Welcome

Welcome! I’m Adam Sanford, and this my ePortfolio for the 2017-18 CSU Chancellor’s Office “Course Redesign With Technology” Institute. The Institute was established to support and assist faculty in redesigning courses that are “bottleneck” courses facing high repeatable-grade rates, whether those courses are required courses for a major or popular courses that create high demand, but have but low success.

This website documents the redesign of SOC 368, Criminology, at CSU Dominguez Hills, a popular sociology course which has regular enrollment from students in multiple majors. Due to campus limitations in classroom availability, we must offer it online more often than not, and that situation has created a bottleneck situation for this course compared to other courses offered by the department. This ePortfolio details the specific issues faced by students in this course, and how technological and pedagogical redesign should alleviate or correct most of these issues, so the tools and insights used and discovered through this redesign can be shared to other faculty in the CSU system who may be facing similar problems in their courses.

Using the menu bar along the top of this page, you can move from stage to stage to see the development and progress of this redesign, from initial conception to final outcomes.

This home page is the starting point for the redesign ePortfolio, and descriptions of each menu item.

Stage 1: About the Course Redesign

This page covers the background of the course, the reasons for the redesign, and the proposed solutions.

Stage 1 is scheduled for completion no later than early August of 2017.

Stage 2: About the Students and the Instructor

This page will cover my background and the background of the typical students in the course, including:

  • Student demographics of past and current sections of the course
  • The Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for the redesigned course
  • Discussion of how the redesign will align with these SLOs
  • Accessibility, diversity, and affordability considerations
  • Information about me as an instructor.

Stage 2 is scheduled for completion no later than early October of 2017.

Stage 3: About the Course Redesign Plan

This page will cover how the redesign has changed the course from its original design, including:

  • The incorporation of new pedagogies and technologies
  • The reasoning behind using these pedagogies and technologies
  • Professional development activities that affected the course redesign
  • Individuals who served as consultants or assistants in the redesign, such as librarians, instructional designers, colleagues, and other campus and off-campus resources

Stage 3 is scheduled for completion no later than mid-January 2018.

Stage 4: About the Redesign Results

This page will cover the outcomes of the course redesign, including:

  • Whether the redesign solved the original problem
  • Whether and how the students mastered the SLOs
  • Whether the students in the redesigned course were more successful than students in previous courses
  • Any unexpected results from the redesigned course
  • Graphs, tables, and sample student work demonstrating the changes between the original and redesigned courses
  • Student feedback, including challenges the students may have encountered in the redesign
  • Lessons I learned and redesign tips, including obstacles I encountered in the redesign and strategies to increase student engagement
  • My reflection on the experience of redesigning the course, participating in the CRT Institute, and developing this ePortfolio

Stage 4 is scheduled for completion no later than mid-June 2018.