Purpose & Goals

First-year students join the university with limited information retrieval, analysis, and synthesis skills. For many years, students would rely solely on Google as the main search engine to find information. This trend was quickly replaced by the emergence of Generative AI where students embraced the latest tools to save them time and effort collecting and synthesizing information. Such technological development poses a threat to students’ critical thinking abilities. This poster aims at describing a pilot mini-course that took place in the fall of 2023 during which Information and Data Literacy was introduced as a core competency. The poster will also address the challenges and opportunities that instructors involved in designing, developing, and delivering the course have experienced and share some suggestions to improve the course and enhance students’ engagement.

Design & Methodology

Using self-assessment, this poster analyzes qualitative data that emerged from a faculty focus group following the delivery of the mini-course.

Findings

The focus group discussion indicates that faculty were satisfied with the level of student participation. This might be linked to several factors: a. the limited number of sessions as this is a mini-course and runs for a limited time; b. the relatively short sessions where each is 50-min long; and c. the use of a hybrid teaching model consisting of a brief lecture followed by group work to keep students engaged and attentive. However, faculty highlighted some challenges that need to be addressed in the future iterations of this course. For instance, the content needs to include more practical examples, coupled with activities to practice. Furthermore, the transition between the different components of the course and different faculty members did not allow students to build strong connections with the instructors which might have impacted the communication channel between students and instructors. This also impacted the transition between one faculty to another as we did not contextualize the different sections and how they are linked or, in some cases, they complement each other. The limited communication might have also impacted students’ motivations and they were not putting any efforts in pre-class work and they only focused on reaching the passing grade which was set to 70%.

Action & Impact

There are three main areas that need to be considered to improve this course and ensure a successful delivery and satisfactory level of student engagement:

1. Course syllabus, material, and content:
   a. The online course page needs to be simplified to avoid endless layers and sublayers of content pages.
   b. The course syllabus needs to be reviewed in class in the first session to ensure students clearly understand the expectations in terms of attendance, in-class activities, quizzes and assignment submission, as well as out-of-class work.
   c. Emphasize the role of this course as a transition from high school to university by giving the students the chance to reflect on their current experience and inviting senior students to share their experiences with new students.
2. Course structure, delivery, and assessment:
   a. One faculty member needs to be identified as the main instructors, while the other faculty can be brought in as guest instructors.
   b. Students should be clearly advised how to contact the main instructors and guest instructors to avoid miscommunication or duplicate communication and ensure requests are addressed in a timely manner.
   c. Quizzes, assignments, and group work activities should be undertaken, completed, and submitted to the instructor during the delivery of their teaching section to avoid overlapping with the deliverables of the next instructor/section.
3. Students’ perception and engagement:
   a. Ensure students are engaged with the content by revising and condensing the material, showing strong connection between materials, providing detailed instructions, and giving the students the chance to reflect on their learning journey.
   b. Ensure students are engaged with the instructors by changing the class venue to a more collaborative space.
   c. Ensure students are engaged with other students by encouraging teams to meet with instructors to ensure that team work is being divided equally and everyone is contributing.

Practical Implications & Value

For first-year students, the university can be an intimidating and overwhelming environment. Having the required skills to navigate through their academic journey requires students to develop and continuously improve their critical thinking abilities. The C@CM course is designed to ensure students have the foundational skills for their success. The variety of materials integrated in this course ensures that students develop transferable skills that would serve them well throughout their academic endeavors as well as in their future workplace. A new and improved version of C@CM is being developed currently for Fall 2024 taking into consideration CMU values of dedication, impact, collaboration, creativity, empathy and compassion, inclusion, integrity, and sustainability.