Project Update: March 2015 | Preparing for Round Two in 2015

 

GE PROJECT UPDATE BANNER

The original eleven online GE course offerings are now in their second semester of enrollment, and thus the partners at the Office of Distance Education (ODEE) and eLearning and Arts and Sciences (ASC) are working with a new batch of teaching faculty and courses. Just as with the previous round, these twelve will undergo a course redesign process balanced between professors and instructional designers:

  • Introduction to Public Affairs
  • the Evolving Art and Science of Medicine
  • Introduction to Environmental Science
  • Statistics 1350
  • From Planets to Cosmos
  • Macro-Economics
  • Introduction to Theatre
  • Introduction to Sociology
  • Art and Music Since 1945
  • American Civilization to 1877
  • American Civilization since 1877

Special attention will be given to accessibility, mobile usability, and Quality Matters alignment. Each redesign process begins with the intent to take the original course objectives and reconceive how it can be taught with the best learner experience. The courses under revision will be made available this summer for enrollment, thus launching in autumn later this year. By September 2015, the two year initiative will have resulted in twenty-three online general education offerings available to help undergraduates strike a balanced schedule.

Work has already begun on several of the courses:

Introduction to Environmental Science: Environment and Natural Resources: (ENR 2100)

Course Instructors: Steven K. Lower, Brian Lower, Kylienne Clark (eLearning Instructional Designer)

Introduction to Environmental Science has previously been presented as a face-to-face lecture class with all assessments being completed through Carmen.  Summer of 2015 will be the first time this class is offered completely online.  The course examines the shared connections between all organisms living on Earth.  Over the past 200 years, humans have made a number of choices that have dramatically affected the health of our planet.  Earth is now facing a number of environmental challenges that we are just beginning to understand. Solutions to these challenges lie in each of you and the integral roles that you play in the future of our environment.

From Planets to the Cosmos (ASTRON 1101)

Course Instructors: Prof. Richard Pogge / Dr. Wayne Schlingman

From Planets to the Cosmos is a grand tour of our Universe currently taught in-person with in-person lab sections. We are creating a parallel online version of this course, including online labs and investigations. We are also filming demonstrations that can be used in other astronomy courses.

Art and Music Since 1945 (AAEP 1600)

Course Instructor: Clayton Funk

A staple course in art education, the online course offering will serve a large number of students while working to build an learning experience where undergraduates are asked to find, react to, and analyze the concepts of art and music in society since 1945. This section will aim to allow students to navigate through course units and assignments with significant autonomy, electing to participate in assignment segments that they find interesting. Other efforts are being made to find a streamlined, quick, efficient response system through which students can reply to each others’ comments and discussion while still allowing the instructor to pull responses for data dumping.

Introduction to Public Affairs (PUBAFRS 2110)

Course Instructors: Stephane Lavertu

This course introduces students to the three main areas of public affairs: the policymaking process, public administration, and policy analysis. The in-person course uses a lecture format–but with significant one-on-one feedback and interaction for students with Professor Lavertu as they work through their personal projects. In the online course, we’re hoping to group students according to the policy issues that most interest them; as groups, then, they’ll be discussing and applying the different course topics with regard to those issues. Student engagement and efficient (but meaningful) feedback are two of our biggest goals.

Introduction to Theatre (Theatre 2100)

Course Instructor: Melissa Lee

Theatre 2100 has been an online class for years now, but this year Theatre is teaming up with ODEE to update and upgrade the course for the Summer 2015.  Instructor Melissa Lee is excited to take the course to the next level with the addition of multi-media, graphics, digital group discussions, and her own iBook.

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