This presentation will address the influence of course design on the success or failure of implementing Innovative Project Based Learning for Competency Based Education.
Many academic programs at various educational levels are moving to a competency-based learning model to more effectively prepare students for their selected fields. Competencies prepare students to build knowledge and skills needed for their careers. Project-Based Learning is just one of the many pedological strategies used to implement competency-based education. This is mainly due to projects allowing students to take ownership and be creative to demonstrate specific knowledge and skills which may be difficult to achieve with more general activities. In Higher Education the switch to competency-based education may be challenging for Online Programs who have maintained the traditional discussion and individual assignment format. The success or failure of implementing project-based learning is heavily influenced by the student mindset culture. Specifically, the student interpretation of course workload based on the online course design may determine any potential resistance to project-based learning. If the course design appears to be too much work the students may resist even during the first week of the course with potentially resulting with a low end of course evaluation. The goal of this presentation is to provide an assessment data analysis to determine the role of online course design on student mindset culture and learning outcomes. Specifically, the presentation will focus on a Consumer Health Informatics Course which requires future Consumer Health Informatics Professionals to achieve skills in writing at the health literacy level (7th or 8th grade level) to teach patients on how they may use various every day technology tools (web browser to mobile health applications) to address health uses to avoid invalid health information and improve their digital literacy skills. The findings will present the assessment of three main course designs representing the various phases a course may take in transitioning from a pre-competency-based education to achieving competency-based education based on current field requirements using project-based learning. The first design presents weekly discussions with the final project being submitted at the end of the course. This structure still puts more emphasis on the knowledge component of a traditional online discussion. The project is unstructured with only an initial topic proposal approval to verify the inclusion of topics covered in the course based on the syllabus. There is no assessment of the skills gained throughout the course. The second design presents a combination of traditional online discussion with the project spread out over the time of the course as assignments with a final project submission at the end of the course. The project in this design allows students to select a topic with structured requirements throughout the course. This design puts almost equal emphasis on both online discussion and the project to build competency by allowing students to correct errors prior to submitting the final product which is expected to be used as an E-Portfolio Project. The third course design includes the reduction of traditional online discussion to an individual blog post with a less structured project spread out over the time of the course as assignments. As with the second course design the final project submission at the end of the course is expected to be used as an E-Portfolio Project. In this design the blog post serves as an assessment of the knowledge component of competency-based education and allows students to focus on the project to build skills by correcting errors. The project in this design allows students to select only a few of several criteria that the project must meet each week. In some ways one would argue that this uses the flipped project-based learning format allowing students more opportunity for creativity in a project-based learning structure. In total, the presentation will demonstrate three years of data assessment and evaluation of faculty adjusting competency-based content to the student mindset culture to achieve competency-based education that is satisfactory to today’s student culture in their busy lifestyle balancing school and work.