CARNEGIE COURSE REDESIGN FINAL REPORT

UNIVERSITY OF BALTIMORE

Prepared by:

Antoinette Martsoukos

Marguerite Weber

Fred Guy

Introduction

The University of Baltimore requires all undergraduate students to complete its core course, EthicalIssues in Business & Society,prior to graduation. The course enrolls students from the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Business, and the College of International and Public Affairs.” The major goals in redesigning the course have been to prevent course drift, improve student learning outcomes, and reduce instructional costs. We are pleased to report that each of these goals has been met.

Reducing course drift has improved student learning by requiring that all instructors follow without variation a common syllabus that includes uniform assignments, prompts, evaluation standards, readings, and in-class exercises, and capstone projects. Increasing the size of each section of the course has reduced instructional cost significantly.

Background

Enrollment in the traditional offerings of Ethical Issues in Business & Society was capped at thirty (30), and included both face-to-face and on-line sections. Seventy percent of the sections were taught by adjunct faculty, who came from a wide range of disciplines and interests. Course drift was a serious problem, as many instructors chose not to follow the syllabus but to teach predominately from the viewpoints of their own disciplines. As a result, there was growing dissatisfaction among the student population, as the content, requirements, and evaluations standards for the course could change depending on the instructor.

The challenge facing the redesign committee has been to insure that whoever is the instructor, the course will be taught fundamentally in the same way with the same content and requirements. Our redesign committee, therefore, set about to stabilize the course by agreeing upon an “iron-clad” common syllabus that allowed no major variations in assignments, readings, requirements, pedagogy and evaluation. We now have a common syllabus that all faculty, adjunct and full-time, have agreed to follow explicitly. In addition, out of our efforts in re-crafting the syllabus and in teaching the pilot section of the redesign version of the course, we have created an electronic Instructors’ Manual that includes detailed guidelines in teaching all aspects of the course.

A pilot section of the redesigned course was offered during the spring semester, 2012. The pilot enrolled sixty students (60), twice the traditional number, and was taught by a full time faculty member with the assistance of an adjunct instructor and a graduate assistant. Lessons learned from teaching the pilot include the following. The class size of sixty students is too large for a course of this kind. The instructors were able to edit and refine major course assignments during the semester to adapt to student responses on initial assignments. A significant improvement in student learning was noted as a result of reconstructed assignment prompt, guidelines to critical thinking, and brief outlines on ethical theories.

  1. Impact on Student Learning
  1. Improved Learning

There has been a significant improvement in student learning in two of the major learning objectives in the pilot offering of the redesigned course, “Ethical Issues in Business & Society.”

The traditional offerings of the redesigned course, “Ethical Issues in Business & Society,” included the following learning objectives.

  • Identify Ethical Issues: Students should be able to identify ethical issues in their personal, professional and public lives, and to recognize the differences among legal, policy and ethical issues.
  • Understand Major Ethical Theories: Students should gain a practical and theoretical knowledge of the major tenets of the major moral frameworks in Western and Eastern thought.
  • Critical Thinking: Students should demonstrate through written assignments and class discussion a high standard of objective, insightful and consistent thought.
  • Application of Ethical Theories: Students should be able to apply each ethical theory to real-world ethical problem-solving.
  • Decision-Making: Students should demonstrate the ability to apply a process of ethical decision-making to resolve a range of ethical issues.
  • Personal & Professional Code of Ethics: Students will demonstrate their ability to express coherently and insightfully their own ethics by writing a personal code of ethics and comparing and contrasting it with codes of ethics in their chosen professions.

The redesigned course requires the same objectives as above; however, the assignments and prompts for these learning objectives have been edited and refined. The results proved to be significant in the pilot offering of the redesigned course. For example, after the first case study assignment in the pilot course, in which students are required to apply an ethical theory to an ethics case study, the instructors re-wrote the assignment guidelines in response to low student grades. Students demonstrated significant improvement on the remainder of case study assignments. In addition, instructors re-wrote the prompts for the capstone assignment, My Code of Ethics, to assure a more coherent, detailed and comprehensive final paper in the course.

The capstone project’s “Key Learning Goals” and “Learning Outcomes: Code of Ethics” assignment standard are as follow.

Key Learning Goals

  • Identify & articulate hierarchy of core values
  • Assessment of moral character
  • Explain the value of ethics in personal & professional life
  • Analyze & evaluate code of ethics in chosen profession
  • Compare & contrast personal code of ethics with professional code
  • Identify ethical issues in professional case study and demonstrate problem-solving through decision-making process

Learning Outcomes

  • List what is valued most in life in priority of importance and explain in detail why each is of value
  • Articulate the meaning of integrity and list virtues aspired to and ethical principles followed
  • Demonstrate ability to distinguish among realist and superficial principles and values of given code of ethics in business or the professions
  • Articulate reasons why an issue is an ethical one and not strictly a legal or policy matter. Demonstrate the ability to employ formal decision-making process to resolve ethical issues

If improved grades during the course of a semester are indicators of “improved learning,” then the pilot course proved to be very successful in this aspect; and it demonstrated a marked improvement over the learning outcomes in the traditional sections for the following reasons.

  • The redesigned common syllabus was followed explicitly and consistently.
  • There was no course drift, therefore, from the redesigned goals for the course.
  • Instructors adapted quickly to the results of the first case study assignment by carefully rethinking and rewriting the prompts for case studies.
  • Students were required to write their personal code of ethics twice: during the first week of the semester and during the last week of the semester. The same prompt for students’ personal code of ethics was given in both assignments. As a result of a semester’s work, most students showed marked improvement on their second edition of their personal code of ethics.
  • Class discussion evolved from a smattering of thoughtless outbursts at the beginning of the semester to a majority of thoughtful, well-modulated and serious comments at the semester’s end.

SEE APPENDIX for completed assessment results.

  1. Improved Retention

The pilot course proved to be highly successful in retaining its students. Out of an initial enrollment sixty, only two students dropped the course. This is an impressive retention rate, given the large size of the class, the fact that it met only once a week face-to-face from 2-4:30 p.m., and that it is required of all students.

See Appendices

  1. Impact on Cost Savings

We are pleased to report that we have implemented our cost savings plan. Although the pilot section demonstrated clearly that sixty students are too many for a course of this nature, we have determined that the course can be successfully taught with one instructor with an enrollment of forty students. As we have offered ten to eleven sections of the traditional offering of this course with a maximum enrollment of thirty each, expanding the enrollment to forty represents a thirty percent (30%) reduction in the cost of offering the course each semester.

  1. Lessons Learned
  1. Pedagogical Improvement Techniques
  • Common syllabus: By implementing a common syllabus that all facultymust follow, we have eliminated course drift. Regardless of their disciplines, faculty are required to assign the same readings, case studies, in-class exercises, and introductory and capstone projects. The faculty is given flexibility, however, in offering additional readings, film clips, topics, etc., according to class interestsin addressing current ethical issues.
  • Instructors’ Manual: We have created an electronic Instructors’Manual that covers every aspect of the course, including readings, assignments, requirements, in-class exercises, introductory lectures on all ethical theories, decision-making processes, introductory and capstone projects, required films, recommended film clips, ethics in the news, links to articles and websites, study guides, and teaching methods. Our goal with the instructor’s manual is to enable a first-time adjunct instructor to teach a very successful class the first time out by following tried and true methods, assignments, exercises, readings, etc.
  • Capstone Assignment: Personal Code of Ethics: We have learned that a more effective way of assessing our capstone project (Personal Code of Ethics) is to assign this as an introductory project the first week of class and then to compare it with what students write in the final version of the project during the last week of the semester. This has enabled us to determine if students have shown any significant growth in terms of identifying their own core values, assessing their moral character, expanding their moral points of view, identifying and analyzing ethical issues, and understanding and applying a range of ethical theories.
  • Rewriting Prompts:We have learned that we cannot be too precise and direct in writing prompts for case study assignments. We have expanded our prompts to offer students a more coherent step by step method for analyzing and ethical issues and applying and evaluating an ethical theory. Students showed marked improvement in the second assignment of case studies in the pilot course.
  • Course cannot be taught well with large enrollment:The pilot course enrolled sixty students. It is clear that this number of students is too great to teach effectively a course of the nature. While a core of students did very well and participated consistently and insightfully in class discussion, it was exceptionally difficult to involve the entire class in open discussions during each class meeting. The result was that the instructors were unable to work effectively with each member of the class, which is a significant disadvantage in teaching an ethics course.
  • Sakai:We found Sakai to be of tremendous value in redesigning the course, setting up a common syllabus, creating anInstructors’Manual, and training instructors. The entire course is now online, complete with all assignments, etc. This eliminates the need for students to purchase an expensive textbook.
  • Versions of the Course: We learned that the redesigned course can be taught successfully in a number of different offerings: traditional full semester face to face, full semester online, summer semester face to face and online, summer semester hybrid, and five week online.
  1. Cost Reduction Techniques
  • Increased size of class: The pilot course enrolled sixty (60) students, which we found to be too many to teach the course effectively. We were able, however, to increase the size of all face to face sections of the course from a maximum of thirty (30) to forty (40) students. We were then able to increase the total enrollment of the course sections (11-12 per semester) to 110-120 students without the need to offer four additional sections of the course.
  • Eliminated textbook: The redesigned course no longer requires textbooks of any kind, which is a major saving for our students. Textbooks in ethics range from $75 to $140.
  • Sakai:We have created a dedicated site on Sakai (our online learning platform) that includes all course content and assignments, as well as links to classic readings (e.g., Plato’s Apology King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail) and current multi-media entries on up-to-the minute controversial ethical issues. As may be expected, there has been a significant savings in copying materials for classes as a result of the use of Sakai in the redesigned course.
  1. Implementation Issues
  • Sakai: As noted above, the extensive use of Sakai has enabled us to offer the course in a variety of ways and to provide instructors and students with every component of the course necessary for a successful learning environment. Implementation of Sakai required fairly extensive training for the majority of the faculty teaching in the course. Training sessions, however, proved to be very successful in instructing faculty of the advantages of using Sakai.
  • Common syllabus: We encountered no problems in introducing a common syllabus into the course redesign.
  • Teaching core: We have been blessed with a core of veteran instructors, who easily adjusted to the requirements of the redesigned course. Many have served as trainers for new instructors and have played major roles in adapting the entire the course to Sakai.
  • Instructors’ Manual: As noted above, we have developed successfully an Instructors’ Manual as part of the course redesign. The Instructors’ Manual is available fully online and is available for all instructors, new and veteran. Instructors are encouraged to contribute to, but not edit, the Instructors’ Manual as they teach the course.
  • Room assignments: With the class size of the course now increased to forty students per section, we have experienced some problems with room assignments for face to face classes. Many classrooms are limited to thirty seats or are simply too small and cramped to accommodate forty students. In addition, increasing the size of online sections to thirty creates an almost unmanageable class size to serve adequately in this format. The jury is still out, however, on how effective online sections of this size will be for both students and faculty.
  • Course drift addressed successfully: One of our major goals in redesigning the course has been to eliminate course drift. We are happy to report that we have done this. Doing so, however, has not been easy. Our faculty members come from a multidisciplinary background with the usual biases toward their own disciplines. To make sure that all faculty teach the same course regardless of their colleges and disciplines, we require training sessions prior to each semester of all faculty, regardless of how often they have taught the course.
  1. Sustainability

The course has been successfully redesigned to sustain itself regardless of instructors or core coordinator. With the insistence upon all instructors following to the letter a common syllabus, the addition of an Instructors’ Manual, and the valuable electronic advantages offered by Sakai, we have no doubt that the course can be supported both financially, administratively and academically on our campus for years to come.

1