Enhancing Instruction through the use of Adaptive Courseware and Research-based Teaching Practices

Concurrent Session 7
Streamed Session Best in Track

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Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Through a grant from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, Colorado State University is in the final year of scaling the use of adaptive courseware. To gain a holistic vision of the student and faculty experience, students were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the use of adaptive courseware and its impact on their learning. CSU will share student success and student perception data as well as survey results related to faculty use of research-based teaching practices.

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Presenters

Lead Presenter: Tonya Buchan, Colorado State University

Tonya Buchan is an Instructional Designer with the Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) at Colorado State University (CSU) and received her MS. Ed in Curriculum and Instruction from Purdue University. At TILT Tonya partners with faculty to integrate research-based educational practices using the CSU Teaching Effectiveness Framework as well as educational technology into course design and teaching. In her free time, Tonya enjoys yoga, paddle boarding, hiking and mountain biking.

Co-presenter: Stan Kruse, Colorado State University

Co-presenter: Jennifer Todd, Colorado State University

Jennifer Todd is an Instructional Designer with The Institute for Learning and Teaching at Colorado State University where she is leading an effort to assist faculty and administration in defining effective teaching and using this definition as a framework for setting teaching goals and improving and evaluating teaching excellence. She collaborates with faculty to help them integrate students into every aspect of the learning process – from curricular alignment to assessment – with a focus on engagement, critical thinking, and metacognition. She has 20 years teaching and curriculum design experience from kindergarten to adult learners. In her free time, Jen enjoys spending time with her family, gardening, mountain biking, hiking, and paddle boarding.

Extended Abstract

Through a grant from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, Colorado State University (CSU), in partnership with a cohort of eight universities, is in the final year of scaling the use of adaptive courseware in core curriculum courses. In this effort, instructional designers partnered with faculty teaching high-enrollment courses to enhance instruction by incorporating principles of learning science to inform course design and adaptive courseware to promote mastery of lower-level Blooms concepts outside of class. In an effort to gain a holistic perspective of the program, both faculty and students completed surveys related to the use of adaptive courseware. Faculty also completed the Teaching Practices Inventory (Wieman and Gilbert, 2014) to assess the change in the use of research-based teaching practices upon participating in the course redesign. Presenters will share key findings related to: 1) faculty changes in the use of research-based teaching practices upon participating in the course redesign by comparing pre-TPI with the post-TPI score; and 2) preliminary results related to student success.

Session Plan

  1. Introduction Activity: Brainstorm an initiative related to teaching at your institution.
    • List 3 things that went well, 3 things that didn’t go as planned.
    • Facilitated discussion to identify commonalities. 
  2. Presentation: Grant background and CSU’s strategy to scale the use of adaptive courseware, and develop faculty through course redesign consultations and a community of practice. 
    • CSU results 
      1. Student success data related to results from the Teaching Practices Inventory
      2. Faculty perceptions related to adaptive courseware
      3. Student perceptions of adaptive courseware and how it supports learning
  3. Reflection: Extending the work… [worksheet]
    • Identify a campus initiative related to teaching or educational technology.
    • Identify the goal.
    • Identify shareholders (schools, departments, faculty, committees, etc.) that will need to be involved to for the initiative to be successful.
    • Identify research-based teaching strategies as a focus for faculty development delivered through a community of practice.
  4. Q&A
    1. Discuss worksheet with a partner and identify a common question(s) for presenter.
    2. Teams choose one (or two) question(s) and share with group.
    3. Presenter will respond or poll audience for responses.