Fall 2024 Cohort - Tech4 Teaching & Learning MiniGrant - Culminating Portfolio

FSHD 50: The Family and Social Issues

Engaging, Interactive, Certified

Course Description

Family structure, systems, and functioning in marriage and other partnerships; parenting, work issues, domestic violence, divorce, and remarriage. Focus on social issues, including gender, race, ethnicity, and class. Historical and theoretical perspectives on families in America. Introduction to research in family sciences and public policy implications. Lecture/Discussion. 3 units. This class is typically taught in person, but it has been taught as a hybrid and online in both synchronous and asynchronous modalities. The course has been taught as a mini mega with about 80 students (range: 40 to 120 students). Students in this course typically come from many majors outside the FSHD major, from freshmen to senior students, and many come with an interest in learning more about relationships within their own families.

Reflection on Tech4 Teaching & Learning MiniGrant Deliverables:

Self Review of Course - Using QM Rubric

I am excited to share that I was able to meet all the QM standards! My course is much more responsive to the needs of students, including in areas where one would typically worry about in an asynchronous environment, such as student engagement and active learning.

Analyzed the DFW Rates and Developed a Plan

For the most part, students do very well in this course. Historically, this course had a high DFW rate, especially during the years of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (range: 12-15% DFW rates). In the last two academic semesters, the DFW rate ranged between 5.6 - 7.6%. That is almost a two-to-three-fold difference. The biggest concern then was that the engagement and interactive nature of the course was lackluster when it was offered as an asynchronous online course.

Created a Course Map to Demonstrate Alignment

The course map went through a series of iterative transformations to demonstrate tight alignment across all areas, including revising the module learning outcomes (MLOs) so they are measurable.

Professional Development Selected to Strengthen Skills and Knowledge --

Improve Your Online Course (IYOC)

This course really gave me the nuts and bolts of what it takes to design and teach an online course. This course far exceeded what I thought I would learn in a course about teaching online. I came into the course not knowing even the basics of what the power of an LMS can do, especially in an asynchronous learning environment. I utilized these new skills in the course redesign of my FSHD 50 course, which has passed the internal review stage for QM certification. I am poised to continue using the technical skills I learned in IYOC in other future online course redesigns.

Course Redesign Process and Experience

This experience was very eye-opening as far as how much my course needed to be redesigned. The differences between my FSHD 50 course before this FLC and the one that passed internal review are substantial. The course flow feels much more integrative, the interactive nature, the interface, the clarity and simplicity of use, all now much improved.

Evidence of Online Course Re-Design

*FSHD 50* Re-Design
*Interactive Lessons*	*Digestible-sized Lectures*
Interactive Nature of the Lessons with Embedded Panopto Questions. The image below is a True/False question assessing students' learning of the material covered in this lesson.	The lectures are much more reasonably length than prior to redesigning this course for QM certification. Lecture videos were usually more than an hour long (almost 2 hrs!). Videos are now usually between 5 and 7 minutes.

Changes in Course Syllabus and Schedules:

Syllabus FSHD 50 QM Syllabus.pdf

**Faculty Biography**
Henry Gonzalez	About me:
	I am an associate professor of family studies and human development in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Sacramento State University. My scholarly interests center on issues of fatherhood, parenting, and children's development. My teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that the information my students learn will benefit both their personal and professional development. I teach courses such as The Child in the Family, Adolescent Development, Issues in Parenting, and Family and Social Issues.

**Program Sponsors**
	This work was supported by: US Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution Project TECH4Equity US Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution Project STEM4Equity P031C210012 *Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the US Department of Education.