The CREating Optimum Learning Environments (CREOLE) project addresses a major, international need — to facilitate faculty expertise in applying learning and motivation research and theory to the development and teaching of higher education courses. The end result is anticipated to be the improvement of student learning and retention in face-to-face, blended, and fully online courses.

The CREOLE project brings a unique approach to graduate education and to faculty development in that its content combines theory and research with discipline-based applications and its delivery includes a variety of interrelated components: online instruction that can be accessed as a graduate-level course or as faculty development workshops; online or face-to-face mentoring; and authentic assessment of skills applied to course content and delivery. The project addresses the faculty knowledge problem by developing instructional modules covering teaching and learning theory and motivational strategies. Further, the project encourages faculty application of this material to their own courses through a series of capstone tasks.

A major goal of the project is to elicit faculty interest in developing and revising face-to-face, hybrid, and online courses to incorporate innovative strategies and technology. Another project goal is to facilitate student learning and increase retention in face-to-face, hybrid, and online courses through faculty incorporation of innovative learning strategies and technology. The CREOLE project team will utilize creative marketing approaches through the use of incentives for participation, online mentoring, involvement of a nationwide consortium of colleges and universities, and efforts of PBS, WebCT, and Blackboard.

CREOLE Module Four has been offered for professional development at Florida Community College at Jacksonville and the Duval County School District. The full CREOLE course will be offered for postgraduate credit this fall through the University of Utah. The graduates of these offerings will be surveyed and the results included in the summative evaluation for the final project report. The project team will be presenting CREOLE at six major conferences in the fall of 2004 and spring of 2005.

A beta test of the full course was conducted in the fall of 2003 by faculty, staff, and graduate students from 18 college and university CREOLE Consortium members. The project team made their final revisions to the four online learning modules (Developing Interactive Internet-based Courses, Applying Teaching and Learning Research, Applying Motivation Research, and Revising Traditional Lecture-based Courses to Incorporate the Internet) during the spring/summer of 2004.

ONLINE REFERENCE: 

CREOLE Project Web Site
   http://www.creole-online.org  

Kenneth Whitten
Project Director

Florida Community College
  at Jacksonville (South
  Campus)
11901 Beach Blvd.
Jacksonville, FL 32246
Tel: 904-646-2294
Fax: 904-646-2078

View Personal Web Site

Jack Chambers
Project Co-Director

Florida Community College
  at Jacksonville (MCCS)
501 W. State St
Jacksonville, FL 32202
Tel: 904-632-3231

Margaret Greene
Project Co-Director

Florida Community College
  Jacksonville (Kent Campus)
3939 Roosevelt Blvd.
Jacksonville, FL 32205
Tel: 904-381-3411

View Personal Web Site

John Moore
Project Co-Director

Virginia Tech
Educational Technologies
Advanced Communication and
  Information Technology
  Center
3004 Torgersen Hall, MS0232
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Tel: 540-231-8991
Fax: 540-231-5922