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Faculty team members who teach Gateway math and English courses used data regarding course pass rates, persistence and completion rates of past cohorts to better understand which students do not persist and to anticipate causes. They have also taken initial steps to use formative, real-time data to make in-progress adjustments to student interactions. This past year, significant resources have been allocated to improve our internal reporting capacity as it relates to Gateway course success which will continue in the next year. Faculty teams attended professional development programs including "Got Evidence", On Course principles, the Starfish Early Alert system, and training to learn about engagement strategies and classroom assessment techniques. They also contextualized learning as a method to increase student engagement. Students were placed in courses based upon benchmark scores as part of the Pathways to Success intervention. Struggling students received extra instruction from tutors in the classroom and the supplemental instruction offered in the new Student Success Center (an innovative Writing Lab, Math Lab, and Academic Coaching classrooms strategically connected to the College's Library). The Starfish Early Alert system has been fully implemented during this academic year, providing instructors in Gateway courses a powerful communication and tracking tool that can be used real-time. Referral processes to supplemental instruction sessions are particularly focused on success in the Gateway areas.

Fall 2014 saw the first pilot offering of a Learning Community model at NWTC. This initial pilot featured pairing of Gateway courses in communication and math with social science and occupational program courses, respectively. Students indicated great satisfaction with the development of study groups, social connections, and enhanced student-instructor relationships as a result of the community, as well as improved ability to apply and see relevancy in the foundational skills taught in the Gateway courses. Course success rates in these pilot courses showed a small but promising improvement over non-community comparison classes, especially pronounced in math.

The communication skills instructional area also continued implementation and improvement of the Advanced Learning Program (ALP) model of developmental education, which features co-enrollment in both developmental writing and Gateway writing courses. The ALP model provides the opportunity for strong and developing writers to collaborate and utilizes the in-class coaching model that has been successful thus far at NWTC. The math instructional area developed a slightly different model that combines the curriculum of developmental math and Gateway math into "integrated" courses, saving students time and money and allowing remediation to be just-in-time for Gateway applications.

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Faculty team members who teach Gateway math and English courses used data regarding course pass rates, persistence and completion rates of past cohorts to better understand which students do not persist and to anticipate causes. They have also taken initial steps to use formative, real-time data to make in-progress adjustments to student interactions.

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Are you involved with a course redesign initiative at your school?

I'm talking about a process that is more intense, more deliberate, and more expensive than the normal work that faculty and instructional designers do on course updates.

Something more in line with what Carol Twigg has been doing since 2004 with the National Center for Academic Transformation ( NCAT).

Big course redesign initiatives may differ in scope and design from campus to campus.

While course redesign initiatives will differ in scope and design from campus to campus, I would argue that almost all share the following attributes:

1. They have a separate budget, either for the whole program or individual courses.

2. Resources are focused on a small number of courses, usually the courses with higher enrollment and sometimes on courses with higher attrition or lower levels of student success.

3. They involve some sort of RFP (request for proposal) from faculty.

4. Specific resources, usually instructional design folks, are assigned to the course redesign project.

5. There is almost always some element of blended course design and classroom flipping, moving lecture and content to pre-class accessible digital platforms, and a re-thinking of how to utilize in-class time.

6. An assessment component is almost always part of the course redesign initiative.

Can you add or argue with any the course redesign attributes enumerated on this list?

At my institution we are gearing up our own course redesign project, something that we are calling our Dartmouth College Gateway Course Initiative.

We are at the point in this initiative where we are holding initial meetings with the faculty who are teaching the first courses to be redesigned.

As part of our meetings we provide each faculty member with a 1-pager that describes the goals of the program, as well as a description of our learner-centered design process. (We also share information on roles for the project team, and the campus resources that are available, but the goals and the process are the most universally applicable).

These goals, and the design process description, were created by the instructional design professionals in our Educational Technology and Center for the Advancement of Learning groups.

The key people at this initial meeting are of course the faculty member and the instructional designer assigned as a dedicated resource for the course redesign process.

I have a couple of reasons to share with you the content of the 1-pager on course redesign that we share with faculty.

First, I'm hoping that maybe this material will be useful to you as you design and refine your course redesign methodology and communications tools. We've found that a concise document describing the goals and the process is very welcome by the faculty that we work with, and also serves as an excellent communications tool for other faculty that we hope to work with in the future.

Second, my hope is that you might have ideas or suggestions to improve this document. That you can share how you communicate your course redesign process, and what you have learned in your own work with faculty.

Here are some of the materials in the 1-pager that we share with faculty:

Goals for Gateway Course Redesign Initiative:

Make large courses feel more like small classes.

Incorporate more active learning.

Create greater student engagement.

Better defined learning outcomes.

Diffusion of methodology and successes to the department.

Individual faculty/departmental goals (e.g. fewer withdrawal, more students taking additional courses in the discipline, etc.).

Learner-Centered Course Design Process:

The Gateway Initiative will use the research-informed process of backwards design (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998) which makes it easy to choose the best course materials to meet your goals, and focuses on student learning rather than course content. This process also ensures internal congruence and alignment between objectives, instruction and assessment.

The steps to the process are:

Craft measurable and attainable overarching course learning goals/objectives and then more granular outcomes for units/topics/modules.

Design both formative and summative assessments to measure attainment of learning outcomes and articulate feedback channels.

Design learning activities and experiences that provide practice and preparation for success in assessments.

Create a syllabus or other means of communicating the course goals, objectives, outcomes assessments, activities, and expectations for the learning community.

Develop an optimized Canvas (our LMS) course site with student-centered design decisions.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback and experiences with your own course redesign initiatives.

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Gateway Course Redesign | Learning Innovation

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Are you involved with a course redesign initiative at your school? I'm talking about a process that is more intense, more deliberate, and more expensive than the normal work that faculty and instructional designers do on course updates. Something more in line with what Carol Twigg has been doing since 2004 with the National Center for Academic Transformation ( NCAT).

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RQ1: Change in use of 3DL assessment items and student outcomes over time

The results from coding the exam data with the 3D-LAP () show that the proportion of points allocated to 3DL questions increased over the 4 years of the project within each discipline; however, this relationship is statistically significant only for Chem I and II ( r s = 0.72, P < 0.001) and Bio I ( r s = 0.37, P < 0.05). There are stark differences by discipline and even by courses within a discipline. These differences suggest that although the 3DL approach to change was common across the disciplines, the culture and environment in which change occurs are important and warrant further investigation.

In addition, we find statistically significant correlations between an increase in the proportion of 3DL points and both an increase in mean final course grade and a decrease in DFW rate ( and and ) for all courses except Bio I; that is, if the proportion of 3DL points increases (as measured by the 3D-LAP), then we generally observe concomitant positive changes in average grade and DFW rate. While improvements to student grades and DFW rates are not necessarily an expected outcome of instructors increasing the use of 3DL-focused assessments, we provide these data first and foremost as evidence of having done no harm to the students. Further, it is reasonable to hypothesize that increasing the use of 3DL-focused assessments in a course might correlate with the class meetings being more active (as seen in chemistry and biology in ); active learning in STEM courses has been shown to improve student performance on concept inventories and exams and to decrease failure rates ().

Table 3

Chemistry

shows a marked increase in 3DL items in the two general chemistry courses over the 4-year period. The structure and organization of the curriculum for these large-enrollment general chemistry courses differ from those in biology or physics. The chemistry courses are highly coordinated and organized by the director of General Chemistry; the learning outcomes and course exams are common, and all instructors teach approximately the same material at the same pace over the same time period. A transformed general chemistry course sequence [a National Science Foundation-supported project called CLUE (Chemistry, Life, the Universe and Everything) ()] was piloted in years 1 and 2, and by year 3, the entire general chemistry course structure was transformed. In year 1, only a small fraction of the total students (11 and 24% in Chem I and Chem II, respectively) were tested using 3DL items, whereas by year 3, all students (3450 in Chem I and 1250 in Chem II) were tested using nearly 50% 3DL items in both courses.

Simple exposure to 3DL assessment items is no guarantee of more effective teaching and learning; however, the transformation efforts were also studied as part of the CLUE project. The evidence from CLUE indicates that students who were enrolled in the transformed courses had significantly improved understanding of core ideas such as structure-property relationships (, ) and that this improvement persisted at least through the next year of study in organic chemistry (, ). After two semesters, students in the transformed sections performed above the national average on a nationally normed American Chemical Society exam, although this exam was not developed with the intention to measure 3DL. In addition, the average grade across all students increased, and the overall DFW rate decreased by approximately 16% (). This decrease in DFW rate practically translates to approximately 740 more students earning a grade of 2.0 or above in year 3 compared with year 0.

Physics

The situation in physics remains largely unchanged in terms of both 3DL assessment items () and student outcomes (). Similar to chemistry, these courses are often coordinated across sections, using the same syllabus and textbook. However, unlike the chemistry and biology courses, the physics courses typically draw assessment items from a large, established pool of randomized formative and summative assessment items generated by an online course management system with a long history in the department (). Although many physics faculty contributed regularly to discussions of physics core ideas and practices, there was no observed change in the assessment items used by the large introductory physics courses over the course of the project.

One interpretation of these findings is that the reliance on test bank-generated items undermined any transformation efforts that faculty may have intended with regard to their assessments; another is that the assessment system has too much institutional inertia behind it to support change. In years 2 and 3 of the project, however, four small course sections of Phy-C I appear that incorporate assessments with high percentages of 3DL assessment items. These data represent completely transformed sections that use a different curriculum and approach than the rest of the physics sections, and evidence () shows that students in these transformed sections improve their understanding of physics concepts compared with traditional sections as measured by the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation ().

Biology

(C and D) shows the change in the proportion of exam points allocated to 3DL assessment items over 4 years for the two courses in the gateway biology sequence. Trends in the data for the two courses are notably different, which can be attributed, in part, to the two courses being in different stages of transformation.

Bio I: At the start of the project, there was little coordinated transformation effort in Bio I, although some individual faculty members designed and used learner-centered instructional activities. The different sections all used the same textbook but did not have a common set of learning goals or use common exams. Rather, instructors developed their own teaching materials based on an agreed-upon set of topics. Over the course of this project, 20 different instructors taught or cotaught in the 34 offered course sections of Bio I, 10 of whom were engaged in coordination efforts centered on the 3DL approach. For example, a course committee focused on Bio I met during year 1 as part of the Biology Initiative, an internally funded effort to improve undergraduate biology education through the investment of new resources in the biology departments and the Biological Sciences Program, which administers the introductory biology courses. A major outcome for this committee was identifying the core ideas and scientific practices most relevant to Bio I. In addition, three members of the Bio I teaching team were involved in the STEM Gateway Fellowship program, and several members attended professional development workshops offered on campus about 3DL assessment and instruction. During this time frame, we observe an increase in the fraction of points allocated to 3DL items, although there is still a spread across sections (), a concomitant increase in average course grade, and a decrease in DFW rate ().

Bio II: In contrast, Bio II had already undergone a series of transformations associated with an earlier project (-) that was not initially associated with 3DL per se but was based on implementing teaching and learning strategies that promote student use of scientific practices including data analysis, argumentation, and modeling, all while emphasizing collaboration. demonstrates that many exam points in Bio II were already allocated to 3DL assessment items at the beginning of this project, and a similar level was observed at the end. However, it is also meaningful that there was little change in the proportion of 3DL questions in the nontransformed sections over the same time frame, suggesting that obstacles to adoption remain for some faculty. The average grade and DFW rate did not change (), consistent with the observation that there was little change in the overall nature of the assessments in Bio II.

Three disciplines, four outcomes

The results presented in show that although the transformation efforts in each discipline were guided by the 3DL approach, and the discussions of core ideas and scientific practices were attended by many faculty from each discipline, the measurable changes appear to be highly dependent on other factors including the course organizational structure, perceived ownership of the course, departmental culture, available resources, faculty expertise, and the power dynamics between faculty and those calling for change.

For example, the courses of interest here are quite different in the ways that they are organized and "owned" by faculty. The introductory courses in physics and chemistry are each housed within a disciplinary department, yet the results from these courses lie at the limits of measurable impact of the project. Both the chemistry and physics courses are coordinated, with common syllabi and common exams, but the course ownership is different. In chemistry (as in many large chemistry departments), the course is organized and coordinated by a full-time director of General Chemistry, relatively few tenure-track faculty rotate through the course, and most of the course sections are taught by non-tenure-track (although long-term) instructors. The decisions about changes to the course structure, textbook, and homework system are relatively centralized with the director, department chair, and the faculty who regularly teach the course. When the decision was made to move from the original curriculum to the new 3DL curriculum, the text, teaching materials, and online assessment system were all changed to the integrated materials developed as part of the CLUE system. Adoption of the CLUE curriculum was also accompanied by change in the format of assessment items from entirely multiple choice to a mix of multiple choice and constructed response. Increased administrative support [in the form of extra graduate teaching assistant (TA) and undergraduate learning assistant (LA) time] was used in the transformed sections to support grading constructed-response exam questions and in-class activities.

In contrast, most faculty in the physics department, both tenure-track and non-tenure-track, teach in the gateway courses and contribute to changes in the curriculum, consistent with the general expectation in physics that faculty be able to teach any undergraduate course. There is no director who facilitates this process, and during the period of this study, there was no wholesale change in the commercially available text and peripherals or in the online assessment system. The assessment system was locally developed, has been used for 25 years, and incorporates personalized multiple-choice questions and calculations generated by many former and current faculty (). However, this system does not immediately lend itself to generation of 3DL tasks and may have been an impediment to change overall, despite the support and interest of the department and departmental administration. Extra support for LAs was directed toward the laboratories; thus, limited support for grading constructed-response exams may have been another impediment to change.

The biology courses differ from both chemistry and physics in organization and administration. The Biological Sciences Program administers the introductory biology courses, which are taught by a rotating committee of faculty from multiple different biology-related departments and colleges. The project described herein overlapped with the Biology Initiative, an internal effort to improve undergraduate biology education (). Early Biology Initiative investments were focused on Bio I and led to an increased number of faculty engaged in teaching Bio I, in turn decreasing the number of students per section from approximately 425 to less than 250. TAs and LAs were added to the teaching teams, enabling the use of both formative and summative constructed-response assessments. A course curriculum coordinator is now responsible for working with faculty to maintain a shared vision for the course based on a common set of learning outcomes that blend core ideas, scientific practices, and crosscutting concepts. In addition, multiple Bio I faculty participated in the STEM Gateway Fellowship, including the first course curriculum coordinator. These new resources and coordination efforts appear to have facilitated increased use of 3DL assessment items in Bio I.

On the other hand, we observed little change over time in the Bio II course sections. The sections that were already transformed maintained their status, but we saw no increase in the use of 3DL assessment items in other sections. The previous transformation efforts focused on infusing scientific practices into the curriculum were embraced by a group of faculty located primarily in one department; faculty from other units generally did not participate. While the Bio II faculty participated in discussions centered on disciplinary core ideas during this project, the Biology Initiative funds were allocated over a span of 5 years, and investment in Bio II did not take place until this study was completed. The absence of a course curriculum coordinator and the lack of additional TAs during the project time frame may have hindered the type of transformation efforts that led to increased use of 3DL assessments in Bio I.

In sum, while this work shows that change is happening in most courses, it is occurring at different rates. In chemistry, the transformation appears to be relatively rapid, but that does not consider the 10 years of prior development and pilot work with the transformed CLUE curriculum. Once this curriculum was available, the structure and organization of general chemistry at MSU allowed for a rapid transition.

Although there seems to be little change in physics, it may be because they are at the very beginning of development and pilot work. The small physics sections with high proportions of 3DL assessments that appear in years 2 and 3 correspond to pilot sections of a transformed Phy-C I course that does not rely on existing texts and homework systems. The analyses carried out in this project have informed plans to expand these completely transformed sections, rather than to "shoehorn" transformation into an existing curriculum, and the 3DL approach is being expanded to the Phy-C II course as well. In the current academic year, 140 more seats in the transformed courses are available to students compared with those available in year 3, and ongoing research is focused on student learning of and participation in scientific practices. These pilot courses and variants, which integrate laboratory work, have been accepted by the faculty and are being expanded across all course offerings within the next 5 years as the department aligns its entire curriculum with a 3DL approach. It may well be that 10 years is a reasonable time frame to bring about complete transformation (development and scaling up) (), although it should be noted that typical funding periods for these efforts, both external and internal, are much shorter.

It may also be that Bio I is in transition at a slower pace because the transformation is occurring within an existing curriculum that is supported by commercial textbooks and enacted independently in each section, whereas materials were developed and piloted to support the new curricula in the transformed chemistry and physics courses. The continuing efforts in Bio I to develop and use common learning goals, some common assessments, and 3DL materials such as whole-class modeling activities () may facilitate further increases in use of 3DL assessment items. Another possibility, however, is that changes in Bio I will stall in the same way that Bio II appears to have stalled. That is, faculty who are open to these changes have changed, and others who prefer more traditional curricula and assessments will not, although a recent shift to a new governance structure for the introductory biology courses emphasizes collective oversight and is intended to assign faculty generally supportive of 3DL to these courses ().

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Evaluating the extent of a large-scale transformation in gateway science courses

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The results from coding the exam data with the 3D-LAP () show that the proportion of points allocated to 3DL questions increased over the 4 years of the project within each discipline; however, this relationship is statistically significant only for Chem I and II ( r s = 0.72, P < 0.001) and Bio I ( r s = 0.37, P < 0.05).

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American Colleges and Universities are continuously challenged to increase access to higher education, improve the quality of student learning, and control or reduce the rising cost of instruction. These challenges are interrelated. As tuition costs continue to rise, access is curtailed. When high failure rates prevent students from successfully completing courses and programs, promises of increased access become hollow. Solutions to these challenges appear to be interrelated as well. Historically, either improving quality or increasing access has meant increasing costs. Reducing costs, in turn, has meant cutting quality, access, or both. In partnership with 30 colleges and universities, the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) has proven that it is possible to improve quality and reduce cost in higher education. Course redesign using information technology is key. Recommendations include: (1) establishing redesign programs; (2) demanding accountability; and (3) building incentives.

Descriptors: Higher Education, Access to Education, Cost Effectiveness, Curriculum Design, Instructional Design, Educational Quality, Educational Improvement, Improvement Programs, Technology Uses in Education, School Holding Power, Performance Technology, Curriculum Development

National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. 152 North Third Street Suite 705, San Jose, CA 95112. Tel: 408-271-2699; Fax: 408-271-2697; e-mail: center@highereducation.org; Web site: http://www.highereducation.org

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ERIC - ED518668 - Course Redesign Improves Learning and Reduces Cost. Policy Alert, National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2005-Jun

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American Colleges and Universities are continuously challenged to increase access to higher education, improve the quality of student learning, and control or reduce the rising cost of instruction. These challenges are interrelated. As tuition costs continue to rise, access is curtailed. When high failure rates prevent students from successfully completing courses and programs, promises of increased access become hollow.

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Course redesign allows instructors to reimagine their course based on feedback from students and peers, and based on best practices for universal design for learning and building inclusive classrooms.

Considerations for Course Redesign

Course redesign involves creating useful and measurable learning outcomes, choosing effective teaching strategies and learning experiences, aligning assessment methods with course learning outcomes, and revising the course syllabus. Use the following resources to guide you through the process:

Creating useful and measurable learning outcomes:

Choosing effective teaching strategies and learning experiences:

Aligning assessment methods with course learning outcomes:

Revising the course syllabus:

Getting Started with Course Redesign

As you get started with designing or redesigning a course, ask these two questions:

Where does the course begin and end?

How does it fit in with the program curriculum?

Then, using course outcomes, work backward to evaluate effective teaching strategies and decide whether the course assessments yield appropriate evidence of student learning. Contact the Center for help with redesigning a course.

References

Fink, D. (2013). Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses, Revised and Updated. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Huba, M. E., & Freed, J. E. (2000). Learner-centered assessment on college campuses. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2001). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Course redesign allows instructors to reimagine their course based on feedback from students and peers, and based on best practices for universal design for learning and building inclusive classrooms. Course redesign involves creating useful and measurable learning outcomes, choosing effective teaching strategies and learning experiences, aligning assessment methods with course learning outcomes, and revising the course syllabus.

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When you are considering how to redesign your courses, it can be helpful to hear from faculty at other institutions that have recently completed the process.

As you learn about their experiences, you'll notice that different schools (and different departments) approach the process in various ways. And with good reason: as Dr. Carolyn Jarmon noted in her webinar, "Improving Outcomes and Reducing Costs: The Case for Redesign," institutions choose to undergo this process for a number of reasons, including high student withdrawal or failure rates, long waiting lists for courses, over-enrollment in courses that fulfill prerequisites for a number of majors, difficulty in getting qualified adjuncts to teach all needed courses, and more. Even so, several commonalities will generally emerge as you observe their varying approaches.

In this presentation, Ann-Marie McNeely of Western Piedmont College (Morganton, NC) outlines the decisions her institution made as they designed a series of integrated reading and writing courses. Though McNeely specifically addresses North Carolina's standards, her points speak to the factors you'll need to consider as you redesign your curriculum, including course formats, schedules, instructor workload, instructional methods, materials requirements, and course policies. She also calls attention to the five key redesign principles that formed the foundation of their decisions (you can see these summarized on slide 5 of the SlideShare presentation below).

Consider this presentation food for thought. As McNeely acknowledges, it's just one way to approach the redesign process- but overall, it emphasizes the importance of considering what's most appropriate for your institution's and students' needs.
Review the SlideShare presentation below, and view the entire recorded webinar here.
Is your department undergoing the course redesign process? What key considerations do you factor into your decisions? Would you add anything to Ann-Marie McNeely's list of Five Key Redesign Principles? Share your thoughts below. Exploring course redesign? Cengage Learning's trained consultants, instructional designers, subject matter experts, and educational researchers offer a variety of services to guide you through the process of redesigning your curriculum. For additional information, visit our Course Redesign page. To learn more about Cengage Learning's full portfolio of educational services-including Peer-to-Peer Faculty Development & custom learning materials, and digital course support-visit our Engagement Services Web site.

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Starting the Course Redesign Process: Principles to Consider

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When you are considering how to redesign your courses, it can be helpful to hear from faculty at other institutions that have recently completed the process. As you learn about their experiences, you'll notice that different schools (and different departments) approach the process in various ways.

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A successful course depends on the planning that precedes it. The articles and links in this section serve as planning guides for both faculty and GSIs. They provide instructions for developing a new or existing course and for creating a syllabus.

Understanding by Design (Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching)
An overview of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe's influential book Understanding by Design and links to resources that assist instructors in applying the book's principles in their course planning. (The full book is available electronically through the U-M library system to authenticated users.)

Course Design Tutorial (Carleton College)
This site provides a step-by-step approach to course planning starting with the development of goals for student learning and moving on to teaching strategies, assessment of student learning, and the syllabus. Many of the examples are drawn from the geosciences, but the principles are relevant to all disciplines.

Designing a Course (BYU Center for Teaching and Learning)
This site offers a brief overview of course design process that begins with developing significant learning outcomes and then designing engaging learning activities that allow students to engage in a meaningful way with the course content. Adapted from Fink (2003).

Designing Your Course (Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence)
Resources from the Cornell Center for Teaching Excellence, including a downloadable syllabus template, Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Outcomes, a course materials checklist, and reflective course planning questions.

The Value of Learning Objectives (CMU Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence)
This white paper from Carnegie Mellon's teaching center offers a research basis for the importance of specifying learning objectives.

Transparency in Teaching and Learning (TILT) (UNLV Instructional Development and Research)
Transparent teaching methods help students understand how and why they are learning course content in particular ways. This site also provides examples and resources for transparent teaching.

Radical Course Revision: A Case Study
This essay in The National Teaching and Learning Forum focuses on how to revise a course through rigorous, critical reflection on teaching, the same kind of systematic critical reflection that is often applied to research. This article includes four steps for successful "radical revision" of an existing course.

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A successful course depends on the planning that precedes it. The articles and links in this section serve as planning guides for both faculty and GSIs. They provide instructions for developing a new or existing course and for creating a syllabus.

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Five Principles of Successful Course Redesign

Download PDF version

Table of Contents

Principle #1: Redesign the whole course.
Principle #2: Encourage active learning.
Principle #3: Provide students with individualized assistance.
Principle #4: Build in ongoing assessment and prompt (automated) feedback.
Principle #5: Ensure sufficient time on task and monitor student progress.
Conclusion

From the 30 projects involved in the Program in Course Redesign, we have identified five course redesign models. Each of these models embodies five principles that lead to successful course redesign, and each of these principles has both a quality dimension that contributes to improved student learning and a cost dimension that contributes to reduced instructional costs. The following principles are essential to achieving success in course redesign.

Principle #1: Redesign the whole course.

In each model, the whole course--rather than a single class or section--is the target of redesign. The course is treated as a set of products and services that can be continuously worked on and improved by all faculty rather than as a "one-off" that gets re-invented by individual faculty members each term. The collective commitment of all faculty teaching the course coupled with the capabilities provided by information technology leads to success. Information technology enables best practices to be captured in the form of interactive Web-based materials supported by sophisticated course-management software. Faculty can systematically incorporate feedback from all involved in the teaching and learning process, adding to, replacing, correcting and improving an ever-growing body of learning materials and best practices.

Improving Quality

Any large introductory course taught by multiple instructors faces the problem of "course drift," especially when the instructors are adjunct faculty members. The phrase "course drift" refers what happens when individual instructors teach the course to suit their individual interests rather than to meet agreed-upon learning goals for students, resulting in inconsistent learning experiences for students and inconsistent learning outcomes. Redesign that ensures consistent content coverage means that all students have the same kinds of learning experiences, resulting in significant improvements in course coherence and quality control.

Reducing Cost

Redesigning the whole course eliminates duplication of effort on the part of instructors and creates opportunities for using alternate staffing patterns. Faculty begin the design process by analyzing the amount of time that each person involved in the course spends on each kind of activity, which often reveals duplication of effort among multiple faculty members. Faculty members teaching the course divide their tasks among themselves and target their efforts to particular aspects of course delivery. By replacing individual development of each course section with shared responsibility for both course development and course delivery, faculty can save substantial amounts of their time while achieving greater course consistency.

Florida Gulf Coast University's traditional course comprised a growing number of 30-student sections. Because the course utilized a large number of adjuncts (approximately two-thirds of the sections were taught by adjuncts), there was significant course drift, yielding uneven coverage of the course topics and uneven student learning. Teaching was uncoordinated; some adjuncts did not adhere to the course learning goals and objectives, and some did not use the selected text. The redesign moved all students into a single section, using a common syllabus, textbook, set of assignments and a course Web site, organized in six modules, each designed by faculty experts. Students were placed into cohort groups of 60 and within them, peer-learning teams of six students each. Preceptors, a newly created position, were responsible for interacting with students and grading critical analysis essays. A single full-time faculty member, responsible for both academic matters and preceptor supervision, taught the course, working closely with a full-time course coordinator responsible for administrative aspects. The model allows FGCU to scale by adding preceptors while maintaining important faculty oversight via ongoing curricular review and course coordination.

The University of Southern Mississippi's redesign moved 16 to 20 face-to-face lecture sections (approximately 60 students each) per term into a single 800-student online section organized around four four-week modules. A course coordinator, responsible for overall course administration, managed the team-teaching of four faculty members who each taught one four-week module in their area of expertise and were responsible for content, complementary materials, quizzes, and exams. Writing assignments were administered by WebCT and were graded by graduate assistants. The coordinator and the four faculty members each received credit for teaching a single course. Before the redesign, USM needed to staff 16 to 20 sections; after the redesign, the university needed the equivalent of only five staffed sections to serve all students.

Additional examples of projects that dealt explicitly with course drift and/or moved to shared course development and delivery among faculty include Brigham Young University, Penn State University, Tallahassee Community College, The University of Alabama, the University of Idaho and Virginia Tech.

Principle #2: Encourage active learning.

Each redesign model makes significant shifts in the teaching-learning enterprise, making it more active and learner-centered. Lectures and other face-to-face classroom presentations are replaced with an array of interactive materials and activities that move students from a passive, note-taking role to an active-learning orientation. As one math professor puts it, "Students learn math by doing math, not by listening to someone talk about doing math." Instructional software and other Web-based learning resources assume an important role in engaging students with course content. Resources include tutorials, exercises and low-stakes quizzes that provide frequent practice, feedback and reinforcement of course concepts. In some instances, classroom meetings are partially or entirely supplanted by online learning activities; in others, active learning environments are created within lecture hall settings supplemented by out-of-class activities. In moving from an entirely lecture-based to a student-engagement approach, learning is less dependent on words uttered by instructors and more dependent on reading, exploring, and problem-solving undertaken actively by students.

Improving Quality

Encouraging active learning is a well-accepted pedagogical principle that leads to improved student learning. As Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson note in their 1987 Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education, "Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions sharpens thinking and deepens understanding."

Reducing Cost

When redesigns reduce the number of lectures or other classroom presentations that faculty members must prepare for and present and replace those formats with interactive learning resources and team-based learning strategies, faculty time can be reallocated to other tasks, either within the same course or in other courses. Moving away from viewing instructors as the sole source of content knowledge and assistance to a greater reliance on interactive learning materials and greater student/student interaction offers many opportunities for reducing instructional costs.

The redesigns of the Universities of Alabama, Idaho and Virginia Tech depended heavily on instructional software, including interactive tutorials, computational exercises, electronic hyper-textbooks, practice exercises, solutions to frequently asked questions, and online quizzes. Modularized online tutorials presented course content with links to a variety of additional learning tools: streaming-video lectures, lecture notes, and exercises. Navigation was interactive; students could choose to see additional explanation and examples along the way. Online weekly practice quizzes replaced weekly homework grading. With the development of a server-based testing system, large databases of questions were easily generated, and grading and record-keeping were automated.

Additional examples of projects that made heavy use of interactive learning materials include Rio Salado College, Tallahassee Community College, the University of Iowa, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Redesign at the University of Colorado at Boulder encouraged active learning through the use of peer-learning teams. The entire class (~200 students) met twice a week. At the first meeting, the instructor provided an overview of the week's activities. About a dozen discussion questions were then posted on the Web, ranging from factual questions to complex questions requiring students to draw conclusions. Midweek, students met for one hour in small learning teams of 10 to 15 students (supervised by undergraduate learning assistants) to prepare answers collaboratively and to carry out inquiry-based team projects. Teams were supported by software that allowed them to collaborate synchronously or asynchronously. Teams posted written answers to all questions. At the next class meeting, the instructor led a discussion session in which he directed questions to the learning teams. Rather than emphasizing students' mastery of facts, the redesign taught students to develop their understanding through written and verbal communication and to draw conclusions from collaborative inquiry-based activities.

Additional examples of projects that made team-based learning an important part of their redesigns include Fairfield University, Florida Gulf Coast University, the University of Dayton, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Iowa, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Principle #3: Provide students with individualized assistance.

In traditional lecture or classroom formats, students are often unlikely or unable to ask questions. Office hours attempt to mitigate this problem, but students notoriously do not take advantage of them. Students need help when they are "stuck" rather than during fixed times or by appointment. Each model either replaces or supplements lecture time with individual and small-group activities that take place in computer labs--staffed by faculty, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and/or peer tutors-and/or online, enabling students to have more one-on-one assistance. Students cannot live by software alone, however. When students get stuck, the tutorials built into most software programs are not enough to get them moving again. Students need human contact as well as encouragement and praise to assure them that they are on the right learning path. An expanded support system enables students to receive help from a variety of different people. Helping students feel that they are a part of a learning community is critical to persistence, learning, and satisfaction.

Improving Quality

Offering students help when they need it rather than according to a schedule not only addresses the particular problems they encounter but also helps keep them on task. Students who are unable to receive help at the time they need it too often give up and do not complete the task that they have been assigned. In addition to providing individualized assistance to students, faculty and others responsible for the course can learn what areas are most difficult for students and can continuously improve the learning activities included in the course.

Reducing Cost

By constructing support systems of various kinds of instructional personnel, the projects apply the right level of human intervention to particular student problems. Highly trained, expert faculty members are not required for all tasks associated with a course. By replacing expensive labor (full-time faculty members and graduate teaching assistants) with relatively inexpensive labor, less expert (adjunct faculty members, undergraduate peer mentors and course assistants) where appropriate, it is possible to increase the person-hours devoted to the course and the amount of assistance provided to students.

The Universities of Alabama and Idaho and Virginia Tech staffed their learning centers with a combination of faculty, GTAs, and peer tutors, who responded directly to each student's specific, immediate needs. Emporium helpers did not answer students' questions but rather directed students to resources from which they could learn. By creating a kind of triage response team, the universities increased the number of contact hours for students while greatly decreasing the cost per hour for that contact. Staffing adjustments could be made based on real use. For example, Alabama's initial plan was to staff primarily with instructors and to use graduate students and upper-level, undergraduate students for tutorial support. It soon became apparent that the undergraduates were as effective as the graduate students in providing tutorial support, thus eliminating the need for graduate students. Based on data collected during the first semester of operation, Alabama also reduced the number of instructors and undergraduate tutors by matching staffing levels to student-use trends.

Another redesign strategy is to contract with companies that specialize in providing on-demand, individualized assistance. Tallahassee Community College outsourced the evaluation of student essay drafts to SMARTHINKING, a company that provides high-quality, real-time, online academic support for core courses in higher education through chat technology, virtual whiteboards and personalized feedback. Institutions can contract with SMARTHINKING to provide tutorial services for their students, either supplementing existing campus services or outsourcing them entirely. Both students and faculty reported consistent 24-hour turnaround, valuable suggestions for improved writing, and supportive commentary; both felt that the responders were highly capable and professional. TCC's use of SMARTHINKING both saved faculty time and increased quality.

A third strategy is to create new kinds of cost-effective positions to provide individualized assistance. Rio Salado College created a new position called a course assistant to address non-content-related questions (which constituted 90 percent of all interactions with students!) and to monitor students' progress. The addition of a course assistant freed the instructor to concentrate on academic rather than logistical interactions with students. As a result, one instructor was able to teach 100 students concurrently enrolled in any of four courses. Before the redesign, the instructor typically taught 35 students in one section. Students, in turn, received more help in a timelier manner.

Additional examples of projects that increased the amount of individualized assistance available to students include Florida Gulf Coast University, The Ohio State University, Penn State University, and Riverside Community College.

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

Increasing the amount and frequency of feedback to students is a well-documented pedagogical technique that leads to increased learning. Rather than relying on individual faculty members in small sections to provide feedback for students--a technique known to increase faculty workload significantly--, each model utilizes computer-based assessment strategies. In many cases, a large bank of problems for each course topic is built into instructional software, and assignments are graded on the spot. In other cases, publishers provide test banks that accompany textbooks, enabling faculty to create low-stakes mastery quizzes. Both techniques enable students to work as long as needed on any particular topic, moving quickly or slowly through the material depending on their comprehension and past experience or education. By automating the feedback process, every problem or question is graded, and students receive specific information about their performance. This, in turn, leads to more efficient and focused time on task and higher levels of learning. Building in ongoing assessment and automated feedback also lets faculty know how well students are (or are not) doing and take timely corrective action.

Improving Quality

Shifting the traditional assessment approach in large introductory courses, which typically employ only midterm and final examinations, toward continuous assessment is an essential pedagogical strategy. Students can be regularly tested on assigned readings and homework using short quizzes that probe their preparedness and conceptual understanding. These low-stakes quizzes motivate students to keep on top of the course material, structure how they study and encourage them to spend more time on task. Online quizzing encourages a "do it till you get it right" approach: Students can be allowed to take quizzes as many times as they want to until they master the material. Students need detailed diagnostic feedback that points out why an incorrect response is inappropriate and directs them to material that needs review. Automating assessment and feedback enables repeated practice as well as providing prompt and frequent feedback--pedagogical techniques that research has consistently proven to enhance learning.

Reducing Cost

The idea of giving students prompt feedback is a well-known pedagogical technique that leads to improved learning. Pedagogy in itself has nothing to do with technology. What is significant about using technology is that doing so allows faculty to incorporate good pedagogical practice into courses with very large numbers of students-a task that would have been impossible without technology. When instructors and/or teaching assistants are responsible for grading, typically they must make compromises such as spot-grading or returning composite scores to students. By replacing hand-grading with automated grading of homework, quizzes and exams, it is possible to reduce the cost of providing feedback while improving its quality. In addition, by assessing and aggregating what students do and do not understand, both individually and collectively, faculty are able to spend class time on what students do not know rather than wasting time on what they already understand, a great improvement over the one-size-fits-all lecture method.

Automated low-stakes quizzes enable both students and faculty to determine what individual students have and haven't learned. At The University of New Mexico, students received credit for completing three online mastery quizzes each week. Students were encouraged to take the quizzes as many times as needed until they attained a perfect score. For all quizzes, only the highest scores counted. The more time students spent taking quizzes and the higher their scores, the better they performed on in-class exams.

To determine whether quizzes that were mandatory (i.e., required for course credit) or voluntary (no course credit) would differentially affect exam and grade performance, UNM faculty conducted an experiment. Students in one section received course points for completion of weekly online mastery quizzes; students in the other section were encouraged to take the mastery quizzes, but received no course points for doing so. On in-class exams, students who were required to complete quizzes for credit always outperformed students in the section where taking quizzes was voluntary and received more As, Bs, and Cs, in addition to fewer C- or below grades. Students took more quizzes, scored higher, and spent longer on quizzes when course credit was at stake than students in the section where quizzes were not linked to credit. Moreover, relatively few students successfully completed quizzes when credit was not a consequence; some students chose not to take quizzes at all.

A second strategy is to build in assessments for students to use both individually and in groups. As part of Penn State's statistics redesign, students were regularly tested on assigned readings and homework using Readiness Assessment Tests (RATs), short quizzes that probed students' conceptual understanding. Constituting 30 percent of the students' grades, RATs were given five to seven times during the course. Students prepared to take the RATs outside of class by reading the textbook, completing homework assignments, and using Web-based resources. Students then took the tests individually. Immediately following the individual effort, the students took the same test in groups of four. In addition to motivating students to keep on top of the course material, RATs proved to be very effective in detecting areas in which students were not grasping the concepts, enabling faculty to take corrective actions in a timely manner.

A third strategy is to take advantage of "smart" feedback systems. Carnegie Mellon's redesign used StatTutor, an automated, intelligent tutoring system that monitored students' work as they went through lab exercises. StatTutor provided them with feedback when they pursued an unproductive path and closely tracked and assessed each student's acquisition of skills in statistical inference-in effect, providing a personal tutor for each student. After using StatTutor, students were able to achieve a level of statistical literacy not deemed possible in the course before its redesign. Florida Gulf Coast University used a software program called the Intelligent Essay Assessor (IEA) to grade short, well-structured students essays. The Intelligent Essay Assessor, once programmed, assessed student essays between 100 and 500 words based on their content and their grammar, mechanics, etc. This software required careful preparation for use, but once fine-tuned, it reliably scored short paragraphs and saved faculty a lot of grading time.

By assessing what students do and do not understand and aggregating the results, instructors are able to use class time more productively. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, students reviewed learning objectives, key concepts, and supplemental materials posted on the class Web site before class. To assess their preparation for class, students then completed online quizzes worth points toward the final grade, which provided immediate feedback to students and data for instructors to assess students' knowledge levels. Instructors were able to reduce class time spent on topics that the students clearly understood, increase time spent on problem areas, and target individual students for remedial help. During class, UMass used ClassTalk, a commercially available, interactive technology that compiles and displays students' responses to problem-solving activities. Class time was divided into ten- to fifteen-minute lecture segments followed by sessions in which students worked in small groups applying concepts to solve problems posed by the instructor. Group responses were reported through ClassTalk. The instructor moderated the discussions and drew out key issues to reinforce specific ideas or reveal misconceptions. Similarly, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, peer-learning teams posted answers to sets of inquiry-based project questions posed by the instructor online. The instructor used software to review all the posted written answers to a given question. If all the teams correctly answered a given question, the instructor skipped that question. Instead, he devoted the discussion time to questions with dissonant answers among teams.

Additional examples of projects that made heavy use of automated feedback include Florida Gulf Coast University, the University of Iowa and the University of Southern Maine.

Principle #5: Ensure sufficient time on task and monitor student progress.

Each redesign model adds greater flexibility in the times and places of student engagement with the course. This does not mean, however, that the redesign projects are "self-paced." Rather than depending on class meetings, the redesigns ensure student pacing and progress by requiring students to master specific learning objectives, frequently in modular format, according to scheduled milestones for completion. Although some projects initially thought of their designs as self-paced, open-entry/open-exit, they quickly discovered that students need structure (especially first-year students and especially in disciplines that may be required rather than chosen) and that most students simply will not make it in a totally self-paced environment. Students need a concrete learning plan with specific mastery components and milestones of achievement, especially in more flexible learning environments.

Most software packages have excellent tracking features, allowing faculty to monitor students' time on task. All projects have seen a fairly strong, direct correlation between student success and time on task. A frequently encountered problem was getting students to spend enough time on task working with the software. Some students were slow to log in, getting too far behind to catch up. Worse yet, some students never logged on. Most projects found it necessary to require students to log in at specific intervals and to spend a minimum amount of time working with course materials. Others established some form of early alert intervention system-- a kind of "class management by exception" process, whereby baseline performance standards were set and those who were falling too behind were contacted. Email can be used to post messages and communicate with students to encourage them to "come to class."

Improving Quality

As Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson note in their 1987 Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education, "Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use one's time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty." Even though we know that time on task is essential to effective learning, it is difficult for faculty members in traditional formats unaided by technology to ascertain how much time on task each student is actually spending and to take corrective action.

Reducing Cost

By replacing time-consuming human monitoring of student performance with course management software, it is possible to reduce costs while increasing the level and frequency of oversight of student progress. Sophisticated course-management software packages enable faculty members to monitor student progress and performance, track their time on task, and intervene on an individualized basis when necessary. Course management systems can automatically generate many different kinds of tailored messages that provide needed information to students. They can also communicate automatically with students to suggest additional activities based on homework and quiz performance, or to encourage greater participation in online discussions. Using course-management systems radically reduces the amount of time that faculty members typically spend in non-academic tasks like calculating and recording grades, photocopying course materials, posting changes in schedules and course syllabi, sending out special announcements to students-as well as documenting course materials like syllabi, assignments, and examinations so that they can be used in multiple terms.

At The University of New Mexico, students who scored 75% or less on the first exam, which was administered at the end of the third week, were told that they should attend a weekly 50-minute studio for the remainder of the semester. During studios, students had the opportunity to work on multimedia course material, take quizzes, learn a memorization strategy, and discuss their course performance with undergraduate TAs (who were recruited from students who received A's in the course the previous semester). Those students who were advised to attend but who failed to attend any studio typically failed the course. In contrast, the more studios a student attended, the better their course performance.

Whereas Virginia Tech followed an open-attendance model in its redesign, the Universities of Alabama and Idaho added mandatory attendance and required group meetings to ensure that students spent sufficient time on task. Alabama required students to spend a minimum of 3.5 hours per week in its learning center and to attend a thirty-minute group session each week. This session focused on students' problems and allowed instructors to follow up in areas where testing defined weaknesses. Idaho students were assigned to focus groups, of 40 to 50 students each, grouped according to their majors, so that particular applications could be emphasized. Groups met once a week to coordinate activities and discuss experiences and expectations. Both universities believe that the group activities helped build community among students and between students and instructors.

Additional examples of projects that focused on providing structure to ensure sufficient time on task include Rio Salado College, Riverside Community College, and The Ohio State University.

Conclusion

One of the strongest reasons for using information technology in teaching and learning is that it can radically increase the array of learning possibilities presented to each individual student. Thus, the "right way" to design a high-quality course depends entirely on the type of students involved. Students need to be treated like individuals, rather than homogenous groups, and should be offered many more learning options within each course. By customizing the learning environment for each student, institutions are likely to achieve greater learning successes.

Rather than maintaining a fixed view of what all students want or what all students need, institutions must be flexible and create environments that enable greater choice for students. Students differ in the backgrounds they bring to a course. While some students have strong prior experiences in a particular discipline, either through good high school preparation or other work experience, other students have weaker backgrounds. Offering students greater choice so that they can identify and spend time on the areas where they lack knowledge rather than spending equal time on all areas can accommodate such variation in backgrounds.

Students also differ in the amount of interaction that they require with faculty, staff, and one another. At the British Open University, for example, approximately one-third of the students never interact with other people but pursue their studies independently. New York's Excelsior College reports that 20 percent of its students take up to 80 percent of staff time, indicating a strong need for human interaction, in contrast to the 80 percent of students who require very little interaction. Rather than assuming that all or most course activities need to be conducted face-to-face, successful course redesigns begin by considering what aspects of the course require face-to-face time and what aspects of the course can be better conducted online.

Currently in higher education, both on campus and online, we individualize faculty practice (that is, we allow individual faculty members great latitude in course development and delivery) and standardize the student learning experience (that is, we treat all students in a course as if their learning needs, interests, and abilities were the same). Instead, we need to do just the opposite: individualize student learning and standardize faculty practice. By thinking more creatively about how to develop course designs that respond to a variety of learning styles and preferences, we can include structures and activities that work well with diverse types of students and lead to better, more cost-effective learning for all.

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Five Principles of Successful Course Redesign

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Five Principles of Successful Course Redesign Download PDF version Table of Contents Principle #1: Redesign the whole course. Principle #2: Encourage active learning. Principle #3: Provide students with individualized assistance. Principle #4: Build in ongoing assessment and prompt (automated) feedback. Principle #5: Ensure sufficient time on task and monitor student progress.

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Association of American Colleges & Universities

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For over a decade Saundra McGuire has been acclaimed for her presentations and workshops on metacognition and student learning because the tools and strategies she shares have enabled faculty to facilitate dramatic improvements in student learning and success. This book encapsulates the model and ideas she has developed in the past fifteen years, ideas that are being adopted by an increasing number of faculty with considerable effect.

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Teach Students How to Learn by Saundra McGuire

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For over a decade Saundra McGuire has been acclaimed for her presentations and workshops on metacognition and student learning because the tools and strategies she shares have enabled faculty to facilitate dramatic improvements in student learning and success.

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The Science of Successful Learning

Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel

Harvard University Press books are not shipped directly to India due to regional distribution arrangements. Buy from your local bookstore, Amazon.co.in, or Flipkart.com.

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ISBN 9780674729018

Publication date: 04/14/2014

To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.

Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned.

Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

Praise

A highly engaging and accessible text that neatly provides the reader with both a thorough grounding in the empirical and theoretical work on durable learning, while also offering specific, actionable recommendations for immediate implementation.

-Kathryn E. Frazier, Currents in Teaching and Learning

Aimed primarily at students, parents, and teachers, Make It Stick also offers practical advice for learners of all ages, at all stages of life... With its credible challenge to conventional wisdom, Make It Stick does point the way forward, with a very real prospect of tangible and enduring benefits.

-Glenn C. Altschuler, Psychology Today

Presents a compelling case for why we are attracted to the wrong strategies for learning and teaching-and what we can do to remedy our approaches... In clear language, Make It Stick explains the science underlying how people learn. But the authors don't simply recite the research; they show readers how it is applied in real-life learning scenarios, with engaging stories of real people in academic, professional, and sports environments... The learning strategies proposed in this book can be implemented immediately, at no cost, and to great effect... Make It Stick will help you become a much more productive learner.

-Stephanie Castellano, TD Magazine

This is a quite remarkable book. It describes important research findings with startling implications for how we can improve our own learning, teaching, and coaching. Even more, it shows us how more positive attitudes toward our own abilities-and the willingness to tackle the hard stuff-enables us to achieve our goals. The compelling stories bring the ideas out of the lab and into the real world.

-Robert Bjork, University of California, Los Angeles

Learning is essential and life-long. Yet as these authors argue convincingly, people often use exactly the wrong strategies and don't appreciate the ones that work. We've learned a lot in the last decade about applying cognitive science to real-world learning, and this book combines everyday examples with clear explanations of the research. It's easy to read-and should be easy to learn from, too!

-Daniel L. Schacter, author of The Seven Sins of Memory

Authors

Peter C. Brown is a writer and former management consultant.

Henry L. Roediger III is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Mark A. McDaniel is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE) at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Make It Stick - Harvard University Press

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To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head.

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Effective teachers, like other effective communicators, recognize the value of understanding their audience. However, for an educator, audience analysis reveals a complexity of differences among students in any given learning environment. Richard Felder says, "The more thoroughly instructors understand the differences, the better chance they have of meeting the diverse learning needs of all of their students" ("Understanding Student Differences," Journal of Engineering Education 94 [2005]: 57).

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Effective Teaching / Improving Teaching / Transparency

Building Transparent Classroom Assignments

Improving Teaching and Learning /

Creating better course assignments can start with transparent teaching, one professor says. Tanya Martini, a professor of psychology at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, shared her approach to making assignments more relevant to her students in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Martini was frustrated that students in course evaluations said her assignments were pointless, so she started to include applicable skills. She then ran an experiment to see whether or not the skill list helped in making students feel like assignments were more relevant. Unfortunately, many of the students in her survey did not say that having the skill list helped.

Martini realized that some students thought of skills in a narrow way. To address this problem, she added more specific language to her assignments to show students how the skills that they develop in her course could apply to classes in other fields. For example, in a second-year human learning course where second-year students create study materials for students in the introductory course, Martini included this note: ""You may think that this is a pointless exercise if you have no interest in being a teacher (and, more specifically, teaching PSYC 1F90)," she wrote in the instructions. But using design thinking "happens in any field where people have to ask themselves, on a regular basis, questions like, 'How can we do this? How can we make this experience/process work? Could we be making this experience/process better for people? And if we could, what would 'better' look like?'"

Martini's approach, which is part of a broader effort called transparency in teaching and learning, could help faculty and other teachers develop assignments that are more relevant, and therefore more engaging, for students.

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Creating better course assignments can start with transparent teaching, one professor says. Tanya Martini, a professor of psychology at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, shared her approach to making assignments more relevant to her students in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Educatio