Human Behavior in the Social Environment II

role | Educational Designer + Technologist

The Human Behavior in the Social Environment II course (HBII) stresses a multi-dimensional view of adolescent and adult development and behavior in the context of the environment, which takes into consideration the challenges, stressors and life tasks that occur throughout the life cycle. In an effort to improve the effectiveness and accessibility of this and other course offerings, the Silver School of Social Work engaged Teaching and Learning with Technology to redesign the course. The newly designed course was first offered in Spring 2016 as both a flipped and fully online course. 

One course enhancement involved the presentation of descriptive statistics and other factual information to students. These data were typically curated by the faculty from various resources in order to present a comprehensive overview of developmental phenomena discussed in the course. 

The educational design challenge focused on presenting the data in a manner that would maximize retention and minimize the learners’ cognitive load. The resulting graphic shifted from text to a more visual presentation, which served to retain the bigger picture while also allowing for a coherent visualization of the individual segments of data.

Students were very positive in their assessments of the course, noting in particular the richness of the content; presentation and organization in NYU Classes; and the integrated videos that aligned with the learning objectives. Students also appreciated that the course balanced content with required assignments, leaving them ample time to fully engage in an online dialogue. They also affirmed the faculty member’s efforts to facilitate synchronous discussions that reflected the flipped course’s online content while simultaneously fostering students’ perspectives on the respective topics.