University of North Carolina Charlotte
Course Title: Elementary Spanish I
Contact: Garvey Pyke
University of North Carolina Charlotte plans to redesign Elementary Spanish I, an entry-level, four-credit course enrolling ~800 students in 28 sections each fall term. It is the first course of a two-semester sequence, traditionally meeting twice a week for 75 minutes with an online workbook component. An online textbook system, Centro, provides diverse types of interactive learning activities as well as presentations of grammar and vocabulary. Instructors use some of the online materials in class sessions and give online homework assignments, which is 10% of the grade. A mix of instructors, typically one full-time faculty member, nine adjuncts and four graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) teach the course each semester.
The course faces a number of academic challenges. Instructors say they do not have enough time in the class session to engage students in activities that require speaking Spanish. A lot of class time is used to present grammatical information and discuss assignments and tests and other class management issues. The course also lacks consistency across sections. Although all students have the same syllabus and textbook, their learning experiences and grades vary depending on the instructor teaching the class. In addition, the department struggles to secure sufficient part-time instructor funding and enough classroom space to meet the annually increasing student demand.
UNC Charlotte will redesign Spanish using the Replacement Model. One of the two classroom sessions will be replaced with online assignments. Instructors will provide individual assistance to students through e-mail feedback and counseling meetings with those students who are not keeping up with assignments. Classroom time will focus on facilitating proficiency-oriented communicative learning activities such as role plays, dialogs and writing assignments. Students will be able to practice every skill area of language proficiency. Assignments, exams and class announcements will be handled electronically. All students will have the same course materials and lesson plans. Instructors will be required to participate in ongoing orientation and training sessions on how to deliver the course in a consistent way.
The redesigned course will enhance the students’ learning experience, focusing on proficiency-oriented communicative language skills and making the course more meaningful and interactive. They will become active and independent learners, taking ownership of their learning as they work through online assignments on their own and actively participate in class activities. Automating assignments and exams will enable instructors to spend more time offering students individualized assistance, further increasing the degree of interaction between the instructor and students. Standardizing instruction and assessment across all sections will provide students with similar learning experiences regardless of the instructor teaching the class.
UNC Charlotte plans to assess student learning outcomes by piloting the redesigned course with ~220 students in six sections taught by two instructors. Student performance on a common final exam in two of these sections will be compared with that of two sections of the traditional course taught by the same instructor. A mid-term survey will be administered to gather students’ demographic information as well.
The team plans to reduce the cost of instruction by increasing section size from 30 to 60 students and reducing the number of sections from 54 to 27 annually. The annual number of part-time faculty teaching the course will decrease from 19 to five while the number of GTAs will increase from seven to 15. Enrollment is expected to increase slightly. These actions will decrease the cost-per-student from $79 to $59, a 25% reduction. The savings will be invested in opening an online placement test for students to take for free, offering more Spanish courses and investing in other language programs in the department.
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