1. John Broida Assistant Professor of Psychology University of Southern Maine Presented at NCAT, March 2010

2.  Roughly 10,000 students, the second largest campus in the state system.  Typically have 1,800 students in PSY 101J (Introductory Psychology) per year.  Required for 9 majors, including psychology.  Fulfills a core (interdisciplinary) requirement  Had been taught by multiple instructors in multiple sections, some very small (20) taught by full time faculty  Now have two 200 seat sections per year, several 100 seat sections, taught by fewer full time faculty

3.  Paper and pencil quizzing takes too much time to grade, record.  Developed web-based quizzes for the course  Showed that these quizzes resulted in better grades, more time spent studying, more interaction in class  Some of us were less comfortable with the web than others  Creating quizzes was a challenge – very time consuming.  Different course management systems were used over time, requiring retraining.  Had to develop new quizzes each time a new edition of the text came out.  We solved this by getting publishing companies to develop the quizzes.

4.  Each instructor chose which text to use, and created their own materials.  Our initial cost savings came from having one person create the materials for all sections.  This was possible because everyone agreed on the same text, quizzes and exams.  Getting some folks to agree to use the one text was a challenge. Incentives provided by the dean helped deal with that issue.

5.  We wanted to have some of the intro faculty teach upper level courses instead.  Administration did not like this. But this was a different administration than when we got started on this.  The new president and provost were not believers in technology, did not support the redesign initiative.  Another change in the administration occurred recently, and the new president and provost are very supportive of large classes. They want to see it happen in other departments as well.

6.  Every time we change course management systems, something goes wrong.  Some of us wanted to add a classroom response system to what we do.  Adding one reduced time that we had for other in- class activities.  Students love the darn things. It helps them to stay alert, tells them and the instructor what the students need more help with. ▪ Getting everyone on campus to use the same system took a lot of support from the administration. ▪ Integration of clickers into course management systems has not been as seamless as we would have liked.

7.  Each instructor uses a different text (some habits die hard)  Each instructor uses quizzes and other materials developed by the publisher.  Each instructor is using clickers, though not all in the same way.  We have 5 fewer sections of the class, and 4 more upper level classes.

8.  John Broida  Psychology department  University of Southern Maine  PO Box 9300  Portland ME 04104  Broida@usm.maine.edu