General Education Course Development Competition

 

1.  Name:         Richard Clark, Professor of Nutrition

                        Lori Smolin,  Adjunct Instructor

                        Mary McGrane, Assoc. Professor

                        Patricia Jepson, Director Academic Advisory Center CANR

 

2.      Contact email: Richard.M.Clark@Uconn.edu

 

3.      Nutritional Sciences 165 “Fundamentals of Nutrition” This course is currently approved to meet the group 8 requirement and has been submitted to meet the new Science and Technology requirement.

 

 

Project Goals:  To develop new content and modes of instruction for promoting critical thinking in NUSC 165 and introduce new technology that will allow this large lecture class to become more interactive.

 

 

Background:  Student enrollment in NUSC 165 has grown from 300 students per year in 1999 to over 600 students in 2003.  As the class size has grown so have many of the problems associated with large Gen Ed classes.  Class participation and attendance have declined. Students no longer feel obligated to attend class because their presence is not noticed. On a good day only 75% of the class will be in attendance.  Students also exhibit passive attendance walking into class late and out early, sleeping, reading papers, and visiting while class is in session.  If  NUSC 165 is approved to meet the new Science and Technology requirement, we anticipate average class size of 100+ students. We view this time as an opportunity to reflect on how we teach this basic Gen Ed course. 

 

To reach our project goals we will need to change the way we teach NUSC 165 from a Teacher-Centered to a Learner-Centered paradigm.  To achieve this, we plan to model our approach after that used by the Biology Department at the University of Massachusetts. With the help of a PEW grant they have redesigned their basic Biology course (http://bcrc.bio.umass.edu/pew) to emphasize critical thinking and active learning in the classroom.  A key component of the course redesign at UMass, was to identify key concepts that need to be presented in the course rather than bits of knowledge.  Once key concepts were identified causal models were developed and presented to the class.  Small teams (3-4 students) were formed and asked to critically think about the model and to predict an outcome. The instructor provides three to four possible outcomes. Students work collaboratively and develop a team argument supporting one of the outcomes.  A typical class period would be 1/3 lecture to provide background information and present the model, 1/3 team problem solving and 1/3 class discussion.

 

What is particularly exciting about this approach is the incorporation of the Personal Response System (PRS). The PRS is similar to a TV remote and is used to record student responses.  Each student has a PRS with a unique code.  After teams develop an argument for an outcome, the students are asked to vote for an outcome using the PRS.  Their votes are projected as a bar graph on the screen. The projected responses become the basis for further class discussion.  

 

In addition to its values in recording student responses, the PRS because it is coded for each student, can be used to monitor attendance because it is codes for each student.  (PRC website: http://www.educue.com)

 

The team members for this project bring a variety of skills.

Richard Clark is a University Teaching Fellow and will be teaching NUSC 165 this fall.  He has developed several computer enrichment activities for undergraduate education (http://www.criticalthinking@uconn.edu) and will be primary contact for this project.

 

Lori Smolin has been Adjunct Faculty in Nutrition for many years and is a longtime instructor of NUSC 165.  She also is author of the textbook used in this course “Nutrition Science and Applications”.   This book is in its fourth edition and is one of the most popular books used to teach basic nutrition nationwide. Over the past 15 years, Lori, through her book, has been a major force in how basic nutrition is taught in the US. (for more information run a google search on Smolin and Grosvenor).

 

Mary McGrane (2004 Kinsman Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award recipient) has taught NUSC 165 every semester for the past 5 years.  Student enrollment in her sections have consistently been among the highest (currently 140 students).

 

Patricia Jepson has been asked to join the team to lead the evaluation component of this project.  She is currently a PhD student with Scott Brown in Education.

 

Specific Tasks:

  • We will visit with faculty at Umass to learn more about how they approached the redesign of their General Biology course.
  • We will work with the Instructional Resource Center to review the contents of NUSC 165 to identify key concepts that can be modeled.  
  • We will develop and pilot test 8-12 causal models during the academic year.

(It is anticipated that the development of models will be an evolving process and will continue after AY 2003/2004)

  • We will purchase a Personal Response System for use during the year.  The department will contribute $1000 towards the purchase of the system. 

 

During AY 2005-2006 one section per semester will use the causal model- PRS approach and the other sections will use the traditional lecture approach.  This will allow for evaluation.  The evaluative instrument will be developed and administered under the direction of Pat Jepson.

 

 

 

 

 

TO:                  Ann Hiskes, Chair, GEOC Oversight Committee

 

FROM:            Sung Koo, Head, Department of Nutritional Sciences

 

RE:                   General Education Course Development

 

DATE:             April 5, 2004

 

 

I enthusiastically support the proposal for developing new content and modes of instruction for NUSC 165.  Drs. Clark, Smolin and McGrane are well qualified to undertake this project.  NUSC 165 is a major service course for the university and a required course for students who major in Nutrition.  This course has been offered for many years and will continue to be offered.  The new teaching paradigm proposed, if successful, will be applicable to other courses in our discipline.  As a department, we would like to support this project and will contribute $1000 towards the purchase of the Personal Response System.