CRI Extension: Group Projects

Redesigning the Future of Digital Learning

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It has been a supportive, collaborative, and productive journey — thank you for this investment in faculty and learning.

The Purpose for a Digital Learning Course Redesign Extension

CRI Extension Goals

The goal of the original CRI initiative was to impact student learning by increasing successful course completion (reduced DFW rates – D/F/Withdraw), particularly in GEP & STEM courses, and to improve FTIC & Transfer student persistence through a strategic course redesign process that leverages the benefits of online, blended, adaptive, and active learning. In addition to the original goal, the goals of the extension are to also:

• Continue the momentum started in the original initiative
• Build upon successes and lessons learned
• Focus on collective impact and implementing change at scale
• Maximize innovations that were “discovered” during COVID to refine for long-term

Thank you for a wonderful opportunity to grow as a professor and improve teaching for excellence.

Types of Projects: Themed Tracks

The CRI Extension focused on faculty group projects that concentrated on one or more of these three tracks:

• Personalized Adaptive Learning (PAL)
  • Expand existing Realizeit development from a pilot module to complete the remaining course modules, or make major revisions based on student feedback or evaluation data
  • Design and develop new PAL modules for a collection of related courses using a supported platform (Realizeit, Acrobatiq, ALEKS, Knewton, and ObojoboNext)
  • Scale existing PAL courses to other sections of the same or related courses
• Program Level Redesign
  • Redesign course(s) taught by multiple faculty members in new blended or online modalities that may be shared as “master” course content through Canvas Commons or Blueprint
  • Align and digitally redesign courses in sequence or within the same program into new blended or online modalities
• Post COVID Redesign
  • Build upon innovations discovered and implemented during the COVID remote teaching experience to refine and share successful innovations across multiple courses
  • Refine and share best practices for quality synchronous remote instruction
  • Expand upon the course design and development started in Essentials of Online Teaching (EOT) – the pandemic equivalent to IDL6543

How were Faculty Groups Selected

For this round of digital learning course redesign extension, priority was given to team-based proposals that demonstrated the following:

• A collaborative group project with around 3-5 faculty members who teach courses in sequence, within the same program, or that address an interdisciplinary need.
  • Each group will have one Faculty Lead who will serve as the “team lead” for the project. The Faculty Lead will be the iLab’s primary point of contact for the group and will help keep the group on track throughout the redesign project. All other faculty members in the group are team members.
• A redesign of course(s) that will then be adopted by additional faculty members who teach additional sections of the same course or use in the redesign of a pre- or post-requisite course in sequence
• A redesign of an undergraduate course with high enrollment and/or high DFW rates

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Faculty Support from the Center for Distributed Learning

Each faculty group was placed on a one-year academic timeline to complete their redesign project by the end of Spring 2022.

Throughout this timeframe, they attended eight cohort meetings in total which provided:

• supplemental resources
• technical support
• active group work time
• networking in a community of practice

Groups also received support from their Track Leads (CDL instructional designers who helped facilitate the cohort meetings) as well as their assigned instructional designers.

Within the meetings, faculty members had the chance to participate in parlors that introduced them to available technology and additional resources.

Guest speakers also presented campus support available to faculty from the following departments:

• Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning
• Faculty Multimedia Center
• Student Academic Resource Center
• Student Accessibility Services
• CDL Graphics
• CDL Learning Systems & Technology
• CDL Video
• Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness

We have so many resources that it’s difficult to track them, so this is valuable for putting them in front of us.

Supplemental Resources

A course in Webcourses@UCF was provided to keep the faculty up-to-date throughout the redesign process.

Web Course Module Outline

For those interested in their own redesign program, the following document highlights key elements, including faculty incentives, of the CRI Extension.

CRI Extension Process

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Digital Course Redesign Extension Final Projects

As the culmination of the year-long redesign, the faculty groups submitted a Summative Project Review.

These reviews are recorded presentations that provide a brief description of each project, its goals, and its accomplishments.

Click on each video below to view each faculty groups’ final presentation.

For additional details please contact the Pegasus Innovation Lab at iLab@ucf.edu.