BIO 103

The Title III Course Redesign effort for BIO103 has turned out to be a surprisingly rewarding experience for our committee. Initially, we viewed the task as something of a "chore" to be done and crossed off the list before returning to our normal routines, but by the second or third meeting we began to see that we really could do a better course design collectively as we shared common experiences with problematic sections of the current course, student abilities and interests in BIO103, and unique approaches to convey course content that we had developed independently over the years. Since that revelation we have revised the content objectives for BIO103 to make them more measurable, developed the topic list for four units of lecture material, and developed lecture outlines for each unit. Each member of the committee agrees that the revised course is a distinct improvement over the previous one, and we are excitedly developing lectures and supporting materials for the current pilot sections in summer and fall. We have found it refreshing to frankly discuss the content and presentation of course concepts as a "Calhoun team", instead of just following our own inclinations and privately wondering what everyone else is doing in the course. We look forward to sharing our enthusiasm for the new design in presentations to other faculty members this fall. We are certain that some problems will surface, but based upon our experience to date, we are also certain that even more improvements will be found.

ENG 101

Participating in the course redesign program helped all of us who were involved. By re-examining the course, we were able to rethink our processes and procedures, our goals and objectives. It helped us identify weaknesses and strengths in the way we were teaching English 101.

HIS 121

As part of the course redesign element of the Title III grant recently awarded to the college, a team of full-time and adjunct faculty members was assembled from the Social Science division to examine and hopefully improve the World History I course. In the initial meetings the committee members unanimously agreed that the most challenging aspect of teaching world history was the ability to present the material in a palatable fashion so that students with very little background in the subject would be better able to grasp and comprehend the vast information they would be exposed to in the class. A decision was made that the best manner in which this goal could be achieved would be to develop a custom textbook for the class that would focus on the content presented from more of a thematic rather than chronological approach. While this task proved to be demanding at times the committee members agree that the end product is definitely worth the time and effort made by all involved in the process. We look forward to improved student success in all world history sections as a result this course redesign.

MTH 100

We were given the task of redesigning, probing and pruning MTH100. We noticed that different instructors teach, and sometimes may emphasize, different components of the textbook material. We wanted to come up with standard exams and quizzes for all MTH100 courses. We agreed that this should eliminate student "woes" of entering Pre-Calculus Algebra or Finite Mathematics and not knowing how to graph a linear function or how to factor basic polynomials. The new design targets these trends and even allows for more time to be given for instruction in the classroom. These new changes are to enhance the current course. We will pilot two of these courses for Fall/05 and offer workshops for the entire math division. We hope to have all the "kinks" out and ready for full implementation for the Spring/05 semester.