Project Title:
Redesign and Development of Required Liberal Studies
Project Director and Other Associated Faculty and Staff:
Jan Flack, Director, Continuing Studies, Minnesota State University Moorhead, Contact: flackjan@mnstate.edu. Telephone: (218)477-2395
Project Design:
In order to serve students who work full-time on changing shifts (e.g. nursing), liberal arts courses will be developed that provides active learning anytime, anywhere. Courses will be delivered solely via distance and will employ methods and technologies appropriate for self-paced individualized study. Faculty will be trained in the redesign, development and teaching of these new courses. Redesigned courses will be offered and evaluated during 2004-2005 academic year.
Project Evaluation and Outcomes:
A faculty workshop was held in Spring, 2004 and during Summer and Fall 2004, four new courses were developed and one course was redesigned. Finally in the Spring, 2005, 5 courses were redesigned and offered. Most courses were self-paced but had to be completed within one year. Evaluation consisted of data on enrollment, completion rate and student course evaluations. In the Spring, 2005, 68 students participated in these redesigned courses and 50% of students completed courses at end the term (due to self-pacing, others are expected to completed the courses in Summer and Fall, 2005. Final student evaluations reports are not yet available but preliminary reports reveal that most students agreed that: (1) course organization was beneficial to their learning, (2)online Tegrity video lectures were clearly organized, (3)frequent opportunities for feedback existed, (4)content of course was valuable, (5)the students spent same amount of time on these courses as they did on face-to-face courses, (6)courses were consistent with student’s learning style and were convenient to take. A large percentage (40%) of students disagreed with the statement that “frequent opportunities for feedback existed.” Final tabulation of student evaluations will be available at end of Fall, 2005.
Lessons Learned, Dissemination and Sustainability
• Faculty report that the redesign process to move their courses to an online format required a great deal of work and that release time for this activity is essential.
• The time issue required that offering redesigned courses be delayed until Spring.
• Faculty reported that they were able to learn how to use instructional technology (e.g. Desire2Learn, Tegrity video) in one case.
• Unexpected issues that arose include need to deal with copyright issues for video materials in online courses and need to establish new processes for handling exams (proctoring).
As a result of this project, MSUM has gained a great deal most notably the creation of 5 new online courses targeted to underserved audiences and valuable professional development experiences for faculty.
