The UMKC course redesign campus efforts are in alignment with the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) to utilized information technology to increase course delivery efficiencies (cost of instruction) and increase student achievement (improve student learning outcomes). As part of our participation in the NCAT Redesign Alliance, UMKC faculty have ongoing support from NCAT’s expert staff and Redesign Scholars. The focus of course redesign initiatives are on the redesigning of entire courses, not sections of courses and requires faculty to rethink how to construct their courses by taking advantage of new information technology that frees faculty to increase active student learning and to be more engaged in the teaching and learning process with students rather than on administrative tasks. There is increased focus on strategies to increase active learning, strategies to provide students with significantly more immediate performance feedback and mastery learning approaches for student learning. NCAT course redesigns follow learner-centered principles and emphasize shifting more responsibility for learning to the students with rigorous accountability systems, in conjunction with focused student problem solving and interactive learning. Depending on the course content, there are six NCAT course redesign models faculty can adopt; the supplement model, the replacement model, the emporium model, the fully online model, the buffet model and the linked workshop model. Some reasons faculty may want to consider a course redesign - increased student demand for classes where there are limitations of facilities and/or faculty (resource challenge), high D, F, W rates, poor academic student performance in subsequent courses, course content drift between multiple sections of class offerings, a need to decrease costs of course delivery, decreased student motivation for course content, faculty members desiring to shift a portion of their work from administrative tasks to more work with students as they learn.
If you are interested in discussing the possibility of implementing a course redesign please contact Cindy Pemberton, Deputy Provost at 235-6435 or at pembertonc@umkc.edu, to discuss the details and to provide you with the support you will need to successfully complete a course redesign.
NCAT Vice President, Carolyn Jarmon, Visits Campus
October 31 – November 1, 2011
Presentation: Transforming Student Learning Environments through Course Redesign
- improving student learning and reducing instructional costs using information technology
- replicating the successes of 100+ institutions currently engaged in in course redesign
- methodology and models that work
- project results at other research universities (University of Massachusetts, Ohio State University and the University of Alabama)
UMKC- College Algebra Course Redesign NCAT Project
(Sponsored by Missouri Statewide NCAT Course Redesign Initiative)