Courses
Sociology
I led a two-year project to transform all core Sociology courses at Georgia State University from face-to-face to online. This successfully positioned the Sociology department to offer a fully online undergraduate degree.
SOCI 3010 Social Statistics
SOCI 3020 Social Research Methods
SOCI 3101 Families and Society
SOCI 3152 Birth and Parenthood
SOCI 3352 Mental Illness in the U.S.
SOCI 4226 Urban Sociology
SOCI 4230 Health and Illness
SOCI 4990 Sociology Capstone
Data Analytics
I optimized the learning strategy for the Sociology of Mental Illness in the U.S. by collaborating with the CETLOE Data Analytics team to collect, analyze and leverage in-depth historical data about students in the program. I leveraged data to delve deeper into my initial insights. This allowed me to create targeted content designed to address specific performance problems identified by the professor and the data. This targeted approach to leverage data for student success significantly improved student performance in course.
Sociological Literacy
Over the course of two years I worked closely with the faculty, Director of Undergraduate Studies and the Department Chair to develop a series of courses that aligned with the ASA Sociological Literacy Framework.
COIL Project: Global Sociology of Food
What is COIL?
The Global Sociology of Food is a COIL course. COIL is the Collaborative Online International Learning program. It promotes learning through global interactions and collaboration across boundaries of geography, language, culture, ethnicity, discipline and time-zone.
Through “Coiling” students from Georgia State University and Osaka University used Skype, Google Docs, and iCollege (Brighspace) to examine the social construction of food and food as a cultural marker of personal and ethnic identity.
Food & Identity
We devised a series of activities aimed to help students reflect critically about their identity and food…
Read the article: Writers' Fridges: by Olivia Liang in the Paris review:
After reading the article:
Take a picture of the exterior of your refrigerator.
Take pictures of the contents of either your own or your family’s refrigerator, including what’s been stored in the freezer section of the refrigerator.
Provide short descriptions of the content by answering 4 simple questions…
Authenticity, Community, Interaction
The discussion board is an integral part of many of my designs. My goal when designing discussions is to ensure that they are meaningful to the students. I steer clients away from using rote questions to check if students are reading the text books. It would be easier to do that, but I aim to provide opportunities for conceptual thinking and discovery. The discussion board is a place for students to apply their developing knowledge to new situations, explore a broad range of opinions, bring in the real-world and build a sense of community in the course. It can also be a place to take risks and create brave spaces for students to struggle with complex issues.
Chemistry Lab
The Survey of Chemistry lab is an introductory level course. In the past, faculty struggled to find a way to engage students. During the initial analysis of their learners I discovered that the majority of the students were not interested in majoring in Chemistry. Many were taking it as a requirement for health related fields. The redesign focused on relevancy. I anchored the course using a narrative of how chemistry is used in the real-world and in various health professions.
Global Issues
The Political Science department wanted to create a common course as a model for new instructors. I collaborated with a team of professors to identify the defining elements of each of their courses. Global Issues was created for new instructors to learn best practices and for veteran professors to use as a repository of content to pull from and add to their existing courses.
College to Career (CTC)
The purpose of the College to Career course is to get first-year students thinking about career preparation early. Why? The earlier students understand the connection between the skills they learn in academic courses and the competencies they need to develop to succeed professionally, the better prepared they will be to transition from college to career. CTC introduces students to the career readiness competencies that employers are looking for, and that they will need to succeed in any career.
Career Readiness
The Career Readiness Competencies introduced to students in the CTC course are based on the NACE competencies defined by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
After completing the CTC course students should be able to:
Be Aware of the career competencies employers are looking for
Connect the competencies to the work that they do in their major
Demonstrate acquired competencies and transferable skills.
Portfolium
New students were introduced to Portfolium in the CTC course. Portfolium is a platform designed to allow students to create a visual, comprehensive view of their passions, abilities, and potential during their academic journey. The CTC course encourages students to document their coursework, projects, and experiences at Georgia State to demonstrate their career competencies. Portfolium also contains elements of social and professional networking and tools to create multimedia content.
Staff Innovators Program (SIP)
SIP is a year-long, cohort program that introduces the habits, mindsets, and techniques of Design Thinking to staff at Georgia State University. It is a hybrid program using a flipped model of online coursework and face-to-face workshops. It is designed to build creative confidence and develop the mindset and skills necessary to transform great ideas into innovative solutions.
Incorporate Local Experts
This video highlights a local expert. It is an example of how to apply the Diversity Readiness Rubric in course design. It follows an asset-based engagement model by creating course materials that include authentic local examples of mobilized community assets used to address relevant challenges.
The client and I identified several local experts that we could spotlight for the SIP course. We wanted to demonstrate to learners that they did not need to look outside of their community to find examples of successful innovation. The purpose was to create a sense of ownership, empowerment and encourage reflection.
I partnered with the multimedia team and client to script and shoot this video.