User:Vtaylor/Learning literacies/DARE Outcomes

Developmental And Readiness Education (DARE) Taskforce

Basic Skills Initiative Fund Usage/Activity Report

DARE Mission: Developmental Education at De Anza College equitably allows students of every background to take ownership of their education and to succeed in their educational goals by providing the necessary integrated resources, services, and learning environment.

This form is designed to assist the DARE Taskforce in assessing how Basic Skills Initiative funds are used and to document the outcomes of DARE-funded projects. Your responses below will assist us in preparing reports to the state, ensure accountability, and help us disseminate what you learned to the campus. Be honest about what you learned. (There is something to be learned even from unsuccessful interventions.) This report is due to Jennifer Myhre (myhrejennifer@deanza.edu) and Rowena Tomaneng (tomanengrowena@fhda.edu) within two weeks of the completion date of your project.

Basic Skills Initiative Fund Usage/Activity Report

• Name of Program or Organization:
• 'Name of Project:
• Date:
• Contact:

1. Briefly describe the project/activity for which funds were used.

2. Please provide a breakdown of costs.

Description Amount Total:

3. What were the student learning outcomes and/or program level outcomes for your project?

• Program Outcomes:

• Student Learning Outcomes:

4. Were these outcomes met? Please discuss both qualitative and quantitative measures you used to evaluate your objectives. Please report specific quantitative data, whether from surveys or other measures, that demonstrate your findings.

The original objective was to provide a full compliment of students for the initial offering of the CIS77X Digitial Learning Literacies as a special project class. We planned to promote the class and allow registration through the first 5 weeks of the Spring 2014 semester. However, registration was closed at the end of the normal registration period, before the planned promotions could attracted additional students. The students who did enroll benefited from the materials. However the success of the the course design depends heavily on lively online discussions with student:student, student:content, and student:instructor interactions. There weren't enough students in the CIS77X course for this pedagogical design to work.

By incorporating some of the Digital Learning Liteacies activities in CIS89A, it was very exciting to see that this subset of the full course worked really well, with good feedback, additional resources provided by students, and even some useful suggestions for improvement.

• Survey results - students were asked to complete the Pre-survey at the beginning of the course, and the Post-survey during the last week of course. Both CIS77X and CIS89A students were asked to complete the surveys. A total of 17 CIS89A students indicated that they had completed the post-survey
• Feedback from CIS77X Digital Learning Litereacies - limited
• Feedback from CIS89A Web Development - comprehensive

5. What re-usable document(s) can you submit to the DARE Taskforce for wider use as a result of your activity? Please describe it briefly here and attach an electronic copy of it when you submit this report.

All the Digital Learning Literacies activities are available as open educational resources hosted on the WikiEducator site. When it was determined that the CIS77X registration was going to be closed, the lists of resources and some specific activities were added to CIS89A, demonstrating that these activities are generally interesting and useful, and are suitable for inclusion in other courses. Instructors in any discipline are welcome to select from the resources and activities to add a learning literacies component to any course.

• Digital Learning Literacies - activities, resources for the 6 modules - [Use], [Find], [Protect], [Solve], [Make], [Share]

6. Narrative Reflection: DARE would like your honest assessment about what you learned from this project, both positive and negative. What worked? What didn’t work? What would you do differently if you could do it again? Please write a 2-3 paragraph reflection about how the project went, its successes and challenges, and your overall takeaways about the project.

For the most part, the Digital Learning Litereacies worked out very well. Students stated that they enjoyed the activities and they learned a lot that they could apply immediately. The students posted reviews of selected articles in the online course forums which prompted some really good discussions and thoughtful comments and additional suggestions. This further enhanced the sense of learning community within the course that was appreciated. These discussions also strengthened distance learning practices, as well as academic reading and writing skills.

7. What will be your next steps to follow up, build on, sustain or diffuse the takeaways you discussed in your narrative reflection?

The Digital Learning Literacies program was well received and deemed to be useful to the students who participated in both the for-credit course and the activities added to supplement the CIS89A course. However, we don't have a good sense of who would sign up for the course as a regular course offering, or what promotion strategies are effective in reaching the students mostly to benefit from the course. The next step would be to offer the course as a regular course listed in the catalog, and promote course registration to encourage and assist students who need these skills.