OPTIONS IN INSTRUCTIONAL MODELING Meeting demand in demanding times

Diane Musumeci Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese Faculty  9.25 FTE Tenured  7.75 FTE Tenure-track  6 FTE Academic professionals  4.5 FTE Other (Lecturers) Graduate Students  FTE (59 Active)  54% International46% Domestic Undergraduate Students  500 Majors, 464 Minors  3,000 students in basic language per year  8,000 students total per year 29,000 IU’s per year

Languages Disciplines Literature/Cultural Studies  Iberian  Latin American Linguistics  Formal  Applied Departmental Culture

Teaching Load Tenured/tenure-track faculty  2-2 (with course release for various administrative assignments, research leave) Academic professionals and Lecturers  3-3 (with course release for supervisory roles) Graduate TAs  50% appt = equivalent of 3 courses/year (20 hrs./wk)

Challenges  Language instruction is resource-intensive  Resources are limited  Demand for Spanish is high and continues to increase  University graduation requirement in non-primary language (3 semester requirement for all colleges, except LAS and Business which have a 4 semester requirement)  Increased demand for fifth-semester and beyond  Majors (and double majors)  Minors

History Prior to 1998 Enrollments in all undergraduate courses set at a maximum of students with one instructor

Undergraduate Curriculum

Innovation Timeline 1996 ITAL 101/ SPAN SPAN 122/103/ SPAN 142, SPAN SPAN SPAN 200 SPAN 250 SPAN 252 SPAN 254

Course formats ( ) blended courses  SPAN 122/103/141/142 Large faculty-taught lecture & small TA discussion  SPAN 204/250/252/254 Online  SPAN 200 Community service-learning  SPAN 232 ‘Traditional’ Lect-Disc  SPAN 208/228/all *300- and 400-level  *SPAN 307 Bilingualism (TA support)

Requisites for Change  Change in culture  Buy-in  Incentives  Development  Implementation  Sustaining the innovation  Administrative changes  Materials  Technologies

THANK YOU

Incentives Two caveats  The point system is one that should be considered transitional (i.e., it may phased out when this way of offering courses becomes part of the unit's culture).  This system pertains only to large, faculty-led lectures with TA- led discussion sections (in Spanish, Practical Review of Grammar, Intro to Literary Analysis, Intro to Hispanic Linguistics, Intro to Cultural Analysis). The minimum enrollment in the lecture should be 150 (250 in Grammar); the maximum enrollment in the discussion sections should be 25.

Incentives (cont.) Faculty who want to revise/develop one of the courses should also be willing to teach it the first couple of times. They should talk to me about what is required and available summer funding. Once the course is ready, it will be taught on a 'point' system, as follows:

Incentives (cont.)  The first time a course is taught is the most labor intensive.The faculty member who teaches the course for the first time earns 3 points and funding in a research account ($1000).  If the same faculty member agrees to teach the course a second time (and we would encourage this, since it takes more than one try to 'get the bugs out'), the faculty member would earn an additional 2 points.  In either case, the faculty member must agree to supply the course syllabus and materials to the next person who teaches the course.  If the same faculty member teaches the course again, s/he earns one point each time.

Incentives (cont.)  A different faculty member who teaches the course subsequently earns 2 points the first time s/he teaches it and 1 point each time thereafter.

Incentives (cont.) Point Values:  3 points can be exchanged for teaching one small (2-5 student) seminar (could be graduate or undergraduate) as part of one's regular course load.  5 points can be exchanged for one course release for the following semester/year.  A maximum of 5 points can be carried over from one year to the next.

Incentives (cont.) Course releases and teaching small seminars are attractive incentives for most of our faculty in SIP. There are other incentives that may be appropriate in individual cases (funds in a research account, conference travel, conference sponsorship/support) that could be negotiated.

Thank you!