content more relevant to the students' future majors. In order to promote active learning, the planned redesign will decrease the number of large lectures and optimize student participation by using applied modular content, computer-based assignments and tutorial help, Web-based homework, and restructured, discovery-based labs. A more learner-centered environment will enable greater success for students with different learning styles. Cost savings will be realized by 1) substituting two instructors for the current three; 2) automating homework grading (over 16,000 assignments per semester); and 3) decreasing the number of unsuccessful students who must repeat the course. Incorporating these changes will reduce the cost-per-student from $277 to $220, a 21 percent savings, which translates into an annual savings of almost $74,000.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst intends to redesign Introductory Biology, a course that serves 700 students each fall semester, representing about 20 percent of the freshman class. Interactive classroom technology (ClassTalk) has recently been introduced into one of two large lecture sections. While use of this technology has promoted student active learning, it has also increased course costs, reduced coverage of course content, failed to meet departmental goals for student success, and created the need for technology-proficient faculty. The course redesign will enhance student preparation prior to class to allow in-class activities to focus on problem solving and concept manipulation while still maintaining adequate content coverage. The course redesign has five components: 1) online, class preparation pages; 2) online quizzes to motivate students to use the preparation pages and help students assess their own learning; 3) expanded use of interactive classroom technology; 4) supplemental instruction and peer tutoring; and 5) an instructor apprenticeship program to prepare new instructors to efficiently use the online and interactive technologies. Active learning approaches, recently adopted in the course, have increased the cost of the course from $174 to $199 per student. The redesigned course will reduce the cost-per-student to $117 while enhancing the active learning environment, producing a savings of 41 percent.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville plans to redesign Intermediate Spanish Transition, an introductory language course for which over 60 percent of entering students register as a result of language placement scores. During the 1999-2000 academic year the course enrolled 1,539 students in 57 sections with 27 students per class. The current course structure is unable to provide enough sections to satisfy student enrollment demands. The redesigned course will substitute online diagnostic homework exercises (grammar, vocabulary, and graded workbook assignments) for one in-class period per week. Immediate feedback on all graded assignments will be given via online assessments. This will eliminate the extremely time-consuming activity of grading homework exercises, quizzes, and examinations for instructors. Rather than dealing with skill-based practice in class, instructors will have more time to emphasize active speaking skills and cultural awareness. Any-time access to course materials and immediate feedback on progress will greatly assist students in self-paced work and understanding of their deficiencies. The redesign will produce cost savings by offering one-third more sections of the course with significantly reduced labor costs, resulting in a cost-per-student reduction from $48 to $32. Cost savings will amount to approximately $32,832 annually while serving 513 additional students.
###
RSS