The California State University Board of Trustees has recently unveiled a series of initiatives in an attempt to increase student graduation success.
Among the four initiatives is a virtual labs component that will target the obstacles that have emerged from the shortage of resources different universities have faced in past years.
These classes will be hybrid courses, designed to combine traditional classroom contact with online instruction.
Director of Media Relations and New Media for CSU Mike Uhlenkamp said the idea of virtual labs will help students progress in their careers.
Uhlenkamp said the number and type of classes offered through the virtual labs will address certain high demand courses. The labs will be offered for general education STEM courses and other applicable classes that may have a lab component by incorporating technology into the curriculum.
“We’re not trying to take every course and put them all online,” Uhlenkamp said. “We’re trying to take a certain jumble of requirement courses that are in high demand that are proven to have high success rates so that the experience and success rate that you see as an online course is as close as possible to what you would see in a face to face course, and make those available to students.”
Uhlenkamp said many of the initiatives proposed have already been implemented, though the virtual lab initiative is slated to take place next semester.
SDSU Associate Director for Instructional Technology Services Marc Pastor said the initiatives taken by the CSU board have included proposals. Some of the proposed items included redesigned courses that have proven student success through availability of online courses throughout the CSU system.
SDSU Associated Students Vice President of External Affairs Javier Gomez believes this initiative is a step in the right direction.
“Overall it’s a good thing to explore and see what comes out of it,” Gomez said. “I want to see the results of it, but I think it’s a step in the right direction as far as where our resources should be going and how we expand as a university.”
Psychology senior Mandy Mayzaki said these courses can help students avoid waiting several semesters to take a class.
“It can be beneficial for anyone who can get a particular class,” Mayzaki said. “I know that it’s happened to students, myself included. It would be really convenient if I can get every class that I needed without having to wait several semesters and having my coursework put on hold.”
The initiatives introduced by the Board of Trustees consist of four proposals. One is called “intrasystem concurrent enrolment,” where any CSU student can take online-only courses offered by other CSU universities. There are currently 33 online courses available for students.
Another proposal, “course redesign workshops,” consists of faculty workshops designed to include technology into curriculums while alleviating certain “bottleneck” issues.
In addition to the virtual labs proposal, the board introduced a “technology-assisted advising” initiative, which encourages all CSU campuses to use technology in many aspects of academic planning, registration and advising for undergrads.
