by Alexa Clemmons, Ashley Rowland, and Erin Vinson
We want to share a great story about persistence in implementing an effective high-structure course design. Studies show that high structure, if done well, is effective for all students and can reduce or even eliminate performance gaps for historically underserved students.
High structure, done well.
Let’s look at one example from Dr. Anne Casper at Eastern Michigan University, where nearly 50% of students are from low-income backgrounds and 35% are underrepresented minorities. In this study, Dr. Casper compared teaching with high-structure versus a lecture model, and found that (without grade inflation or decreases in exam difficulty) exam scores increased by 3.8%, DFW rates decreased by 23%, failure rate decreased for underrepresented minorities by 39%—all while students’ total study time decreased and student evaluations improved.
In this particular example, Dr. Casper’s high-structure course design included pre-, in-, and post-class learning opportunities for students: Before class: learn basic content on their own prior to class by watching instructor-recorded videos; In class: take a short quiz on the pre-class content, apply the lower-order content to higher-order problems through active-learning exercises, working with peers and getting feedback from the instructor; After class: test their understanding by practicing on weekly low-stakes assessments.
Developing the right high-structure course design for your students.
Dr. Casper did not magically stumble on a course design that achieved these incredible results. She worked on it over time. In prior iterations of the course, which were also high-structure course designs, exam scores actually decreased and DFW rates increased. What’s equally vexing is that the model she followed had shown great results at the University of Washington.
It turns out that when it comes to high-structure course designs, success is not a one size fits all solution. For Dr. Casper, there were two notable differences in her course design:
1. Instead of assigning textbook readings, Dr. Casper recorded 15-minute video lectures that explained the most important vocabulary and concepts relevant to each face-to-face meeting.
2. She increased the number of weekly practice exam questions from 15 to 20–30.
While these seem like small changes, they made a big difference. Why? Dr. Casper repeatedly found that students were unable to carry out the planned in-class activities after reading the textbook. She hypothesized that this was due to a deficit in reading comprehension caused by economic and educational disadvantage. Indeed, a comparison of average reading comprehension scores on college admission tests supported this hypothesis: at the University of Washington, average reading scores for incoming first-year students were above the 80th percentile nationally, whereas Eastern Michigan students averaged in the 50th percentile.
The meaning of True Grit.
In Dr. Casper’s words, the upshot of this study is that faculty must have “the grit to experiment and persevere in making evidence-based changes to their teaching.”
“... faculty will need to pursue the same approach that they use when adopting a new technology in their bench or field research. Specifically, instructors need to...start with limited trials, be prepared for disappointing results at first, engage with colleagues who can provide feedback and advice, and be willing to make changes (via repeated attempts over time) that adapt the technique to their study system...”
Codon Learning’s platform provides all the content and functionality to help instructors develop, test, and iterate their goldilocks high-structure course design. As for pre-class content acquisition, in our system instructors can use any resource they choose: textbook, instructor-recorded videos, Codon’s readiness readings written by Scott Freeman, or some combination thereof. We're not fully advocating a certain model but we do think our readiness readings—combined with instructor video lectures—are a potential breakthrough!
The educational research is clear—high structure works for all students and especially for students from historically underserved backgrounds. We can help you build, test, and iterate the right combination for your students.
Alexa Clemmons is a discipline-based education researcher and currently serves as the director of product at Codon Learning.
Ashley Rowland is a discipline-based education researcher and currently serves as the director of customer experience at Codon Learning.
Erin Vinson is a discipline-based education researcher and currently serves as the director of faculty success at Codon Learning.
True Grit: Passion and persistence make an innovative course design work, Casper AM, Eddy SL, Freeman S (2019) True Grit: Passion and persistence make an innovative course design work. PLOS Biology 17(7): e3000359.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000359