Connecting Hypotheses to the Redesign
This redesign proposes 12 hypotheses about changes that should make a positive difference in the course DFWI rate. Each of these hypotheses is listed below, with a description of the associated redesign steps.
There are three groups of hypotheses:
Pre-design: Changes made to procedures before the start date of class. These changes are aimed at making sure that students are aware of what they’re getting into, what will be expected of them, and the time demands of the class.
Re-design: Changes made to how the course is structured – types of assessments, types of assignments, due dates and scheduling, conditional release of assignments, etc.
Other: Changes made for other reasons.
Pre-Design Hypotheses
Pre-Design: Making enrollees aware of the course focus
H1: As enrollee awareness of the course focus increases, post-census drop rates should decrease.
New pedagogies: None for this hypothesis.
New technology: Google form to collect their responses to the awareness email.
Other additions or changes: Pre-emptive email, sent several times during the two weeks before the semester starts.
To raise enrollee awareness of the course focus, a pre-emptive email, sent two weeks before the beginning of the semester, and again one week before the semester to ensure that students understand the focus of the course, and to give them a chance (through an online Google form) to affirm their choice to stay in the course.
At the time the first e-mail was sent, on January 8th, there were 40 students enrolled and one student on the waitlist. Given the responses from the first email, I decided to send it three times during the last week before class, instead of just once. The email received 13 responses for the first email, 3 more from the second email sent on January 15th, and 6 more from the third email sent on January 17th. I sent it a final time on the evening of January 19th. At that time, 23 students had responded and 1 had dropped. As of the morning of January 23rd, 34 students had responded.
I also recorded an introductory video message that students were able to see in Canvas, to make sure they responded to this email before the instructor drop date passed.
The text of the email is below.
___
Hi!
You’ve either enrolled in Criminology or you’re on the wait list for spring 2018, and I want to welcome you to the course. I also want to make sure you know what the course is about, as students sometimes assume it’s about something that it’s not.
Criminology is not about police procedure or court procedure (criminal justice), and it’s not about crime scene investigation. Criminology is the scientific study of the causes and effects of crime. It takes a sociological approach, so this class isn’t going to talk about case studies of individual criminals or explanations that talk about individual motivations for crime. Instead, it looks at how the social environment can cause crime.
Please read the two articles linked below:
http://crimesceneinvestigator.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-criminologist-and-a-csi/
After you’ve read those articles, please go to this Google form (https://goo.gl/forms/79eSQ8bvKwhb4MF13), fill it out, and submit it, to let me know that you’ve read and understood this email.
I look forward to “seeing” you in the class!
Best,
Dr. Sanford
Pre-Design: Making enrollees aware of the time and skills required for online courses
H2: As enrollee awareness of the demands of an online course increases, post-census drop rates should decrease.
H7: As active commitment to dedicated time for the course increases, post-census drop rates should decrease.
H8: As active commitment to dedicated time for the course increases, course D, F, and I rates should decrease.
New pedagogies: Adult learning activity (goal-setting exercise); online quiz to assess their readiness for an online course; reflection on the online quiz; written plan to address issues identified by the online quiz; designating specific times, days and hours to work on this class
New technology: Online quiz.
Other additions or changes: None for this hypothesis.
To increase enrollee awareness of these demands, a “Do This First” module is the first thing students will see when they access the course Canvas page, to allow them to assess their readiness for the course. This module has three parts:
1. An adult learning activity where the student states their desired grade and lists each assignment they need to complete for that grade (Goal-Setting Exercise). Students who do not complete the list of assignments correctly by their third attempt will have to have a meeting with the instructor to discuss issues. Creating a list of required assignments and target scores will make the student aware of what the actual workload is for a given grade. (Previously, students assumed that every single assignment was required, which is not the case in a standards-based grading system.)
2. An online quiz to assess their readiness for an online course. Once they have their results, students must complete a reflection exercise, where they evaluate their results and make a written plan to address any areas of deficiency. They also have the option to decide not to take the course if they discover they are not ready for it.
3. A discussion board where students will identify how much time the course requires (9 hours per week) and state the regular times each week when they will “attend” the course, in a public post for accountability.
All three items in the “Do This First” module must be completed by the day before the instructor drop date, or the student will be dropped from the course.
Re-Design Hypotheses
Re-Design: Providing writing support for enrollees
H3: As support for writing assistance for enrollees increases, post-census drop rates should decrease.
H4: As support for writing assistance for enrollees increases, course D, F and I rates should decrease.
New pedagogies: None for this hypothesis.
New technology: Remind text-messages to students about the availability of this resource
Other additions or changes: Links on the LMS Course Resources page
These two hypotheses will be addressed by links in the Resources link on the course Canvas page. Initially, these will be links to the Campus Writing Center and the Toro Learning Center’s appointment areas.
Students will also be sent periodic text-message reminders, using Remind, to go to the Campus Writing Center for help with their written work.
Re-Design: Workload Issues
H9: As perceived and actual workloads decrease, post-census drop rates should decrease.
H10: As perceived and actual workloads decrease, course D, F, and I rates should decrease.
New pedagogies: Goal-setting assignment; study plan form
New technology: PlayPosit for embedded homework questions in videos
Other additions or changes: Removal of journals and discussion boards; addition of collaborative notes; lecture videos now give grade credit for watching through completion of embedded homework questions; short videos to go over each kind of assignment
The previous syllabus had 22 lecture videos (not graded, but required), 15 discussion boards, 15 journal assignments, 7 quizzes, and 3 research assignments, for a total of 62 assignments. Of those assignments, 33 were writing-heavy assignments (written responses requiring more than two double-spaced pages of writing, or more than about 500 words, denoted with a red asterisk*).
The current redesign has 29 lecture videos, 5 collaborative notes assignments, 5 quizzes, and 3 research assignments, for a total of 42 assignments. Of these assignments, only 8 are writing-heavy assignments (the collaborative notes assignments and the research assignments).
Total Change in Workload
The total graded workload has been reduced from 22 videos, 15 discussion boards, 15 journal assignments, 7 quizzes, and 3 research assignments (total = 62) to 29 videos, 5 collaborative notes assignments, 5 quizzes, and 3 research assignments (total = 42 assignments).
Student complaints about workload seem to center on writing-heavy assignments, so the number of writing-heavy assignments has been drastically reduced, from 33 to 8.
Although the raw number of assignments required to pass the course with a C is still about the same, the number of writing-heavy assignments has been reduced from 21 to 4.
The specific redesigns and changes for each assignment are discussed below.
Lecture Videos
Redesign: Some of the original lecture videos were longer than an hour, which is not sustainable for today’s students’ attention spans. I split several of these longer videos into shorter, more focused videos. 25 minutes is now an unusually long video; most are now about 15 minutes or less. While this resulted in 29 videos, students will not be stuck in front of their computers for several hours as they may have been before, which allows for more flexibility.
In the original class, students also received no credit for them but still had to watch them. They are now video/homework assignments created on PlayPosit and embedded in the course LMS as assignments. The videos have embedded homework questions at the end of the video. Students can rewind and review if they are not sure of an answer, and the scores count towards the student’s grade module. Giving course credit for the video lectures should improve student willingness to do this work, as it is now part of their grade, not just something they have to do.
Assignment Guidelines for Lecture Video/Homework Assignments
Discussion Boards and Journals
Redesign: The discussion and journal assignments have been replaced with a once-per-module collaborative notes assignment. The goal of the discussion boards was to make sure students had done the required reading from the book, and the journal assignments were to make sure students rewrote their notes. The collaborative notes assignment, which is a collaborative Page on Canvas all students can edit and comment on, accomplishes both goals while substantially reducing workload.
Assignment Guidelines for Collaborative Notes Assignment
Module Quizzes
Redesign: The number of quizzes has been reduced by 2, for a total of 5 quizzes.
Research Assignments
There were three research assignments in the original class that built on each other: an annotated bibliography, a literature review, and a research paper.
The research assignments stay substantially the same, but their assignment guidelines have been substantially improved and clarified based on feedback from several classes. Short video lectures that go over each type of assignment will be included as reference material for students.
The assignment guidelines for each research assignment can be found at the links below:
Annotated Bibliography Assignment Guidelines
Literature Review Assignment Guidelines
Research Paper Assignment Guidelines
Additional Supports and Changes
Students will complete a non-graded goal-setting assignment that will help them realize the total number of assignments available is not necessarily their total workload. For example, under the standards-based grading system, completing 26 assignments will give a student a C, and 19 of those are simply watching video lectures and answering homework questions. Students will also have the opportunity to update their goal three times during the semester and re-evaluate their plan to achieve it.
Students will also be given the opportunity to create a structured study plan for each module quiz at this Google Form. Many students do not know how to study for exams or quizzes effectively, and this will draw their attention to what they need to do.
Certain exercises have been retained: writing workshops, research workshops, and a student-success workshop. A “how to study effectively” video will also be included this semester. These exercises are graded complete/incomplete.
The threshold quizzes which blocked access to certain assignments (until the students had proved they could pass a quiz on their assignment guidelines) have been removed for this class. The module system and “mastery path” system on Canvas allow instructors to block progress to the next module until certain steps have been taken, so for the research assignments, students will have to have accessed the guidelines before they can open the submission area.
Other Hypotheses
Other: Visual and organizational clutter reduction
H5: As visual and organizational design simplicity increases, post-census drop rates should decrease.
H6: As visual and organizational design simplicity increases, post-census D, F, and I rates should decrease.
New pedagogies: None for this hypothesis.
New technology: Canvas LMS
Other additions or changes: None for this hypothesis.
The course page has been moved to Canvas, which has a programming option that Blackboard does not have. Blackboard can make access to certain assignments only available after a prerequisite has been completed, but hides the assignment with the prerequisite from the students entirely until then. Canvas, on the other hand, allows students to see all the assignments they must do, but prevents access to them unless the prerequisite assignments have been completed. This problem could not be solved in Blackboard, but it can be solved by changing the class LMS site to Canvas.
Canvas allows a clean, clear presentation of modules, as shown in this screenshot.
In this layout, students do not need to “drill down” to see a module or its contents; it is all presented on the front page of the course. Assignments are all linked in the module, so students simply open the LMS and click to access an assignment. If they have not completed a prerequisite for the assignment, they will receive a message telling them why they can’t access that assignment yet, and what they have to do to be able to access it.
Other: Reducing the Impersonality of the Online Course
H11: As avenues for personal connection with the professor increase, post-census drop rates should decrease.
H12: As avenues for personal connection with the professor increase, course D, F, and I rates should decrease.
New pedagogies: None for this hypothesis.
New technology: Zoom, Remind, Jing
Other additions or changes: None for this hypothesis.
Email and Zoom will be made available as links on the Canvas home page. I will also use Jing to make personal vocal comments on student work to increase the feeling of personal connection with the professor, and the Remind text-messaging system to contact students, since most students today see text-messaging as a valid and “real” form of social interaction.
Professional Development Activities
I had the opportunity to attend the Course Redesign with Technology Intensive in June 2017 to get initial exposure to many new possible pedagogies and technologies that would help in course redesign.
After the intensive, I was also able to attend cohort breakout meetings once per month to exchange ideas and get help with problems I was facing in the redesign.
Finally, in October 2017 I completed a year-long academic-coaching training program, and am now a Certified Anti-Boring Approach Coach. Some of the pedagogical tools I learned in this program have entered the redesign as well (for example, having students publicly commit to goals, plan out their time, and increase their awareness of what that will require).
Consultants, Assistants, and Other Helpers
Many people helped me with this redesign, but I want to mention these folks especially:
Kara Dellacioppa, my department chair in 2016-17, who encouraged me to apply for this program
Allison Evans, the leader of our CRT cohort, who had answers to every question I asked
Mary-Michelle Moore and Carolyn Caffrey Gardner, two instructional librarians at CSUDH who have helped in too many ways to name
Reza Boroon, our campus IT manager for our learning management system
Rachael Jordan, who participated in the 2016-17 CRT, showed me through her e-portfolio, and was enormously helpful with her feedback on my design and e-portfolio
Gretchen Wegner, my coach-program mentor and trainer
Dylan J. Lewis, who coordinates closed-captioning for course videos on our campus
Maruth Figueroa, the director of our campus learning center
Peggy Ozaki, the director of our campus writing tutorial program
Redesigning SOC 368 (Criminology) 