Course Redesign ePortfolio Showcase

This course redesign will focus on using new online and in-class technologies to improve analytics to better understand student mistakes and gaps in learning. Additionally, the use of technology in creating on-demand, targeted screencasts and multiple iterations of online tests shows encouraging signs of reducing student anxiety around economics, as well as improving instructor immediacy and availability despite relatively large class sizes (68-230). Although technology can go a long way to improving student performance through reducing anxiety via allowing students to interact with the material when and as long as they like, it is more well-suited to assisting with the purely technical aspects of Economics. For context, critical thinking and communication aspects, in-class discussion and work are non-replaceable: I reduce lecture but increase active learning activities in class to protect these crucial elements of learning to think like an economist.

Microeconomics is a high-demand, low student success, class, as identified by the Office of the Chancellor. A section of the class is being offered as a "flipped class" in Fall 2014 in which the students view videos of the lectures and then come to class to work problems and clarify concepts, before doing team work. The students are "shaken" into learning the content on their own; they then come together and blend in class; later problem sets help to stir and refine the knowledge acquired. Student outcomes from the flipped class alone vs. lecture sections will be analyzed to determine the impact of flipping on student learning outcomes.

I will use the hybrid model to make a more robust at-home learning experience for students. Using Macmillan's Launchpad site and FlipItEcon videos and assessment we will implement and test the evidence-based practices of multimedia learning, low-stakes adaptive quizzing and interleaved retrieval practice to encourage and reward mastery by lowering the cost of trying and failing.

This course redesign focuses on modeling, mapping, and assignment sequencing as a way to move beyond learning thresholds in economics. The modeling-mapping-scaffolding approach is designed to improve economic reasoning abilities, which are a barriers to writing proficiency and quantitative literacy, especially in large class settings. It will also incorporate both writing and technical peer facilitation/instruction. ECON 303 already employs flipped classroom instruction. The active learning activities will now be centered on problem solving, modeling, and mapping and the assignments will build on each other.

I will use an active learning approach to assist students in moving beyond the thresholds in economics. These thresholds include logical, abstract and quantitative reasoning. I will design assignments that allow for deliberate practice in these areas and create screencasts and videos as a way to interleave and reinforces these important skills.

The purpose of this redesign is to introduce quantitative reasoning problem sets, supplemental instruction, and small-group "catch ups" into the large lecture (230 students) class. These were redesign practices that proved to be successful in smaller (68 students) classes. The idea is to use best teaching/learning practices across all ECON 222 classes and adjust, tweak, or redesign (scale-up) the practice to accommodate the larger class size, rather than use class size as the determining factor in choice of teaching/learning techniques.

This course will incorporate clickers and online homework to increase participation, attendance, and reading.

Contemporary Topics in Economics is a lower division general education course that is required for the Environmental Science Major. The course is taken by students of all majors at all stages of their college career. My goal for the course is to increase student achievement, engagement and persistence by making the course more personal and interactive for students.

The purpose of the redesign is to reduce the number of students who earn repeatable grades by flipping the course, incorporating clickers, and using material that is more relevant for students.

The goal of this project is to develop a number of instructional tools aimed at increasing student success in Economics (ECON) 315, reducing the failure rate in the course from a current 26% to 18%. The primary goal of this course redesign is to create it in an online, asynchronous format with hybrid features. The vast majority of the course will be delivered online (90%), but there will be required on-campus meetings (10%). I will develop many videos and other online activities that aim at enhancing students' learning experience and improving their success rate in the course.

Principles of Economics: Microeconomics (Econ 1B) is a CSU identified bottleneck course. This is in part due to the fact that the course is an introductory, prerequisite course for Economic and Business Administration majors and fulfills the GE Area D1 requirement. The course will be redesigned to a fully online format to meet student demand and the accessibility needs of a diverse student population that requires flexibility and on demand access to learning.

I plan to reduce the DFW rate in the course and achieve better student learning and grade improvements by notably improving interactions in the course. Studies show that we retain more information and learn better by talking and interactions as opposed to just listening. Essentially the pedagogical focus will be a student-centered approach incorporating a flipped classroom model and a more active learning environment. Students complete self-paced student activities, such as watching lectures videos with accompanying student guide. In addition, students will be organized into small working group to discuss concepts and work on problem solving activities. The syllabus receive a updating to incorporate these redesign, shifting the focus from a standard text-heavy document common to most university classes to a document that is a modular representation of the course.

This course redesign focuses on flipped classroom instruction, writing to learn, and integration. The theme integration is reflected in the flipped classroom pedagogy in terms of better integrating students into the learning environment, increasing student engagement with the material, and developing better communication between students and instructor. It incorporates supplemental writing instruction into the classroom environment and integrates real world applications in the form of service learning.

The redesign will address this issue through the use of online technology that allows for extensive review of material, video lectures, and frequent and repeated assessment through electronically graded work. The redesign is accomplished through the custimization of an online textbook and learning tool called MyEconLab and will consist of the creation of numerous online video lectures and a systematic roadmap to lead the students through the material incorporating extensive and repeated learning assessment touchstones from the Study Plan within MyEconLab.