Rock Your Course with NROC and the Latest in 21st Century Tools

09/24/2013


The College of Arts and Sciences, Learning Services (LS) and Mathematical Computing and Information Sciences (MCIS) announce that Jacksonville State University is now a full member of the National Repository of Online Courses, or NROC. NROC is high-quality, open-source education that represents more than 6 million students across the United States from middle school to college. Members range from individual schools to state systems, including the Alabama Department of Education. 

Over the last two years, Dr. Jan Case (MCIS) and Mr. Scott Beckett (LS) have been part of a national, ground-breaking pilot comparing the effectiveness of NROC courses to non-NROC courses and are in the final stages of tracking students’ persistence through subsequent algebra courses. Initial results indicate significant gains in pre to post assessment of students who were enrolled NROC courses versus those who were enrolled in non-NROC courses. This research lead to an NROC sponsored assistantship to continue data analysis during the summer of 2013. 

Included with NROC membership is a "MyJSU" branded, HippoCampus website, a free resource for all JSU faculty and staff, encompassing a wide range of videos, assessments, and student learning outcomes across disciplines including: Algebra, Calculus, Statistics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Economics, History, Government, Psychology, Sociology, English and more. 

With our NROC membership, JSU faculty have additional member access that includes textbook correlations, state standards, secure assessments, answer keys, and activities with grading rubrics!  In addition, there is free professional development through monthly webinars from the NROC network and technical support. Also, in 2014, with our memberships, we will have access to EdReady, which is an assessment module designed to reduce the time and cost of developmental courses by placing students on individual learning paths through pre-assessment of foundation skills in algebra, reading, writing and critical thinking. 

Faculty can now log-in to the site, build playlists of learning content, then share the links with students in their courses! These links easily embed into Blackboard. Entire courses are already built, or faculty can mix and match from different sources to build a unique course that meets the Student Learning Outcomes in the syllabus. NROC helps faculty use 21st century tools to promote critical thinking, assess Student Learning Outcomes and access high quality content on mobile devices across a variety of disciplines.  This is excellent for online, hybrid or even traditional classroom settings. Supplement your teaching modality with interactive videos, assessments and more!

To begin building a new NROC/MyJSU HippoCampus course click here:

http://www.hippocampus.org/?user=myJSU