Challenges to the implementation of change in interdisciplinary studies curriculum

INTE 6750 Change Report Lior Flum 7.12.2012

Introduction
As part of a continuous effort to improve its curriculum, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) conducts evaluations and modifications of its courses. With the aim of providing its students better learning experiences and producing better learning outcomes, courses are examined for their contents, but also for their place in the wider program structure. The change proposed below is to adjust a base core course to set the grounds for continuous, reflective, and self-motivated learning in other courses and particularly in a capstone core course. The goal of the proposed change is to create a sustained reflective use of online learning tools that will serve as a resource for integration of learning. IIS provides liberal studies academic programs. IIS has been offering on-campus courses for over twenty years, and online and blended ones in the last ten years. One of IISs flagship programs is the Interdisciplinary Studies Program (ISP), an undergraduate program that brings together several social sciences and related disciplines. In accordance with the nature of interdisciplinary teaching, ISP students select one or more course clusters that address a topic (e.g. health, global issues, etc.) from different viewpoints. While ISP students individual study plans tend to vary (and many are quite unique), certain core integrative courses are mandatory. Among these courses is ISP2553, an eportfolio base course. This base courses role is to provide an infrastructure and tools to support the learning and integration of the diverse perspectives ISP students encounter during their course of study in the program. This base course introduces the interdisciplinary approach and requires the students to make links between the disciplines studied in the foundational courses of their courses clusters. ISP usually offers this course on the programs second year of study, after the first years foundational courses are taken and before the fourth years capstone course. This base course serves as a basis for the mandatory capstone course.

The capstone course continues the e-portfolio base course, and the two courses serve as a major part of the programs interdisciplinary backbone. However, while the capstone course proved to have satisfactory outcomes, students and instructors have voiced the opinion that the e-portfolio base course could have a greater contribution to the program. ISPs directors recognized the need to reevaluate and improve this course. As part of this development process I was asked to examine the course as an independent e-learning consultant and contribute to its modification. The main problem with ISP2553 is that it does not fulfill well enough its purpose as the cornerstone which supports learning in the capstone course at the end of the program. Examining ISP2553 revealed that a major cause for this problem was the use of the e-portfolio in course. ISP2553s design emphasizes the e-portfolios function as a showcase for future employers and schools at the expense of its potential use as a workspace that support backward and forward reflection to augment and assess growth over time (Bhattacharya, 2009, p. 245). As a result, most ISP students abandon the e-portfolio once ISP2553 is over and ceases to support their learning once the course is over. In addition, the emphasis of the e-portfolio affects sometimes the quality of the eportfolios content as it is made to address an external audience, rather than being a tool in a students own reflective process. The change proposed is to adjust a base core course to set the grounds for continuous, reflective, and self-motivated learning in other course and particularly in a capstone core course. The goal of the proposed change is to create a sustained reflective use of the e-portfolio that will serve as a resource for integration of learning.

Planned Intervention
To assure the continuous use and development of the e-portfolio during ISP so that it could serve as a resource for the capstone course, students will be encouraged to create and use their e-portfolio as a space for expression and self-reflection rather than a display of personal achievements. To do so, the e-portfolio will be made to feel to be a safer environment. One way this issue will be addressed is by not having the e-portfolio published publicly on the web right from the beginning, but instead make it accessible only to the students and instructors in the class (until a later stage when ISP2553 is complete and students feel ready to publish it). A platform that offers better privacy and publishing controls will replace the present e-portfolio tools. This technical change will also guarantee the preservation of e-portfolio for the duration of a students studies until graduation. In order to make the e-portfolio a meaningful space for the students, the ISP2553s 2

learning activities will be revised to provide opportunities for the use of the e-portfolio as live documents that change to reflect the students processing of information and construction of knowledge. Although many of the current learning activities in ISP2553 are geared towards the gradual production of the e-portfolio, not all of the courses activities are. Moreover, the products of these activities intended to serve as e-portfolio building blocks mostly stress communication through text, and in some cases through images. Therefore, ISP2553s learning activities will be modified to relate constructively to the e-portfolio and make an optimal use of it, including supporting expression through other types of media and digital representations.

General Timeline
The intervention described above is at the stage of planning and should be regarded as work still in progress. In addition, the extent and scope of this and other changes remain unclear until the process of planning is complete. Therefore, this section describes the general outlines of the intervention and lacks some of the details necessary for planning a precise timeline of projected activities. Within the timeframe of following four weeks, a range of e-portfolio platforms will be assessed to replace the existing one. The joint process of design and development of precise learning objectives and activities will continue during that time.
Table 1: Probable timeline for ISP2553 change implementation

Task
Reevaluation of ISP2553s learning objectives Reevaluation of learning activities Design and alignment of learning activities with learning objectives Selection of new e-portfolio tool Course prototype evaluation plan ready First course usable prototype ready Adjustments and modifications First evaluation of course prototype

Date of completion
June 20 , 2012 August 1 , 2012 August 10 , 2012 August 10 , 2012 October 1 , 2012 January 1 , 2013 February 28 , 2013 June, 2013
th st st th th st th

Evaluation Plan
The results of the intervention will be evaluated at several points in time after its implantation. At the end of the course, the instructors will evaluate student e-portfolios 3

content and look for students description of their work (in this and other courses), how the students relate to this work from an interdisciplinary point of view, how the students position themselves in relation to their course work, and references to the students learning processes. This assessment will be conducted following rubrics that will be generated by the ISP2553 instructors. A follow up evaluation for the purposes of this modification will be conducted a year later, a formal one at the fourth year capstone course. These two evaluations will focus on evidence of growth and change as evidence of reflective continuous use. Finally, students of ISP2553 will be asked to reflect on the role and contribution of ISP2553 and their e-portfolio to their learning experience in ISP.

Expected Findings Progress Report

At the beginning of this project I expected ISP2553 instructors to resist the changes discussed. My expectation for resistance was based on the assumption that modifying an existing established academic set entails particular challenge. Unlike in cases of radical change, incremental innovation does not break with an existing setting, but instead aims to continue and refine it (Gatignon et al., 2002). Since this intervention requires a change in the instructors perspective and behavior and most of ISP2553 instructors have been teaching the course for several years in its current format, I assumed they would resist changing their established practices, views and routine. The extent of the instructors expected resistance was hard to estimate as there was certain dissatisfaction with the (pre-change) original course plan. According to Surry and Ely (Surry & Ely, 2001), dissatisfaction with the status quo is the first facilitating condition required for the adoption of change. Other facilitating conditions also exist, such as, having the knowledge and skills to successfully instruct the modified course, availability of time and resources for adjustment, and leadership. Additionally, the instructors are involved in all planning and decision making to shape the modification to help make the new course fit their needs, abilities and viewpoints, and therefore facilitate the adoption of this change and increase the instructors commitment to it. Therefore, it would be safe to say that most of the facilitating conditions (Surry & Ely, 2001) that contribute for the implementation of this course modification exist. In reality, some resistance was felt, but was limited to specific points of the planning process, such as, casting doubt at the need for reevaluating and modifying certain learning activities in order to better realign them with the learning objectives. Resistance also has remained at the verbal level and was not expressed in active or passive aggressive actions. Thus far, involving the instructors in the process of reevaluation and decision-making 4

has proved to help lessening their resistance. The instructors actively participate in the process of planning. Their involvement and feeling of ownership in relation to the course has been motivating them to lead the thought about the change. For example, in order to support the e-portfolios continuous use for learning and reflection, the instructors promoted the idea of periodical advisement meetings (face-to-face or online) with the students in which the students e-portfolio would be discussed along with other issues. This idea is valuable because changes in the elective courses at ISP are harder to implement, and it has particular importance since it indicates that the instructors accept the main goal of the change and are willing to make an effort to implement it. This is very encouraging since the instructors are the key to the success of the modified course and these skilled and experienced professionals contribution is invaluable. It seems that this course modification project has passed not only the knowledge stage and the persuasion stage (Rogers, 1995), but that the decision stage in which the innovation is actually adopted or rejected (Surry & Ely, 2001) is close to be completed.

Conclusion
This paper presented a work in progress of a modification of an academic course at a higher education institute, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS). The modification described has three dimensions: technological replacing one e-portfolio for another that will allow better privacy control; instructional facilitating the persistent use of the portfolio by the students for reflection and growth; and organizational enlisting the course instructors to adopt this modification and support its implementation. The instructors decision whether to adopt or reject the suggested course modification could be understood in relation to Rogers (1995) Perceived Attributes. That is, whereas ISP2553 instructors can easily perceive the relative advantage of using this innovation, other aspects of the modification of the course remain to be examined. Particularly, the question of complexity, in comparison to the existing course, needs to be addressed in order for this innovation to be progress to next stages of the process described Rogers (1995) Innovation-Decision Process Model. Therefore, ISP2553 instructors should be further encouraged be participate and take responsibility of the modification of the course, but at the same time, they should be guided in the process so that the final course plan would be simple, coherent, and would meet the instructors needs as well as the students and IISs. Although it is probably true that the instructors are the ones that best represent their own interests as they participate in the modification of the course, I see an important part of my role 5

in this project, as ensuring that design of the course in fact meets ISP2553 instructors interests in support of the required change. At this point, in which the resistance to the core idea of the change is mostly over and the change is closer to entering its implementation stage (Rogers, 1995), the focus can shift further from discussing the necessity of the change to shaping its actual form and nature. The following steps will be to make sure ISP2553s learning objectives are aligned with the general role of ISP2553 in the larger program of study, and to modify (and in some cases develop from scratch) ISP2553s learning activities to support all learning objectives.

References
Bhattacharya, M. (2009). Introducing integrated e-portfolio across courses in a postgraduate program in distance and online education. In C. Spratt & P. Lajbcygier (Eds.), E-learning technologies and evidence-based assessment approaches. P. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Gatignon, H., Tushman, M. L., Smith, W., & Anderson, P. (2002). A structural approach to assessing innovation: Construct development of innovation locus, type, and characteristics. Management Science, 48(9), 1103-1122. Rogers, E.M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations, 4th ed.. New York: Free Press. Surry, D.W., & Ely, D.P. (2001). Adoption, diffusion, implementation, and institutionalization of educational innovations. In R. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Draft online: http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/surry/papers/adoption/chap.htm