COURSE / PROGRAM

• History 1300 - American History to 1877

ABSTRACT

The goal of this Tier 1 redesign project is to improve overall learning, facilitate better in-class participation and student interaction, and reduce seat time. Reimagining the purpose of several classes, defining what are important historical concepts that students need to comprehend through in-class activities and short online lectures, evaluating what they can learn on their own through homework assignments, as well as revising assessments to gauge comprehension and retention should help in reaching these goals.

This stepwise course redesign will impact at least two sections of History 1300 and 40 students for each section per academic year. Once completed, the redesigned course would transform the traditional three-day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday course to a two-day course, opening up classroom space one day per week for courses such as History 1790, Introduction to History, a one-hour course that meets only once per week.

COURSE / PROGRAM

•  French 1102 - Elementary French

ABSTRACT

This project’s primary purpose is to redesign French 2 as a blended course, beginning in spring 2015. For comparison, data collection on the traditional language classroom will take place in French 1 in fall 2014. Based on past courses, the majority of the French 2 students will have taken the French 1 course, and will thus constitute a core group of students to study over an academic year. The purpose of blending French 2 is to incorporate more technology that offers students opportunities to augment access to authentic French-language materials, maximize the individual amount of time each student listens to and produces speech in the target language, increase instructor efficiency, and render the course more flexible. This course redesign will also serve as a basis for redesigning other French-language courses in the future.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Engineering Management 5412 - Operations Management Science

ABSTRACT

Operations Management Science (Engineering Management 5412) is a required course in the Engineering Management Master's Degree program at Missouri S&T. The EMSE department has approximately 30 EM MS on-campus students., 100 EM MS students at Fort Leonard Wood, and 200 EM MS distance students at other locations around the world. All of these students are required to complete Operations Management Science. The class is typically taught four times a year at Fort Leonard Wood and two to three times a year on-campus with distance sections produced by the Video Communications Center. The EM MS degree is a "broadening" degree. Students enter the program from literally every engineering and science background, both domestic and internationally. Some have just finished their BS degree and others have not taken a class in 20+ years. This results in widely varying levels of preparation among the students and varying instructional needs.

The proposed tier 1 redesign will replace half the traditional classroom time with online content. The university will benefit from less classroom time required in the VCC classrooms and Fort Leonard Wood classes (both of which are scarce resources that are difficult to schedule). More importantly, the students will have the best of two worlds, live classroom contact with the instructor, Dr. Murray, and flexible online content. Students who are struggling in the class can watch OM problems being solved repeatedly with the opportunity to repeat or watch "extra" examples as needed. Students who are excelling in the class can watch the number of problems being solved that they need to master the concept and take advantage of as much "bonus" content as they desire - potentially reducing their level of boredom with the class. All of the students will benefit from the flexibility of the hybrid course structure.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Theater 1190 - Theater via Video

ABSTRACT

The current Theatre Via Video course is structured for the students to watch a performance on video each week, keep a journal, and discuss the import of the video. It is currently two times per week, 1.25 for each class. As a Humanities and General Education credit of three hours, it should be popular. Enrollment, however, is small: between eight and twelve students per semester. Placing the course as a requirement for the Theatre Minor has helped, as do advertisements across campus. In addition, word of mouth from current students brings in one or two students. The enrollment, however, has never grown above fourteen.

With a blended course, redesigned to meet students' busy STEM schedules, only one day per week of physical attendance will be required. In addition, the students can watch each video any time during the week and have some reflection prior to discussing its implications with other students.

The objective for this course at its inception will be to increase enrollment and promote more thoughtful discourse among a larger number of students. The long-term objective is to bring the course fully online, enabling the ability of other Missouri Universities students to take the course.

The potential impact would be to expose students at S& T and across the sister campuses to the power of theatre, encourage them to create their specific views and goals of societal and life issues, and provide access to this course to more students through the multi-campus offering.

Because theatre at Missouri S& T only offers a theatre minor, the outgrowth of the course is significant in how many students can be reached throughout the University of Missouri campuses. It lends prestige to the STEM-oriented campus, through the illustration that we focus on social and life issues as well.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Chemistry 1319 - General Chemistry Lab 

ABSTRACT

Chemistry 1319 (General Chemistry Lab) has been redesigned to a blended format where the students conduct half of the course activities in the traditional lab settings (in-the-lab) and half of the activities in common spaces on campus (in-the-commons). The blended course increases the capacity for student enrollment without overcrowding the lab space.

The redesigned activities are foremost designed to support the learning of the lecture course. Activities have been chosen to match the introduction, application, and reinforcement of lecture topics. Some of the activities require instrumentation and a traditional laboratory setting due to their associated hazards and are therefore designed to be conducted as in-the-lab activities. The other activities that support the lecture portion of the sequence can be conducted without laboratory attire or direct supervision and are therefore designed as in-the-commons activities.

The blended activities are designed to allow for physical manipulations of materials to observe chemical phenomena. Some of the in-the-commons activities are conducted using a care package that the students take to their chosen common space. Other activities allow for the students to use supplies from their surroundings.

During the pilot phase, student feedback has been collected. Regarding in-the-lab activities, students appreciated the connection between the lab and lecture content, opportunities to collaborate, and the team-building skills that they experienced. The in-the-commons activities were appreciated for their independent nature both in scheduling and in the reduction of intrusive supervision by a TA or instructor. The students indicated that they were able to try different approaches, research the activities, and figure things out on their own. Individuals felt that the in-the-commons activities were more helpful because there was not an instructor with them telling them what to do. Additional feedback has been essential to guiding modifications and improvements for the implementation scheduled for Fall 2015.

This stepwise course redesign will impact at least two sections of History 1300 and 40 students for each section per academic year. Once completed, the redesigned course would transform the traditional three-day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday course to a two-day course, opening up classroom space one day per week for courses such as History 1790, Introduction to History, and a one-hour course that meets only once per week.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Electrical Engineering 2100 - Circuits I
• Electrical Engineering 2120 - Circuits II

ABSTRACT

This project is the redesigning of the Circuits I & Circuits II courses in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. The courses are required for all Electrical and Computer Engineering students. Typically, four sections of Circuits I and three sections of Circuits II are taught at the Missouri University of Science and Technology campus in the Fall and Spring semesters and one section each in the Summer semester. An additional section each of Circuits I and Circuits II are taught at Missouri State University through the Cooperative Engineering Program between the two universities during Fall and Spring semesters.

Targeted content video lessons and tutorial problems will be developed with the goals of creating a library of material which would:

• convert the course to a blended format
• aid in the creation of a fully online course
• allow students to study for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam
• allow students in the circuits service course, EE281 to study the topics in more depth
• allow instructors more face-to-face time for "real-world" applications rather than derivations
• allow transfer students to more adequately study for the Advancement Exams which are required to receive transfer credit
• provide refresher material for mathematics topics necessary for solving problems without taking away face-to-face time.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Engineering Management 4710 - Quality

ABSTRACT

Engineering Management 4710: Quality is a core undergraduate course in the Engineering Management program. It is taught every semester and typically has approximately 40 students each semester. The course involves advanced statistical analyses for process improvement through the use of statistical software (Minitab). The content can be difficult for students to grasp with only a few examples that are covered during a normal lecture. If a student misses a concept during a discussion. they cannot easily go back as they could in a distance/recorded course.

To facilitate learning and provide additional course examples, course material will be recorded and made available online to students. In particular, additional examples in the more difficult topics such as hypothesis tests, regression analysis, and design of experiments will be made available to help students. The recordings will also enable the students to view problems worked out by hand and step-by-step instructions on solving problems through Minitab. Additional topics will also be made available online to reduce the class hours. This first effort is expected to reduce class hours by one-third to one-quarter.

The class modules will be developed during the fall of 2014 in preparation for the spring 2015 semester. In order to measure the effectiveness of the modules, the students will be required to watch the recordings prior to class and class homework will cover the material on the recordings.

In addition, technology will be added to the course through software such as Respondus. Electronic grading will be added to provide a more timely response. Due to the size of the course and the nature of the homework, it is time-consuming to grade homework and exams. The use of technology for electronic grading will enable faster feedback to the students.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Metallurgical Engineering 2110 - Metallurgy for Engineers 

ABSTRACT

The goals of this course redesign of Metallurgical Engineering 2110 – “Metallurgy for Engineers” are three-fold, namely:

• Implementing content delivery methods and student assessments that enhance the learning of the diverse student population of the course
• Realigning the content of the course to the needs of the various departments that have included the course in their curricula
• Increasing the amount of class time spent on demonstrations and other activities to enhance retention of the information presented

The redesign will be accomplished in three phases.  Phase 1 will change the homework assignments that are currently handed to the students as daily multiple-choice questions on paper to online assignments that will ask students a few select questions from a larger pool of pertinent questions, and allow the student multiple attempts to arrive at the correct answer. Phase 2 will include meetings with faculty from the departments that the course serves, and collecting feedback on the topics that they wish their students to have exposure to and the outcomes that should result. Phase 3 will include the incorporation of “flipped Fridays" into the syllabus, to allow the students to view some of the course content online before presentations in the Friday course meeting times that focus more on demonstrating the concepts.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Engineering Management 6323 - Global Project Management

ABSTRACT

Using experience from previous course redesign efforts (eFellows 2013, eFellows 2014), Engineering Management 6323, Global Project Management will be redesigned to develop asynchronous team-building exercises for student teams, add additional asynchronous discussions, and create modules with clear learning outcomes in Blackboard. The team-building exercises will provide experiential learning opportunities for students to practice material taught in the course regarding the management of virtual teams. Team building exercises will be developed using Camtasia software and student participation will be required prior to the live class. Results will be discussed during class. Asynchronous discussion forums will be used as an extension of the in-class discussion which will improve the quality of the discussion. Creating learning modules with clearly stated learning outcomes in Blackboard for the class should reduce communication issues common with distance students. Having clear objectives and plans also supports course material regarding effective communications techniques necessary for virtual project teams.

In-class instruction and discussion are expected to be reduced by approximately one-third with the addition of asynchronous discussions and team exercises. Class time will be more efficiently used and experiential learning should increase the implementation of course techniques by students in the workplace.

COURSE / PROGRAM

• Mathematics 1120 - College Algebra

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, Math 1120 (formerly Math 2) has the lowest pass rate (C or better) of all courses on campus, at least in the spring semesters. In the fall semesters, the pass rate has been steadily increasing, and is currently at approximately 653. However, the spring semester pass rate has been fairly steady, around 363 over the past four years. The purpose of this project is to create content to support an eventual full redesign of college algebra. Using the technology resources of Educational Technology, course material will be recorded in short videos and will be made available for use for not only college algebra courses, but for any course in which students may need to review certain algebra and coordinate geometry topics.

One objective of this Tier 2 project is to provide students with a library of review topic videos which can be accessed both as part of the course requirements of college algebra and as supplemental materials in other classes. Additionally, quizzes will be developed and administered during class or via Blackboard to make sure students are viewing the assigned material. Eventually, the course could be redesigned, perhaps using an instruction model in which the videos are watched outside of class and class time is utilized for problem solving activities and other active learning strategies.

This project is significant in that it is the first phase of a potential full redesign of college algebra. With the creation of video content for use in many classes, this project can influence the teaching methodologies and student success rate of many courses in physics, engineering, and math.