large scale curriculum redesign across the disciplines in a distributed learning environment nicola...
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Large Scale Curriculum Redesign Across The Disciplines in a Distributed Learning Environment
Nicola Martinez
Director of Curriculum and Instructional Design
Center for Distance Learning
Who We Are: Empire State College
Locations around New York State
The Center for Distance Learning (CDL) serves adult students around the world
Center for Distance Learning
Adult learning centeredoffers asynchronous online courses in five, 15-week semesters per yearleading enroller in the SUNY Learning Networkpartner with several institutions such as eArmyU & Navy, public & private organizations, labor unions
Center for Distance Learning Course Statistics
330 distinct online courses, many with multiple sections46 courses developed/revised for Sept 0350+ courses in development for Jan 0468 courses developed or revised for Sept 0470 courses in development/revision cycle for Jan 04All courses on a two year revision cycleManaged using the Coursetrak system
Areas of Study
The Arts | Business, Management & Economics | Community & Human Services | Communications, Humanities & Cultural Studies | Educational Studies | Historical Studies | Human Development | Labor Studies | Science, Math & Technology | Social Theory, Structure & Change
Curriculum Committee
The Curriculum Committee oversees the approval of course proposals and development of policies and procedures for Center for Distance Learning courses.
The committee provides leadership in identifying and discussing curricular issues on the course and overall curricular levels.
Committee Members represent each of the four area of study subgroups, comprised of 17 area coordinators representing all areas of study.
http://www.esc.edu/cdldeveloper
Curriculum and Instructional Design Group
Advises area coordinators on curriculum development
Shepherds developers through the development cycle
Provides pedagogical, assessment, and instructional development training as needed
Designs course development processes Facilitates team development sessions Aligns support for course developers Assures academic excellence and design quality of
courses Oversees program evaluation and improvements.
CDL Course Development Teams
Development Team = multidisciplinary group in charge of creation, conversion or revision of Center for Distance Learning courses. A development team includes one or more of the following:
An area coordinatorA coordinator of instructional design and curriculum development for the course area of studyOne or more course developersOne or more instructional designersA multimedia instructional designerAnd a librarian.
Developer Course creator/content expert: a member of the development team. S/he develops the course content and assessment activities.
Course Development Resources and Support
Examples of Resources and Support Provided to Developers:
Instructional Design Assistance Pedagogical Advice Library Review of Course and Research Assignments Assistance Designing Learning Activities Media Rich Content Identification Multimedia Learning Objects Website Identification, Evaluation, and Compilation Digital Image Identification Best Practice Examples Provided
Curriculum Redesign Goals
At the macro level, redesign curriculum across the center
At the micro level, take a systematic approach to the improvement of course design, including:
look and feelpedagogical approachesstandard documentsvisual learning componentsmedia rich content enhancementslibrary research activities
Faculty Contributions
Course Models: HassengerOaksCarnevaleBall
Design Ideas Best Practices Exemplary materials
to share with other faculty as part of the curricular and pedagogical redesign project.
Our Approach
Develop a new standard for course information documents and implement them in the courses
Create a new design for CDL web courses to increase navigability and overall consistencies in look, feel, and format
Enrich courses with multimedia components and other graphic enhancements
Include library referenced materials in all courses, with at least one library-based learning activity per course
Identify and implement best practices in the pursuit of academic and pedagogical excellence in web course development for adult learners taking distance learning courses
Course Ratings
We established a three-tiered categorization of courses based on the inclusion of the above recommendations and the application of a new course design.
All new and revised courses are reviewed an assigned the following ratings
Course Rating System
Tier Rating
Tier 3 Exemplary Course
Tier 2 AcceptableSome criteria met, revisions needed
Tier 1 Not Acceptable (recommend cancel)
NR Not Rated
Course Rating System
Tier information and classification is generated as a result of the information captured in The Empire State College Online Course Evaluation Checklist.
All courses are considered unrated until they have been reviewed with this instrument.
The evaluation piece associated with The Empire State College Online Course Evaluation Checklist happens at several levels.
Online Course Evaluation Checklist
Administered during and after a new course has been developed, before delivery
Before an old course is revised to identify specific areas targeted for improvement
After an old course has been revised to ensure that it is complete and meets all baseline criteria for a Tier 3 course
http://www.esc.edu/coursetrak
The Course Resource Needs Analysis
Information captured in the Course Resource Needs Analysis Form is used to generate work requests for
technical assistance library assistance multimedia learning object creation digital media research and implementation instructional design/pedagogical support copyright permissions
http://www.esc.edu/coursetrak
Curricular Redesign Project:
New Online Courses Print to Web Course Conversions Major Revisions of Online Courses Residencies to Online and Vice Versa
New Online Courses
Easiest to Implement Pre-designed templates with pre-filled standard
documents Successful delivery of Tier 3 courses
Print to Web Course Conversions
More difficult than new
Challenges: Legacy approach
Challenge converting from static to dynamic environment
Legacy Courses
No images or media enrichment. Did not benefit from
multimedia specialist intervention. May or may not have library research component. Did not
benefit from librarian-researched resources. Did not benefit from newly available library of shared
resources for developers, including explicit best practice guidelines for learning activities and sample assignments
No standard structure No standard documents Naming inconsistencies Content may be extremely well developed, or may need
revision as well
Revisions
New course model Image enrichment and multimedia intervention Librarian-researched resources Content enhancement Revising of learning activities Perhaps a reorganization of course sequencing
Successful Revision Method
1. Fill the new, empty course template with a pre-designed course model
2. Rename and renumber the old course materials. 3. Drop them into the new model at the bottom of the
new materials4. A library of course development resources is also
placed in the new template
Successful Revision Method
5. A course developer and instructional designer copy and paste the old materials into the new template. The developer takes this opportunity to review content and learning activities. S/he revises the material as appropriate.
6. Requests for images and learning go to the multimedia specialist
7. Library resource requests go to the librarian8. Instructional designer assists the developer to
make additional structural changes to the course as appropriate
Course Readiness
Pre-Publishing Refinements
1. Final edit 2. Format review3. Evaluation4. Content Review by content expert
Conclusion
Large Scale Curriculum Improvement is an Ongoing Center for Distance Learning Project. Current projects include:
The goal of bringing all CDL courses to a tier 3 level within 2 years
A media, learning, and development research team focusing on researching next generation interactive media for learning enrichment
Implementing visual learning across the curriculum, beginning with science, marketing, and Fire Services courses.
Questions?
Contact Information:
518-587-2100 x 776