PRT 358: Redesign to Connect Service and Learning

PRT 358, Recreation Program Planning, is a required capstone course with a full-immersion service-learning component for Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management and Professional Golf Management (PRTM) majors and minors. DELTA staff worked with the instructor, Dr. Annette Moore, to redesign this large face-to-face course into a blended learning course that incorporates self-paced learning online, project-based collaborative learning in class, and experiential service-learning at public agencies.

Instructional Challenges

• Foundational course material needs to be available to student groups at different times, depending on when they need to access and apply it in their program development process.
• Students need different types of scaffolding for applying academic concepts to real-world projects, using higher-order thinking skills during program planning, and self-regulating the semester-long service-learning process.
• Students are expected to collaborate in groups by sharing individual ideas and reaching consensus.

Solutions and Highlights

Online Lessons: Self-paced lessons were designed based on Nine Instructional Events and developed using Moodle Book to support conceptual learning of foundational knowledge outside of class.

Service-Learning Agency Intro Videos: Short videos introducing individual partnering agencies were developed to help students make informed decisions on which agency to work with and to provide analysis materials for the initial stage of program planning.

Service-Learning Scaffolds

• Milestone-Based Moodle Structure: Moodle Site was organized based on milestones and tasks of the recreation program planning process, which is the essence of the service-learning project. Milestone pages link out to online lessons and program planning templates.
• Program Planning Templates: Google Doc templates were designed to guide students’ higher-order thinking during analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation of recreation programs.

Lab Planning Tools: A Timeline JS-based Google Spreadsheet template was developed to help students plan the overall timeline and lab goals for their service learning project (creating two recreation programs for service-learning agency). A Google Doc-based lab report template was developed to help students plan, document, and reflect on individual labs, as well as to monitor and adjust the overall timeline.

Evaluation Findings

• Students in redesigned sections reported significantly higher levels of in-class readiness; higher comfort with math; more positive beliefs regarding how course skills apply to their major; and higher enjoyment learning how math fits into their math compared to traditional sections.
• Perceptions of the new course structure correlated positively with feelings regarding course learning outcomes and negatively with their help-seeking behavior.
• Overall use of online module learning material/structures declined and reported help-seeking behavior increased as the semester progressed.
• Redesign efforts were found to have a neutral to positive impact on final course grade distributions, and a positive impact on student DFW rates.

Links

DELTA Grant Orientation Presentation Slides

Office of Faculty Development Workshop Slides

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