Next Generation: Course Redesign

Abstract

This article describes a course redesign project at the University of North Texas that is in the fifth year of a planned nine-year effort. The goals of the Next Generation Course Redesign (NGen) Project include practicing “never-ending course redesign,” affecting teaching and learning at all levels of the institution and beyond, and creating and sustaining a course-redesign community of practice. Over two years, NGen faculty fellows develop student-learning goals for courses that blend large-group lectures, a media-rich interactive online environment, and small-group experiential learning activities. They then assess these courses to ensure that they have enhanced student learning and success while containing cost of instruction. They also survey students to track changes in their attitudes toward the subject of study, preference for this form of instructional delivery, and sense of their own cognitive development. The article also describes the barriers to sustaining and replicating an innovative instructional approach and the actions that are being taken to increase its probability of success.