UNM will receive $200,000 during the next two years to redesign its Psychology 105 class in hopes of making it more efficient and effective by using information technology.
The funding is part of the Pew Grant Program in Course Redesign, which funds universities to redesign and improve their introductory courses.
By fall 2002, students in Psychology 105 will have one lecture per week, instead of three, said Gordon Hodge, associate professor in psychology and UNM Presidential Teaching Fellow.
He said students also will have the option of attending studios once a week.
The studios will be like computer laboratories, during which students will work in groups and complete various CD-ROM exercises and simulations, he said. At the end of each 50-minute session, students will take quizzes about what they've learned. Those who do not want to go to the studios can complete the simulations and quizzes at home on their computers.
"The overall idea is that the University is going to save cost by reducing the number of sections," he said.
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Psychology 105 has four sections and will lose one by next fall when all sections change to the redesign, he said.
About 2,200 people take the class every year, Hodge said, and about 42 percent of those students drop, withdraw or fail the class.
"Those are scary figures," he said.
Hodge said he doubts that instruction is the problem since many of the class' teachers have received teaching awards and get good ratings from students. He said a reason for the high failure rate might be that some students don't know how to study and learn the material.
As part of the redesign, students will take about three online quizzes per week. They can continuously retake practice quizzes to improve their scores, he said, and if they still cannot get a C or better average, they will receive notice to attend a mandatory tutoring session. Not attending these sessions counts as an absence, Hodge said, and attending gives students another chance to boost their grades.
Students are already taking the online quizzes as part of the transformation, Hodge said, and a studio session should be available in about six weeks. Next semester, one fully redesigned section will be open to students.
Hodge said he plans to survey students and compare the traditional class with the redesigned one to see what works best.
"By the end of this academic year, we'll have an idea of what's working and what needs to be changed," he said.
He added that results will most likely improve.
"If they just came in and watched TV it might not be any worse than what we have right now," he said of the failure rate.
Nancy Uscher, associate provost for Academic Affairs, worked with people from various departments to write for the grant.
"I would say it had a good forward motion," she said about the process. "There were enough people involved to pull expertise from different areas"
She added that the grant-writing group learned about other schools' goals during the elimination process and about how UNM compares with them. UNM was one of 10 schools to receive the funding.
"UNM is highly competitive," she said. "We learned we fare well across the United States."
Uscher said the psychology department is a great choice for the grant because it was ready to redesign its introductory course.
"It was a real match," she said.
