Southern Miss Faculty Receive Course Redesign Initiative Grants

The University of Southern Mississippi is positioning itself at the cutting edge of instruction delivery in higher education after several teams of its faculty and staff recently received Course Redesign Initiative grants from the State Institutions of Higher Learning.

The goal of the initiative is to restructure the delivery method of courses, particularly multi-section courses, by blending existing technology and traditional instruction along with other active learning approaches to improve student retention and learning outcomes. Resource challenges, such as classroom space and instructional costs, are also addressed through the initiative. 

Southern Miss received half of the 12 grants awarded and more than any other institution in the state. The university teams that submitted the winning proposals will complete preparations for the course redesigns this summer and fall and implement the redesign pilot courses in the spring 2009 semester.

"This initiative can allow academic departments to do more for our students by using resources more efficiently," said Dr. William Powell, interim associate provost. "Our overall goal is to provide our students with a high-quality learning environment, and I believe this approach can help us continue to meet that goal." 

The IHL initiative is based on the model begun a decade ago by the National Center for Academic Transformation in its course redesign programs implemented at 30 institutions of higher education across the country. An analysis of those programs showed much promise, with outcomes that included more active learning opportunities, an increased level of engagement by students and more flexibility in course delivery.

Other results showed students gaining access to support personnel beyond individual faculty members and graduate students to include student mentors and course assistants, either in-person or online, providing an on-demand, varied environment of resources. 

Courses at Southern Miss that will be offered in the redesign format include introductory Spanish, general psychology, intermediate algebra, introduction to computing and technical writing.

The leaders of Southern Miss faculty and staff teams whose proposals resulted in grant awards include Nancy Howell, Department of Computer Science; Dr. Denise Brown, Department of Nutrition and Food Systems; Dr. David Echevarria, Department of Psychology; Dr. Barry Piazza, Department of Mathematics; Dr. Michael Mays, Department of English; and Dr. Leah Fonder-Solano, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

Powell praised the faculty who received the grants, two of which amounted to $100,000 each and the remaining four at $50,000 each. "They put a lot of work into their proposals," he said.

The Department of English will use its grant to redesign the department's technical writing course, English 333, into a hybrid model titled "Writing in Professional, Academic and Digital Contexts." Dr. Sheldon Walcher, a key member of the department's design team, expressed hope that the new model will more effectively address writing skills in a range of disciplines and areas.

Course sections will be grouped in discipline-based areas, in which students will complete projects specifically geared to those areas. "With the new design, we want to make it easier to engage students in the course by including projects directly related to the specific demands of writing in their respective majors and professions," Walcher said.

The course will be staffed by a tenure-track faculty member specializing in professional writing and digital literacy who will lecture once a week (available live and online); coupled with six face-to-face computer-lab sections (staffed by three graduate teaching assistants).

Faculty and instructors will all be on-site, and in addition to direct instruction, will meet weekly to discuss and track individual student progress over the semester. Course assignments will be updated to reflect the realities of communicating in the 21st century, requiring students to produce a range of traditional as well as multimedia projects.

"Because of this focus on new media and design, a sizable portion of our grant will be used to construct what we call a 'multimedia writing studio,' where students and instructors will be able to meet and work collaboratively on a range of projects," he said.

The redesign will have implications for the department's curriculum beyond the technical writing course, Walcher said. "This affords us an opportunity to rethink our upper-division writing sequence, and to link learning outcomes across our entire curriculum," he said. "Indeed, once this redesign is complete, the department will be well on its way to having a comprehensive set of linked course objectives for every level of writing."

The redesign grant initiative and Southern Miss' successful acquisition of grant funding from the IHL is evidence the university is a role model for its commitment to meeting student needs and being a good steward of taxpayer and donor resources.

"To me, this just reinforces what I've experienced in so many other ways as a faculty member this past year," said Walcher, who came to Southern Miss in 2007.

'We're at the forefront of curricular and pedagogic innovation in Mississippi, and I strongly believe that our success in securing the majority of the grants shows just how passionate and committed the faculty and this university are to finding innovative solutions to complex problems."