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

 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

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 John Broida  Psychology department  University of Southern Maine  PO Box 9300  Portland ME 