UNC Charlotte had reached a crisis point with Spanish 1201, an entry level course enrolling approximately 1600 students per year. A high drop/withdraw/fail rate of 25% was costing the university a fortune; it was becoming impossible to find classroom space for the ever growing enrollments of the course; and a lack of consistency among the nearly 30 sections offered per semester, due to high turnover of instructors, was giving students widely varied experiences. In order to increase access for all the students who wished to enroll, improve learning, and save money, the Spanish 1201 Redesign team decided to change the course from the traditional format of meeting twice weekly to a hybrid course format, where students would meet only once per week in a classroom and the remaining 50% of course would consist of online activities. The hybrid format addressed issues that made the old format difficult to teach. Too much of the class time was being used to present grammatical information and discuss assignments, tests, and class management issues instead of focusing on the deeper learning afforded through communicative activities. With the hybrid format, the instructor now uses the classroom session to spend only a few minutes presenting a topic and then focus on facilitating proficiency oriented communicative learning activities. The handling of assignments, exams, and class announcements are now done electronically through the university's course management system, and online textbook system, and Opscan. Common course materials and lesson plans were developed for all sections of the course to use, and instructors received orientation and training sessions on how to deliver the course, which addressed the consistency issues. A pilot test of six sections of the course was conducted in Fall 2009, and data were collected regarding student performance, student satisfaction, the drop/withdraw/fail rate, and cost per student. Overall, the data showed that it was a viable model to expand to all sections for the Fall 2010 semester. But that is only half the story. Since the project sought to address major departmental and institutional concerns, it was a project fraught with many setbacks and obstacles. However, we were able to create successes by focusing on the goals of the project, managing people and processes, and using data to drive decisions. We will discuss the importance of having a shared vision, the implications of having an institutional need for redesign as a major driver, and the value of aligning departmental goals with the project. This project was as much—or more—about managing a large scale, multi-tiered project as it was about the redesign itself. To put it in Sloan-C's terms, this "new learning environment had a multitude of consequences - curricular, administrative, and pedagogic … -- both individual and cultural ‘habits of mind'." The presentation will describe the lessons learned and how redesigning a whole course as a hybrid course (i.e., not simply one section of the course) can be a challenging and rewarding process for instructional designers and faculty alike.
