NZABA 2009 APS October 2, 2009

Teaching experimental psychology to an off-campus and multi-campus student population using a converged delivery model

Stephen Provost

NZABA 2009

The psychology program at SCU

Bachelor of Psychology (4-year integrated degree) established at Coffs Harbour in 2001

Later Graduate Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma added

Initial intake of 40, now approximately 65-70

Small number of students at Coffs take psychology as an elective (silo courses)

Strong pressure to increase EFTSL

Only way forward seems to be Lismore and external students (who make up 50% of student population)

Need to be able to deliver Graduate Diploma (APAC sequence)

APS October 2, 2009

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Format for most on-campus teaching in Bachelor of Psychology degree at Coffs

• Three hours face-to face contact per week• Lecturer is content expert• Lecturer has PhD (mostly)• Labs/tutorials conducted by post-grad students• Limited email contact with academic, more with tutor• Discussion forum on Blackboard largely ignored• Between 2 and 4 written assignments due at various

points in the semester• End-of-semester exam

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Traditional SCU external student model, expected by external students in other degrees.

• Hard-copy study guide• Hard-copy book of readings• Perhaps a text book• E-mail contact with academic (usually not the

person who wrote the study guide, often casual staff, hardly ever postgrad qualified)

• Discussion forum on Blackboard, well used• One large-scale written assignment due at end of

semester• No exam

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One other complication

• The main university campus is in Lismore• Lismore is nearly 3 hours away by car• No psychology staff are located there, although

we have a small number of graduates and other qualified individuals who live close by

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Past attempts

• Study guides written for three units that do not have laboratory components

• Staff have shuttled to Lismore to deliver in conventional way (often to very small number of students)

• Intensive delivery has been tried for units that have more requirement for hands-on

• Casual staff willing to make the run to Lismore, or who lived close to Lismore have been employed

• These efforts create significant logistic and management issues, as well as raising equity and quality-control concerns, and has placed limitation on our ability to expand

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Converged delivery

• Similar problems exist in other parts of the university

• A new campus is being built in Tweed Heads

• The university has indicated that it wishes to move towards converged delivery

• Core concept is that the students enrolled in a unit of study are treated as a single entity

• That is, you do not make different arrangements for on campus vs external students

• Need to employ variety of methods, and students have flexibility to select from these

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Fellowship

• Key question for psychology was whether converged delivery could work for those units in the APAC sequence that have (or should have) a substantial laboratory component

• I received an internal fellowship to test this for the second year unit BHS20007: Learning and Memory

• Also expected to provide some evaluation of the impact on student satisfaction

• Have now taught the unit twice, with some changes being made along the way

• Will describe the latest version for comments and feedback

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The “philosophy” for BHS20007

• Core content best acquired by reading the text book (which costs a fair bit)

• The role of lectures is the integration of topics, extension of book material, highlighting applications of core content, and providing a model of scholarly activity

• It is important for students to be able to interact with the lecturer

• An introduction to laboratory work, and the writing of laboratory reports, is a central learning objective

• Weekly contact with a human being is important

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The delivery of BHS20007

• Weekly topics set for reading of the text book• MCQs provided on MySCU, answers later• Weekly lecture (1 hour), videoconferenced to Lismore,

PPTs, MP3, and Mediasite recordings uploaded to MySCU• Weekly workshop (1 hour) in Coffs, Lismore, and online

(Elluminate, recorded and uploaded)• Weekly lab (1 hour) in Coffs, Lismore and online (recorded)• Discussion boards provided, including a tutor contact/faq

system• I have received approximately 300 emails relating to the

unit over the course of the semester

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The Elluminate classroom

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Assessment

• Two traditional laboratory reports:– Assignment 1 based upon an experiment conducted in labs on

retrieval induced forgetting– Assignment 2 based upon an experiment designed by students

in groups collecting data from other students in the unit. Topics could be anything related to either learning or memory. Topics included delay discounting, fear appeal advertising, and various aspects of memory including depth of processing and memory for melodies.

• End of semester examination:– Multiple choice questions relating to core content from the text– Short-answer questions relating largely to lecture material

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Student evaluation

• I’m working on an inventory to more closely examine issues surrounding the online components of the delivery

• On campus students don’t like the videoconference• Lismore students appreciate it• Strategies to improve podcasts• Some students don’t like not getting a study guide• Some students REALLY appreciate the contact with

lecturers and other students that Elluminate provides

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my evaluation

• Everybody has written two lab reports, and some of them are very good

• The unit is “academic-centric”, I am in control, and I can adjust events in a “just-in-time” fashion, just like I can in exclusive on-campus mode

• Last year, there was no significant difference in the marks obtained by the 3 groups of students

• My workload was what could have been expected running a unit of this size

• I hate the simultaneous videoconferencing, and will never, ever, ever do it again

• I really enjoyed the Elluminate labs, and getting smiley faces• Some students have said kind things to me, which doesn’t happen

that often

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I would very much appreciate your feedback and

suggestions

Thanks for listening

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