Large Scale Curriculum Redesign Powerpoint

Empire State College

2. Large Scale Curriculum Redesign Across The
Disciplines in a Distributed Learning Environment
Nicola Martinez
Director of Curriculum and Instructional Design
Center for Distance Learning

3. Who We Are:
Empire State College
Locations around
New York State
The Center for
Distance Learning
(CDL) serves adult
students around the
world

4. Center for Distance Learning
Adult learning centered
offers asynchronous online courses in five, 15-
week semesters per year
leading enroller in the SUNY Learning Network
partner with several institutions such as
eArmyU & Navy, public & private organizations,
labor unions

5. Center for Distance Learning
Course Statistics
330 distinct online courses,
many with multiple sections
46 courses developed/revised for Sept 03
50+ courses in development for Jan 04
68 courses developed or revised for Sept 04
70 courses in development/revision cycle for Jan 04
All courses on a two year revision cycle
Managed using the Coursetrak system

6. Areas of Study
The Arts | Business, Management & Economics
| Community & Human Services |
Communications, Humanities & Cultural
Studies | Educational Studies | Historical
Studies | Human Development | Labor Studies
| Science, Math & Technology | Social Theory,
Structure & Change

7. Curriculum Committee
The Curriculum Committee oversees the approval of
course proposals and development of policies and
procedures for Center for Distance Learning courses.
The committee provides leadership in identifying and
discussing curricular issues on the course and overall
curricular levels.
Committee Members represent each of the four area of
study subgroups, comprised of 17 area coordinators
representing all areas of study.
http://www.esc.edu/cdldeveloper

8. Curriculum and Instructional
Design Group
Advises area coordinators on curriculum development
Shepherds developers through the development cycle
Provides pedagogical, assessment, and instructional
development training as needed
Designs course development processes
Facilitates team development sessions
Aligns support for course developers
Assures academic excellence and design quality of
courses
Oversees program evaluation and improvements.

9. CDL Course Development Teams
 Development Team = multidisciplinary group in charge of creation,
conversion or revision of Center for Distance Learning courses. A
development team includes one or more of the following:
An area coordinator
A coordinator of instructional design and curriculum
development for the course area of study
One or more course developers
One or more instructional designers
A multimedia instructional designer
And a librarian.
 Developer  Course creator/content expert: a member of the
development team. S/he develops the course content and assessment
activities.
 

10. Course Development
Resources and Support
Examples of Resources and Support
Provided to Developers:
 Instructional Design Assistance
 Pedagogical Advice
 Library Review of Course and Research Assignments
 Assistance Designing Learning Activities
 Media Rich Content Identification
 Multimedia Learning Objects
 Website Identification, Evaluation, and Compilation
 Digital Image Identification
 Best Practice Examples Provided

11. Curriculum Redesign Goals
At the macro level, redesign curriculum across the
center
At the micro level, take a systematic approach to the
improvement of course design, including:

look and feel
pedagogical approaches
standard documents
visual learning components
media rich content enhancements
library research activities

12. Faculty Contributions
Course Models:
Hassenger
Oaks
Carnevale
Ball
Design Ideas
Best Practices
Exemplary materials
to share with other faculty as part of the curricular
and pedagogical redesign project.

13. Our Approach
Develop a new standard for course information
documents and implement them in the courses
Create a new design for CDL web courses to increase
navigability and overall consistencies in look, feel, and
format
Enrich courses with multimedia components and other
graphic enhancements
Include library referenced materials in all courses, with
at least one library-based learning activity per course
Identify and implement best practices in the pursuit of
academic and pedagogical excellence in web course
development for adult learners taking distance learning
courses

14. Course Ratings
We established a three-tiered categorization of courses
based on the inclusion of the above recommendations
and the application of a new course design.
All new and revised courses are reviewed an assigned
the following ratings

15. Course Rating System
Tier Rating
Tier 3 Exemplary Course
Tier 2 Acceptable
Some criteria met,
revisions needed
Tier 1 Not Acceptable
(recommend cancel)
NR Not Rated

16. Course Rating System
Tier information and classification is generated as
a result of the information captured in The Empire
State College Online Course Evaluation
Checklist.
All courses are considered unrated until they have
been reviewed with this instrument.
The evaluation piece associated with The Empire
State College Online Course Evaluation Checklist
happens at several levels.

17. Online Course Evaluation
Checklist
 Administered during and after a new course has been
developed, before delivery
 Before an old course is revised to identify specific areas targeted
for improvement
 After an old course has been revised to ensure that it is complete
and meets all baseline criteria for a Tier 3 course
http://www.esc.edu/coursetrak

18. The Course Resource Needs
Analysis
Information captured in the Course Resource Needs Analysis Form
is used to generate work requests for
 technical assistance
 library assistance
 multimedia learning object creation
 digital media research and implementation
 instructional design/pedagogical support
 copyright permissions
http://www.esc.edu/coursetrak
 

19. Curricular Redesign Project:
 
New Online Courses
Print to Web Course Conversions
Major Revisions of Online Courses
Residencies to Online and Vice Versa

20. New Online Courses
 
Easiest to Implement
Pre-designed templates with pre-filled standard
documents
Successful delivery of Tier 3 courses

21. Print to Web Course
Conversions
More difficult than new
Challenges:
Legacy approach
Challenge converting from static to
dynamic environment

22. Legacy Courses
 
No images or media enrichment. Did not benefit from multimedia
specialist intervention.
May or may not have library research component. Did not benefit
from librarian-researched resources.
Did not benefit from newly available library of shared resources for
developers, including explicit best practice guidelines for learning
activities and sample assignments
No standard structure
No standard documents
Naming inconsistencies
Content may be extremely well developed, or may need revision as
well

23. Revisions
New course model
Image enrichment and multimedia intervention
Librarian-researched resources
Content enhancement
Revising of learning activities
Perhaps a reorganization of course sequencing

24. Successful Revision Method
1.Fill the new, empty course template with a pre-
designed course model
2.Rename and renumber the old course materials.
3.Drop them into the new model at the bottom of the
new materials
4.A library of course development resources is also
placed in the new template

25. Successful Revision Method
5.A course developer and instructional designer copy
and paste the old materials into the new template. The
developer takes this opportunity to review content and
learning activities. S/he revises the material as
appropriate.
6.Requests for images and learning go to the multimedia
specialist
7.Library resource requests go to the librarian
8.Instructional designer assists the developer to make
additional structural changes to the course as
appropriate

26. Course Readiness
 Pre-Publishing Refinements
1.Final edit
2.Format review
3.Evaluation
4.Content Review by content expert
 

27. Conclusion
Large Scale Curriculum Improvement is an Ongoing
Center for Distance Learning Project. Current projects
include:
The goal of bringing all CDL courses to a tier 3 level
within 2 years
A media, learning, and development research team
focusing on researching next generation interactive
media for learning enrichment
Implementing visual learning across the curriculum,
beginning with science, marketing, and Fire Services
courses.

28. Questions?
Contact Information:
[email protected]
518-587-2100 x 776