University System of Maryland: Maryland Course Redesign Initiative
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Course Title: Introduction to Psychology
Contact: Eileen O'Brien
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) plans to redesign Introduction to Psychology, a four-credit course that serves as an entrance into the psychology major and also provides general education credits in the social sciences. Each semester, up to 600 students enroll across three or four sections of this survey course. Unfortunately, Introduction to Psychology has a reputation among students of being heavily laden with complex material, and the failure rate of up to 15% in the last five years has raised questions about the teaching methods used in the course. Class attendance has been poor.
In an effort to deal with the course’s reputation of being “overwhelming,” faculty added computer lab assignments to help students to master key concepts in introductory psychology. This created additional problems such as students having less than adequate computer problem-solving skills, poorly organized plans for meeting computer assignment deadlines, lack of adequate computer classroom space, non-use of supplemental computer-based resources, and poor exam preparation strategies. Even with these changes, class attendance remained at 60% to 70%. During class time, students who attend use their laptops to engage in work related to other courses, and many students have not prepared for class by reading content prior to the lecture.
The planned course redesign, using the Replacement Model, will significantly alter both class and lab activities and structure. Weekly class presentations will, on average, use a 40% presentation format, 25% application of content using small interactive learning groups, 15% summarization of concepts learned in that session, and 20% question and answer or further elaboration period using a Classroom Performance System (clickers). Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) will alter their activities to increase support to students by conducting weekly discussion sessions, exam preparation study groups, and small-group activity facilitation during classes. Peer tutors will be added to provide individualized study assistance through an existing Learning Resource Center on campus.
This redesigned introductory psychology course will enhance both content and methods targeting enriched active learning. Labs will ensure interaction with content at a mastery level. The altered class time will promote a more interactive milieu to promote motivation and assist students to make psychology more relevant to their lives. The addition of technology will allow selective time for value-added activities with the faculty and will capitalize on the best of both pedagogical methods. The redesigned course will help develop faculty-student research relationships early in undergraduate education by offering research participation opportunities through the UMBC research pool.
The evaluation of this redesign will involve outcome and process evaluations. Learning outcomes from parallel traditional and redesigned sections will be compared. Comparison data will include common content items selected from final exams, student work using common rubrics, and course grades using common criteria. Course grade distributions, number of students dropping the course by midterm, students' satisfaction, passing rates, numbers of students choosing or maintaining psychology as a major after taking the course will also be compared. Focus groups of students will be held to identify key redesign requirements and to verify that the proposed activities will be expected to result in higher student motivation and engagement. During the year, classroom observations, data from lab utilization and small group activities will be reviewed at intervals to determine whether the redesign is being implemented as planned.
Cost savings will be realized by decreasing the number of fall semester sections from four to three and the number of spring semester sections from three to two. Section size will be increased from ~150 to 200 students each. The redesign will reallocate faculty time to more advisement and counseling of students, decrease time for administrative tasks, leverage existing university resources to support students and provide the opportunity for research faculty to be involved in foundational courses. These changes will decrease the cost-per-student from $86 to $59, a 31% reduction. An additional benefit will be the savings in classroom space. Cost savings will be used to support psychology learning labs and faculty development.
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