OPTIONS IN INSTRUCTIONAL MODELING

Meeting demand in demanding times

Diane MusumeciDepartment of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese

Faculty 9.25 FTE Tenured 7.75 FTE Tenure-track 6 FTE Academic professionals 4.5 FTE Other (Lecturers)

Graduate Students 28.17 FTE (59 Active) 54% International 46% Domestic

Undergraduate Students 500 Majors, 464 Minors 3,000 students in basic language per year 8,000 students total per year

29,000 IU’s per year

LanguagesLanguages DisciplinesDisciplines

Literature/Cultural Studies Iberian Latin American

Linguistics Formal Applied

Departmental Culture

Teaching Load

Tenured/tenure-track faculty 2-2 (with course release for various administrative

assignments, research leave)

Academic professionals and Lecturers 3-3 (with course release for supervisory roles)

Graduate TAs 50% appt = equivalent of 3 courses/year (20 hrs./wk)

Challenges

Language instruction is resource-intensive Resources are limited Demand for Spanish is high and continues to

increase University graduation requirement in non-

primary language (3 semester requirement for all colleges, except LAS and Business which have a 4 semester requirement)

Increased demand for fifth-semester and beyond Majors (and double majors) Minors

History

Prior to 1998

Enrollments in all undergraduate courses set at a maximum of 22-25 students with one instructor

Undergraduate Curriculum

Undergraduate Curriculum

Innovation Timeline

Course formats (2009-10)

50-50 blended courses SPAN 122/103/141/142

Large faculty-taught lecture & small TA discussion SPAN 204/250/252/254

Online SPAN 200

Community service-learning SPAN 232

‘Traditional’ Lect-Disc SPAN 208/228/all *300- and 400-level *SPAN 307 Bilingualism (TA support)

Requisites for Change

Change in culture Buy-in

Incentives Development Implementation Sustaining the innovation

Administrative changes Materials Technologies

THANK YOU

Incentives

Two caveats The point system is one that should be considered

transitional (i.e., it may phased out when this way of offering courses becomes part of the unit's culture).

This system pertains only to large, faculty-led lectures with TA- led discussion sections (in Spanish, Practical Review of Grammar, Intro to Literary Analysis, Intro to Hispanic Linguistics, Intro to Cultural Analysis). The minimum enrollment in the lecture should be 150 (250 in Grammar); the maximum enrollment in the discussion sections should be 25.

Incentives (cont.)

Faculty who want to revise/develop one of the courses should also be willing to teach it the first couple of times. They should talk to me about what is required and available summer funding.

Once the course is ready, it will be taught on a 'point' system, as follows:

Incentives (cont.)

The first time a course is taught is the most labor intensive.The faculty member who teaches the course for the first time earns 3 points and funding in a research account ($1000).

If the same faculty member agrees to teach the course a second time (and we would encourage this, since it takes more than one try to 'get the bugs out'), the faculty member would earn an additional 2 points.

In either case, the faculty member must agree to supply the course syllabus and materials to the next person who teaches the course.

If the same faculty member teaches the course again, s/he earns one point each time.

Incentives (cont.)

A different faculty member who teaches the course subsequently earns 2 points the first time s/he teaches it and 1 point each time thereafter.

Incentives (cont.)

Point Values: 3 points can be exchanged for teaching one small (2-5

student) seminar (could be graduate or undergraduate) as part of one's regular course load.

5 points can be exchanged for one course release for the following semester/year.

A maximum of 5 points can be carried over from one year to the next.

Incentives (cont.)

Course releases and teaching small seminars are attractive incentives for most of our faculty in SIP. There are other incentives that may be appropriate in individual cases (funds in a research account, conference travel, conference sponsorship/support) that could be negotiated.

Thank you!