{"id":1158,"date":"2020-08-31T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T15:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ele.local\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2021-02-19T16:22:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T22:22:13","slug":"teamwork-to-seed-change-how-foreign-language-faculty-at-ucf-are-improving-learning-outcomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/teamwork-to-seed-change-how-foreign-language-faculty-at-ucf-are-improving-learning-outcomes\/","title":{"rendered":"Teamwork to Seed Change: How Foreign Language Faculty at UCF Are Improving Learning Outcomes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranked as one of the nation\u2019s top 20 most innovative universities by US News & World Report<\/i><\/a>, the University of Central Florida (UCF) consistently earns high marks for its online programs.<\/p>\n

Part of their mission statement states, \u201cWe believe innovation comes from the meeting of diverse viewpoints. And when more people unleash their full potential, anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

That kind of thinking and culture is evident in a group working together at UCF to redesign Spanish language courses \u2014 Spanish instructors Anne Prucha and Kacie Tartt, and instructional designer Jessica Tojo-Raible.<\/p>\n

According to Megan Tesene, Ph.D., Associate Director for the Personalized Learning Consortium\u00a0 at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), which supported the early work of this team, this project is an example of faculty innovators<\/a> committed to sharing their knowledge with colleagues to drive change and improve outcomes in the learning community: \u201cTheir leadership highlights how finding the right faculty innovators who are committed to sharing their learnings with colleagues builds communities of pedagogical innovation.”<\/p>\n

Intrigued by adaptive learning\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n

Tartt has been teaching Spanish for 15 years at UCF where more than 80 percent of the program\u2019s introductory courses are already online. Always looking for ways to improve student success, she was intrigued by an in-house presentation on adaptive learning given in 2017 by Tojo-Raible. Used effectively, adaptive learning can close achievement gaps by personalizing the student experience and providing instructors and programs data that allows them to create targeted supports.<\/p>\n

Curious, Tartt experimented with adaptive learning in one of her courses that fall, using courseware with fixed publisher content. The following year, Dr. Wendy Howard, Program Director of Pegasus Innovation Lab<\/a> at UCF\u2019s Center for Distributed Learning, approached Tartt about participating in a campus-wide course redesign project to implement adaptive courseware.<\/p>\n

The initiative, funded by a grant<\/a> from the APLU, focused on gateway classes and high-enrollment classes. The goal was to increase student success and decrease DFW rates (the rate of students earning D or F grades or withdrawing without earning credit).<\/p>\n

Tartt reached out to her colleague Prucha to join her in the initiative. Coincidentally, they were assigned to work with Tojo-Raible, who had introduced Tartt to adaptive learning in the first place.<\/p>\n

Prucha and Tartt chose two introductory Spanish courses, Elementary Spanish Language and Civilization I and II, to redesign using adaptive learning software. Unsatisfied with the traditional textbook and courseware approach to language teaching, Tartt and Prucha decided to utilize open education resources going forward, which would provide them with more customization of their course content.<\/p>\n

An effective collaboration<\/b><\/h4>\n

Tojo-Raible says of Tartt and Prucha, \u201cThey came up with the content. They\u2019re the subject-matter experts. I merely helped them put the content into the platform and helped them think about what they wanted to achieve pedagogically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their weekly meetings to discuss content and assignments were often day-long sessions at one another\u2019s homes. They used a shared online spreadsheet to track the status of course content \u2014 for example, when elements were ready for Tojo-Raible to load into Realizeit<\/a>, the adaptive learning software they were using, or when elements were staged for Tartt and Prucha to review.<\/p>\n

All three emphasize that having collaborators was critical, as was a good sense of humor and open communication. Prucha and Tartt say Tojo-Raible\u2019s guidance was vital to their success.<\/p>\n

\u201cJessica guided us about what could work in the application,\u201d Prucha said. \u201cKacie and I had ideas on the content and how to deliver it, and Jessica guided us in how best to do this in Realizeit. Together, the three of us worked on solutions with the goal being pedagogically sound content and delivery of that content.\u201d<\/p>\n

They liked that instead of telling them \u201cwe can\u2019t do that,\u201d Tojo-Raible would take their idea and find a way to make it work. For example, early on they found that using short essay questions in the adaptive learning software was cumbersome. Tojo-Raible\u2019s solution was to build those activities in the university\u2019s learning management system (Canvas) instead.<\/p>\n

She also worked with them to ensure consistent and clear layout, illustration, and typography throughout the student experience.<\/p>\n

Results and continuous improvement<\/b><\/h4>\n

In the first semester of teaching an adaptive version of their online introductory courses, Elementary Spanish Language and Civilization I (SPN 1120C) and Elementary Spanish Language and Civilization II (SPN 1121C), Tartt and Prucha saw immediate results. Tartt taught two sections of SPN 1120C with a total of 67 students. Prucha taught three sections of SPN 1121C that semester, with a total of 91 students.<\/p>\n

Compared to the sections of these courses taught by Prucha and Tartt in the previous semester:<\/p>\n