College of the Redwoods
CURRICULUM PROPOSAL FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSE
Date: 4/18/2012
1. Division: Business and Applied Technology
2. Course ID and Number: Econ 10
3. Course Title: Microeconomics
SHORT TITLE (appears on student transcripts; limited to 30 characters, including spaces): Microeconomics
4. Please select the distance education method that best describes how the course content will be delivered to most
students taking this class:
CTV
DE 52: One-way video and two-way interactive audio (delivered video and telephone)
ITV
DE 51: Simultaneous Interaction: Two-way interactive video and two-way interactive audio
Online
DE 71: Internet based - Simultaneous Interaction: Session under supervision of instructor not
available by line of sight using the Internet with immediate opportunity for exchange
between participants.
DE 72: Internet based - Delayed Interaction: Session under supervision of instructor not available by line of
sight using the Internet without the immediate involvement of the instructor.
Other
DE 53: Simultaneous Interaction: Two-way interactive audio only
DE 60: Text One Way
DE 70: Audio One Way
5. Attach course syllabus to this proposal.
6. What perceived need will this distance education course address?
a) There are no MQ'd faculty in Economics at MC or KT. The MQ'd faculty in Economics at DN
is retiring at the end of this year. Econ 1 is required for several degrees and certificates, so
without distance education, students would be unable to complete these certifcates. b) This
class is required for some CTE degrees and certificates. Many students (especially the single
parent and displaced homemaker special populations under the Perkins Career-Technical
Education Act IV of 2006) cannot attend either daytime or evening classes. Even a synchronous
online class dramatically expands access for this population, since online chat or similar can be
undertaken while children sleep or play. c) Some mobility impaired students or students with
psychiatric disabilities may find an online environment less burdensome.
7. Describe in detail how the course content will be delivered and how students will engage this content. Be sure
to describe the specific technologies and/or software to be used.
a) Powerpoint/pdf lectures already exist for all course material and have been refined over the
last several years this class has been offered online. These are also available in a hardcopy
course packet. Embedded within these files are questions designed to assess understanding of
the concepts covered over the last several slides.
Curriculum Approval: 01.23.09
Academic Senate Approval: 03.04.09
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b) Four times per semester, students will take a lead role in class discussions. (See 'active
learning' component of syllabus.)
c) Several times per week, in a range of different timeslots, there will be 'live' chat sessions
with the instructor. Students are encouraged to bring their questions or to ask for assistance on
homework questions. If students have not already engaged with the material by the time they
attend a chat session, the instructor pulls one of the questions from the lecture slides and
presents it to the class for discussion. (Please see attached chat transcript, which covers the
last 2/3rds of a 1.5 hour chat session.) An advantage of the live chat sessions over discussion
forums is that it allows the instructor to 'turn off' students who have already fully participated and
then 'aim' quesitons at particular students who have not yet participated.
d) Students will turn in weekly graded homework. To quote from the example syllabus:
"Homework: (400 points, thus 40% of your final grade). Homework will be due every Sunday
night at 11pm. You have two options for completing your homework. You will need to identify
which option you prefer before the end of the first week of class. Please select whichever best
matches your learning style, abilities, and tastes.
• Algebraic Option: Instructor composed problem sets. Each week, I will post problem sets
for the relevant chapters. Each student will algorithmically customize their problem set using the
last two digits of their MyCR userID as a pseudo-random ‘seed.’ You will need to write up your
answers in a document and submit that document to the digital dropbox on the MyCR site. Since
some answers may take the form of an equation, when composing your document you will need
to use a program that allows for the composition and editing of equations, including subscripts
and superscripts. The document you submit should be in a Section 508/ADA compliant PDF
format. You can test whether your document is Section 508 / ADA compliant by having a screen
reader program attempt to read your document.
• Graphical Option: Aplia problem sets. In this case, you will do your homework using the
the Aplia system. Registration instructions are found on the last page of the syllabus."
To meet the course outcomes, students need to be able to apply economic
models to do quantitative analysis. That can be done with either graphs
or algebra.
Regarding 16.1 and 16.2: If 16.1 and 16.2 are construed as 'equivalent facilitiation' the answer
would be 'yes.' The availability of non-graphical homework sets means that all course concepts
and learning objectives are available in a text-based form.
If 16.1 and 16.2 are construed as "every piece of content has an exactly equivalent text-based
alternative," the answer is 'no.' But this would also be true of a face to face class, where there
would not be an exactly equivalent text-based alternative to all the graphs that an instructor
might draw on the whiteboard.
Because of this ambiguity, I have checked N/A for 16.1 and 16.2.
8. To illustrate the description in #7, describe what students in this course may do in a typical week of this course.
If students are attending one of the chat sessions early in the week (e.g. Wednesday),
students should read the text and lectures before attending one of the chat sessions. They
might also attempt the homework before attending the chat session, so that if they have any
difficulty, they can get help. Homeworks are due on Sunday night, so students attending on
Sunday are expected to have attempted the homework already and the chat sessions are
more focused homework assistance. Since both the algebraic and graphical homework
options algorithmically generate homework problems, if one student asks another for
assistance, they must explain the full process of how the answer flows from the randomly
generated information, rather than just telling them "The answer to #7 is "B" or the answer to
#3 is 42."
9. Title V mandates “regular and effective” contact between DE students and the instructor. Describe the nature
and frequency of instructor-student interactions in this course.
Combining 7b and 7c from above, 30% of the student's final grade depends on regular and
effective interaction with the instructor. Regarding 7c, to earn full participation credit, students
must actively and constructively engage in 1.5 hours of instructor moderated chat per week. If
Curriculum Approval: 01.23.09
Academic Senate Approval: 03.04.09
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they are not active and constructive in their 1.5 hours, they will need to attend two or three times
per week.
10. Describe the nature and frequency of student-student interactions in this course.
There are typically 4-10 students attending a particular chat session. In thepast, typically,
after the instructor poses a question and the correct answer is identified, the instructor will then
ask one student to explain to the others how they got their correct answer. If there is a wide
disagreement between students on what the correct answer is, the instructor will prompt a minidebate between the students. With the addition of the active learning component in 7b, there will
be student leaders for each week of the discussion section. Student-student interactions should
become stronger.
11. Describe how you will identify and respond to students experiencing difficulty in this course.
The most significant difficulty students appear to experience is time-management. Before
census, students who have not been completing assignments will be contacted using both their
MyCR email and any other email address available. This process will be repeated again towards
the middle of the semester.
12. Will exam proctoring be required?
No
Yes
If yes, who will proctor exams? For the last two semesters, there has been a hardcopy proctored
final exam that is identifical the exam used for the face-to-face students. The instructor
proctors the exam at a variety of time slots during finals week that do no conflict with
regularly scheduled final exams at a location near the central campus. Students living within
the district who have difficult with accessing this time or location have arranged to have their
exam proctored at their local testing center. Students living outside the district have usually
been able to contact their local community college and arrange exam proctoring there for a
small fee.
13. Describe how assessments are used in this course to ensure that student work is evaluated effectively and
accurately.
Both the weekly homework and comprehensive final exam are identical to those used in the
face-to-face classes. The homeworks do not serve as a direct assessment of the course learning
outcomes. The final exam is the key assessment of learning outcomes. Students are required to
show photo ID when taking the final exam -- a higher level of verification than for the face-to-face
classes. Assessment results from these final exams indicate that SLO achievement rates are not
stastistically different from the results in face-to-face classes.
14. Describe the equipment and staff resources necessary to support the course for students and instructors.
a) A learning management system that allows documents and grades to be posted.
b) Dependable access to a computer that is not more than 8 years old.
c) Dependable access to an internet connection, preferably high-speed.
d) Depending on the homework option chosen, a program capable of producing mathematical
equations in Section 508/ADA compliant formats or a variety of plug-ins.
15. Describe the contingency plan for this course if access to the delivery system is interrupted.
Students must accept primary responsibility for maintaining their own computers and internet
access. Students who report (via phone message) an internet outage before a deadline passes
may be eligible for an extension. If there are outages in the delivery system or mass internet
outages over the district, blanket extensions are awarded to the whole class. If there were an
extended outage of the delivery system or district-wide Internet for more than two weeks,
students would be contacted by email and/or telephone. Written hardcopy short essays and
written hardcopy homework would be substituted for online chat and homework.
Curriculum Approval: 01.23.09
Academic Senate Approval: 03.04.09
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16. Both state and federal law require community colleges to design courses to ensure access for students with
disabilities, including compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Please indicate the steps taken to
ensure accessibility by checking the Yes, No, or NA boxes below. For further assistance with accessibility and
assistive technology, please contact DSP&S.
Yes No NA Requirement and Purpose
1. The course delivery provides a text equivalent for all non-text elements such as images,
animations, applets, audio/video files and art. This will enable a screen reader to read the
text equivalent to a blind student.
2. The course delivery provides descriptions for important graphics if they are not fully
described through alternative text or in a document’s content. The description would inform
a blind student of what a picture represented.
3. The course delivery ensures that information conveyed by the use of color is also
understandable without color. For example, so a blind or color-blind student could
understand a color-coded representation of DNA.
4. The course delivery provides textual equivalents to audio information (captioning). The text
will enable deaf students to know what others are hearing.
5. The course delivery provides an alternative audio description for multimedia presentations.
The sound will enable blind students to know what others are seeing.
6. The course delivery ensures that moving, blinking, scrolling, or auto-updating objects or
pages may be paused or frozen. The movement can be distracting for students with certain
disabilities.
7. If using faculty web site vs. college provided course management system, the web site
identifies, by labeling or other appropriate means, row and column headers. The
identification will enable screen readers to discern the headers, which disclose the purpose
of the data in the rows and columns.
Curriculum Approval: 01.23.09
Academic Senate Approval: 03.04.09
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Yes No NA Requirement and Purpose
8. If using faculty web site vs. college provided course management system, the web site
provides title frames and includes sufficient information as to their purpose and relationship
to each other. This will help blind students understand the organizational purpose of the
frame.
9. If using faculty web site vs. college provided course management system, the instructor has
ensured, through HiSoftware’s “Cynthia Says” http://www.cynthiasays.com/ or other
appropriate verification, the usability of pages, and will attach to this proposal evaluation
printouts of Section 508 and WCAG—Priority 1 compliance.
10. My course syllabus recommends that students who require accommodations for a disability,
such as accessible formatting of course materials, contact me immediately. Example: “In
compliance with equal access laws, I am available to discuss appropriate academic
accommodations that you may require as a student with a disability. Students are
encouraged to contact Disabled Students Programs and Services (DSP&S) for disability
verification and for determination of reasonable academic accommodations.”
Submitted by: Michael Dennis
Approvals:
Department Chair: Clyde Johnson
Dean, Distance Education Geoff Cain
Division Chair/Director: Jeff Cummings
Tel. Ext: 4367
Date: 4/18/2012
Review Date: 4/19/12
Review Date: 4/19/12
Review Date: 4/19/12
CURRICULUM COMMITTEE USE ONLY
Approved by Curriculum Committee: No
Yes
Date: 4.27.12
Academic Senate Approval Date: 5.4.12
Board of Trustees Approval Date: 06.05.12
Curriculum Approval: 01.23.09
Academic Senate Approval: 03.04.09
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