Paul Craig, associate professor of chemistry, started teaching biochemistry courses face-to-face at RIT about ten years ago, and it’s been about five years since he converted three of his classes to the online environment.

For his first two years of teaching online, Craig’s format for assessing his students was administered entirely through three exams over a full quarter, two during the regular quarter, plus one final exam, which, combined, counted for 100 percent of his students’ grades. However, as Craig grew more comfortable with the online environment, he started to change that strategy by introducing a research paper project worth 20 percent of a student’s total grade, and he reduced the exam portion to 80 percent of the grade.

This past quarter, Craig changed his assessment strategy even further. After being advised by RIT Instructional Designer Sarah Donaldson, Craig augmented his online teaching methods to center around what’s called the "PRPA" instructional model, which stands for Performance Outcomes, Resources, Practice and Assessment.

Additionally, Craig has altered the percentage structure for calculating final grades, with exams now accounting for only 50 percent, the research paper project accounting for 25 percent, online quizzes accounting for 12.5 percent, and participation in threaded discussions accounting for 12.5 percent.

"Some students learn differently than others," says Craig. "Historically, some students were really good at taking exams. However, other students, who obviously had an extraordinary grasp of the material, were terrible at taking exams. So, I wanted to let those students shine more."

Enter the PRPA instructional model.

Performance outcomes are basically what Craig wants students to demonstrate that they know by the end of the course. Each chapter from the class textbook, for example, sets that stage for a variety of performance outcomes that are based on Craig’s classroom-based video-taped lectures and problem solving exercises on core topics that he encourages his students to understand. Online quizzes and exam questions are then drawn from these core topics.

In addition to understanding core topics taken from the class textbook and video-taped lectures, Craig points his students to Web sites and online learning aids that are typically made available by the textbook publisher.

Students "practice" what they learn primarily by working through problems that are provided in the textbook as well as from supplementary readings. Craig also has his students scrutinize exam questions that he has administered in the past, and he provides students with a review of the answers to those questions.

Exams and quizzes are the two primary methods used for assessing learning outcomes, but Craig also posts opinion-oriented questions to the class threaded discussions to give him a sense for how students synthesize information that was initially presented in the various segments of his class. "The most recent one I did was where the class studied photosynthesis," says Craig. "I asked them what they thought about global warming and to provide citations from the literature or from Web sites that address this topic. The students really dug in and came up with some excellent content. I was really pleased."

In the meantime, Craig is preparing to revamp his video-taped lectures to DVD. His plan is to include showing problems with solutions attached to his lectures and have additional problems presented without the solutions posted to the threaded discussions for students to figure out. "I’ll have students run some sessions on problem solving," he says, beginning with easy-to-solve exercises that gradually become more difficult. "Then I’ll see what tools I can give them to help them sort things out."

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