SUS Colleagues:
I hope you are having a terrific summer wherever you call home. In Maryland it is hot and the humidity is rising. The sunshine is great, and it is definitely summer on the East Coast.
As I’ve mentioned in my blog before, I am trying to meet as many collegiate and adjunct faculty as possible. One of the themes that seems to run throughout my conversations with many of you one way or the other links back to our focus on courses versus program. Let me explain, and then I hope this will be a topic for greater discussion in your online communities.
At UMUC we refer to “course development” as the unit that helps us to design individual courses. Directors and faculty review “courses” and improve them or retire them as necessary. We put single courses online or move single online courses to hybrids. Faculty teach their courses but often with no larger understanding of the program or programs within which those courses are situated. Students enroll in a series of courses, and when they have collected enough courses, they graduate. Throughout all this, the focus is on the course. But don’t our students come to us to complete a program of study?
What would it mean to have a focus on programs rather than courses?
How would you design courses differently if you referenced each back to the program and to one another? What could you do in terms of assessment if you designed the program as one entity?
Would an emphasis on program rather than just courses help students? In what ways? Could it work the other way and do any harm? For instance, how would you design a program given that so many of our students bring with them varying amounts of transfer credit?
How would a program-level emphasis affect faculty? What might they need to know or do differently if we designed programs first, and courses second?
I would really like your input and thoughts on this topic. Have a great remainder of July and I hope to communicate with you again later in August.
---Marie
