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Course Mentoring: Toward Achieving Consistency in the Curriculum

Course Mentoring: Toward Achieving Consistency in the Curriculum. Lucia Dettori School of CTI – DePaul University Joint work with Amber Settle ISECON November 4, 2004. Outline. CTI 101 Who are we? Why do we need course mentors? The mentor’s responsibilities The technology Did it work?

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Course Mentoring: Toward Achieving Consistency in the Curriculum

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  1. Course Mentoring: Toward Achieving Consistency in the Curriculum Lucia DettoriSchool of CTI – DePaul University Joint work with Amber Settle ISECON November 4, 2004

  2. Outline • CTI 101 Who are we? • Why do we need course mentors? • The mentor’s responsibilities • The technology • Did it work? • Where do we go from here? Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  3. Computer Science Telecommunication Information Systems C T I 101: some faCToIds Founded 1996 30 FT faculty 20 PT faculty 1800 students 80 sections/quarter Currently 2004 80 FT faculty 100 PT faculty 3500+ students 250 sections/quarter Fall 02: 22 sections of Java 1 Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  4. 13 BA/BS 14 MS/MA CTI’s degrees at a glance

  5. Content consistency : a must • Vertical nature of IT degreesJava 2 builds on Java 1 … • Shared introductory coursesDB1 serves CS, IS, NT … • Evolution of course content Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  6. Content consistency: a challenge • Multiple sections • Use of part time instructors in introductory courses • First time instructor of the specific course • Propagating content changes Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  7. Who is in charge? CTI structure Faculty 1 Dean 4 Associate Deans “Cloud 9” Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Graduate Curriculum Committee Program CommitteesCS,IS,NT,IT,ECT,CGA,GAM,DC Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  8. Rules for a successful solution • Scalable • Easily extendable to many courses • Distributed/decentralized • One person can’t do it all • Multi-campus school • Flexible • 5/13 BS degrees were introduced in the last year, one more this year. • New courses will need monitoring • Rewards/incentives Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  9. Course Mentors : the idea • Critical courses are assigned a course mentor • The course mentor is a fulltime faculty who has taught the course recently • Course mentor serves for a year for the purpose of continuity Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  10. The mentor’s responsibilities • Hold a pre and post-quarter meeting with all instructors • Populate and maintain a SharePoint website for the course • Be a proactive contact person for tech-staff • Give feedback about the course to the appropriate committees Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  11. IS315 Analysis & Design

  12. The Share Point Course sites • The basics • Syllabus, week-by-week course coverage • Course guidelines, positioning of the course • Course material • Lecture notes, PPT, tutorials, links • Case studies, good examples • Assessment material, GAE • Discussion board Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  13. CSC211 Java Programming 1

  14. If you build it will they come? • Over 60 course sites with the bare minimum were created • 50% of the courses identified as needing a mentors got one • Active mentors made a difference • First time instructor • Spotting problems early (Codelab) • Relying on volunteers alone will not work in the long run Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  15. Cost neutral incentives • Fat bullet points (->money): the personnel committee has agreed to recognize mentoring as “going beyond the call of duty” • Teach what you want (->time): you are guaranteed to teach the course you are mentoring or any other you want Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

  16. Where do we go from here • Improve functionalities of the site • Add search tools • Go beyond the “lecture” view, tied material to learning goals instead • Move to a database driven system • Improve usability to facilitate use by other departments (Math, PSY, …) • Develop a metric of incentives agreeable to the administration. Lucia Dettori DePaul -CTI

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