Two University of Colorado at Boulder professors have been awarded a $200,000 grant to implement a redesigned, two-semester course in introductory astronomy.
The Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute 聴 in conjunction with the Pew Charitable Trust and CU-Boulder聮s Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society, or ATLAS 聴 has awarded the grant as part of its Pew Grant Program in Course Resdesign.
The experimental course, to be taught by Professors Richard McCray and Frances Bagenal of the astrophysical and planetary sciences department, is intended to both reduce costs and improve student learning by offering a small class experience to a larger class setting with use of the Web and group interaction.
The class structure will steer away from the standard "lecture" format, and focus on an interactive, team-based format heavily dependent on group discussions and on-line work.
"What we聮re trying to do is use technology to enable a more interactive class in a large class setting," said McCray, who wrote the Pew grant proposal.
To do so, selected sections of the class (150-200 students per section) will be divided into smaller groups of about nine students. Each group will be helped by undergraduate teaching assistants.
These individual groups will meet for two hours a week in a high-tech classroom equipped with laptop computers and round tables, where they will explore lessons on-line guided by hypertext links on the Internet.
The on-line hypertext, which is rich in graphics, animations, simulations and links to current research activities, encourages students to explore the best astronomical resources during class time and at home, according to McCray.
Once a week, the entire class will meet for an hour with either McCray or Bagenal in a lecture hall to discuss the week聮s goals, take quizzes and ask questions.
"I don聮t want to use technology to cut down on communication with professors and students," McCray said. "I want to use it to cut down on lecturing, which will then give students a better opportunity to ask questions and become more involved."
The $200,000 grant will be used to get the experimental course up and running, with part of the money going to a computer programmer to build the on-line tools that will enable students to do homework and take tests on-line. Additional funds will be used for a professional assessment of the course once it is completed.
"We will be interviewing students to see how much they learn in the interactive classes, compared to the standard lecture format," McCray said.
While McCray hopes the course is successful in all of its goals, he also said he realizes it is experimental and that they will have to wait until the course is completed to see the results. "It is fun and interesting to try something new," he said. "A year from now I聮ll know a lot more."
Another key goal of the experimental course is to make it more economical by cutting the number of graduate student assistants and replacing them with undergraduate team leaders. The redesigned course could cut teaching costs by 14 percent to 35 percent, depending on course size, he said.
"A portion of the award was institutional readiness in educational technology areas, and the campus聮 overall efforts in this area through ATLAS played an important role in our success in this first round of the Pew program," said CU-Boulder ATLAS Director Bobby Schnabel.
The Pew Grant Program in Course Redesign is a three-year, $6 million program administered by the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute with support from the Pew Charitable Trust. The $200,000 award to CU-Boulder was the first of three rounds of grant awards and was presented to 10 universities and colleges across the nation.
For more information about the course and grant, visit the Web site: super.colorado.edu/~astr1120/Pew.htm.