Augusta focused on multiple strategies to decrease excess credits earned on the path to getting a degree, including some strategies that encompassed parts of USG CCG Goal 3: Restructure instructional delivery to support educational excellence and student success. Collectively, these strategies included the redesign of courses with the creation of “stretch” sections of MATH 1111, ENGL 1101, and ENGL 1102, the alignment of math pathways with each undergraduate major, pre-determined schedules for first-semester students, and a redesign of core courses.
The redesign of core courses has now expanded to encompass every undergraduate academic program at Augusta. As such, the program has expanded to encompass entire academic programs rather than specific courses. Part of the curriculum redesign process focuses on bottleneck and low success rate courses to reduce instances of students needing to take remedial courses or enroll in course sequences that delay graduation.
The faculty who teach in thirteen different gateway courses have made changes in courses and curricula through the curriculum review and redesign process, including core-level anatomy and physiology, chemistry, English, humanities, history, mathematics, political science, and psychology. The fall 2013 courses were selected based on high DFW rates, which include WFs. These courses have seen an average reduction of DFW rates of 6% compared fall to fall after going through the program. As reported in previous CCG status updates, these achievements have been sustained. The fall 2014 courses (in table below) were selected based on the numbers of students affected and the DFW rates, which include WFs. These courses have seen an average reduction of DFW rates of 4% in these courses compared fall to fall after going through the program. Although some programs show a small increase in DFW rates, those changes are smaller (average 3.5%) than the change observed in the direction of reduction of DFW rates (average 5.0%). The average rate of reduction for this cohort of programs is similar to the rate of for the previous cohort of courses.
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Fall 2014 Curriculum Design Academy – D, F, W, WF Rates |
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Course |
Pre |
Post |
% Change |
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CHEM 1211 |
Principles of Chemistry I |
27% |
31.1% |
4.1% |
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CHEM 1212 |
Principles of Chemistry II |
31% |
22.6% |
-8.4% |
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HIST 2111 |
United States to 1877 |
20% |
22.7% |
2.7% |
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POLS 1101 |
Introduction to American Government |
13% |
8.5% |
-4.5% |
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PSYC 1101 |
Introduction to General Psychology |
26% |
13.6% |
-12.4% |
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A pilot of the curriculum review and redesign process was undertaken during the 2015-2016 academic year with four undergraduate academic programs (Dental Hygiene, History, Physics, Psychological Science). Those programs are well on the way to the development of curriculum maps and are now identifying challenges that have been revealed. The programs will continue with syllabus review during the 2016-2017 academic year.
Measure, metric, or data element
- Average number of credit hours earned at graduation for students who begin as freshmen with Augusta (should equal number of credit hours required for degree)
- Average number of credit hours earned at graduation for transfer students (should be close to the number of credit hours required for degree)
- DFW rates across major courses
- % of students who earn 30 or more credit hours by the start of their second year by major
- % of students who earn 60 or more credit hours by the start of their third year by major
- % of students who earn 90 or more credit hours by the start of their fourth year by major
Baseline measures
Baseline will be established at the start of the year in which each academic program implements the curriculum redesign.
Interim Measures of Progress
Interim measures will include tracking average hours earned toward degree objective at the appropriate benchmark for each program (i.e., 30 hours in the first year for a 120-hour program) and the monitoring of core and major courses to achieve a DFW rate of 10% or less.
Measures of Success
Success for this program will come in a higher rate of success in all core and major courses and students graduating with no more than the required number of courses needed for their degree objective. All undergraduate degree programs will be reviewed and redesigned within the next four years.
With 41 undergraduate academic programs, Augusta University will need to develop a strategy for efficient support of the curriculum review and design process to ensure scalability. We will move from a one-on-one program support/consultation model that we employed for the pilot programs to group training model with individual program consultation as needed.
