Rice Digital Learning and ScholarshipRice Digital Learning and Scholarship

Caroline LevanderVice Provost for Interdisciplinary

InitiativesMay 7th, 2013

Initiative 1Initiative 1: STEMscopes: STEMscopesTMTM

STEMscopes Landscape:

•STEM careers = 50% of U.S. economic development

•In 2005 only 41% or 26% of high school graduates achieved college readiness benchmarks in math and science, respectively

•30% of middle school science teachers are not certified or did not major in science

•69% of high school graduates are not ready for college level science

• K-12, full textbook replacement, digital science curriculum

• Serving 1.3 million students throughout Texas

• With 40% of the market share in Texas, STEMscopes is the #1 most digitally used K-8 science curriculum

• Provides a recruitment pipeline from K to college for Rice University

• In a 2-year study of 8th grade students, STEMscopes is shown to make students 1.52 times more likely to score “proficient” and 1.21 times more likely to score “advanced” on state science assessments

STEMscopes MissionSTEMscopes Mission

• Created “for teachers, by teachers”

• Focus on inquiry, problem solving, and critical thinking

• Empower the teacher, not replace the teacher

Future ExpansionFuture Expansion

As more and more states adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, STEMscopes™ plans to create a

NGSS curriculum for 26 states adopting in 2014.

Initiative 2Initiative 2: OpenStax College: OpenStax College

• Hewlett Foundation

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

• Twenty Million Minds Foundation

• Laura and John Arnold Foundation

• Maxfield Foundation

• Leon Lowenstein Foundation

• Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation

What is OpenStax College?What is OpenStax College?

• OpenStax College is the newest initiative of Rice’s Connexions (http://cnx.org)

• Creating a series of professionally-developed and peer-reviewed textbooks that are openly licensed and free for students.

• Books powered by the Connexions (http://cnx.org) authoring platform.

• GOAL: Increase access for students to a high-quality education by reducing the cost to students. (Specifically textbook costs)

2012: Phase I2012: Phase I

2012-2014: Phase II Expansion2012-2014: Phase II Expansion

Expanding (Inter)nationallyExpanding (Inter)nationally

• Founding Partner of the U.S. Department of State’s Open Book Project.

• Focused on enabling International and National expansion of open access and open educational resource creation.

• Translating open content into many languages starting with Arabic.

• Founding Partner of the U.S. Department of State’s Open Book Project.

• Focused on enabling International and National expansion of open access and open educational resource creation.

• Translating open content into many languages starting with Arabic.

Initiative 3Initiative 3: Rice Online Course : Rice Online Course DevelopmentDevelopment

• Consortium member of both edX and Coursera

• One of only 3 universities that have joined both

• 12 Members, including:• MIT• Harvard• UC Berkeley• UT Austin

• Offering 26 courses, 1.2 million learners

• 62 universities, including• Stanford University• Columbia University• Duke University

• Offering 329 courses, 2.9 million learners

Phase I: Coursera CoursesPhase I: Coursera Courses

•Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python

o Joe Warren, Scott Rixner o 80K enrolled, Sept. 2012 to Dec. 2012o 4,000 completed

•Fundamentals of Electrical Engineeringo Don Johnson o 33K enrolled, started January 2013

•Chemistry: Concept Development and Application

o John Hutchinsono 16K enrolled, started March 2013

•Analytical Chemistryo Vicki Colvin – Anticipated May 2013 start

Phase II Online CoursesPhase II Online Courses

• Rich Baraniuk (ECE), Signals and Systems

• Adrian Lenardic, Cin-Ty Lee, Francis Albarede, Alan Levander, Rajdeep Dasgupta (Earth Science), Evolution of the Solar System and the Earth

• Jason Hafner (Physics), Physics 102

• Kathy Matthews (BCB), Bioc 300

• Don Morrison, Harvey Yunis (Philosophy), Socrates / Phil 301

• Alma Novotny (BCB), Immunology

• Anthony Pinn (Religious Studies), Religion and Hip Hop Culture

• Vivek Sarkar (CS), Parallel Programming / Comp 322

• John Hutchinson (Chemistry), Chem 122

• Don Johnson (ECE), Lab for Elec 241

• Luay Nakhleh (CS), Algorithmic Thinking / Comp 182

• Rebecca Richards–Kortum, Ann Saterbak, Maria Oden (Bioengineering), Bioe 449

RDLS MissionRDLS Mission

Rice University's Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship (RDLS) develops disruptive technologies to improve educational outcomes for

learners of all ages. Its tools are already in wide use both nationally and internationally by millions of students per month. Thanks to its wide scope and unprecedented ability to collect and analyze learning interaction data, the center is advancing the research frontiers in technology for education,

machine-learning, and cognitive science.

More information: RDLS.rice.edu