# Effects of being selected as Top Level Course for individual professors


*In my [previous
post](/blog/2010/10/26/introducing-individual-top-level-courses-case-studies/),
I introduced the course case studies. In this post, I will describe how
the professors described the impact of having their course selected as a
Top Level Course.*

When asked about what had changed after applying for the Top Level
Courses designation, most of the answers from professors centered around
the process of applying; while some believed that it had led to a
significant improvement in quality, others believed that it had not
changed very much. Professor B2 was in the first category, saying that
these last years they have been continually improving the teaching
materials, largely thanks to the impetus given by the Top Level Courses
Project. The text book has been turned into a series of text books, and
they not only got very good results in last year’s teaching evaluation,
they also got first prize in the provincial Educational Achievement
competition. Much of this he ascribes to the guidance provided by the
Ministry of Education, and the local academic affairs office.

Professor A2 had always taught his course alone, but because one of the
criteria for applying to the Top Level Courses project was the formation
of a teaching team, he now shares the responsibility with four other
teachers, both training young teachers to one day take over, and
involving more senior professors, who would otherwise not engage in
undergraduate teaching. Other than that, recording lectures has not
changed his way of teaching. He recounted that a colleague had asked him
whether they should find someone to “polish” the class, because
currently professors lecturing use very informal language. He had
answered that there would be no point, because the recordings should
reflect reality, and they should not make the course too artificial.

Professor B1’s class had always had a teaching team, but she also felt
that the project had had a large impact. The most important outcome for
her was becoming more aware of the process of course construction, and
the goal of course development. Earlier, she believes she did things
more randomly and intuitively, without considering why she made certain
choices. The process of applying has changed this, and now she is
constantly improving the class in a systematic fashion, according to
guidelines. She believes this has also had an effect on the development
of other courses with which the course team members are involved.

Professor B2’s team had a similar experience. Earlier, they just used
whatever teaching material they had, whereas now they continually
explore and improve their course. The project has provided motivation
for them to improve, and has also brought the teachers involved with the
course closer together. They have introduced several innovations into
the teaching of the course, for example allocating an entire day for
experiments, and letting students set up and prepare everything
themselves, rather than preparing everything in advance. This shift to
more inquiry-based learning, which focuses on student initiative, is
more effective at making students understand the excitement of research
and conducting experiments.

The existence of a large body of open resources has also changed the way
Professor B2’s team teaches in other ways, by making the team think of
new ways of doing things. Simply following the textbook is no longer
sufficient, since so many high quality resources are available that
cover the basic material. This year, they organized a class where a
number of colleagues each taught one session of their most excellent
material, and it was all recorded. Professor B2 found this way of
lecturing more interesting, because you can really bring in the most
cutting edge research problems and theories into the classroom, rather
than being confined strictly to the textbook.

The only professor who did not feel that applying to the Top Level
Courses Project had made a large difference, was Professor A1. Although
his course has also seen many innovations and changes in the last few
years, he believes that these would have happened even without the
project. He says that the team was mainly focused on improving the
course, but the department put a large emphasis on the Top Level Courses
Project, and wanted people to apply for this honor. He laments that
applying took a lot of time, which might have been spent more
effectively on improving the course. In addition to the impact on
teaching practices and philosophy that came out of the application
process, there were also some tangible outcomes of having courses
selected as Top Level Courses, but professors focused much less on this
aspect. Several mentioned honor to themselves, and to the institution,
as one incentive for applying. There was pride in feeling that their
courses now had a national impact, and were used by professors and
students elsewhere. The usage of the resources will be discussed in a
separate section below.

Being awarded the Top Level Course designation also comes with some
funding, from the Ministry of Education, the province and the
university. For example, Professor A2 received 100,000 RMB, which was
mostly spent on buying cameras and building the website, but there was
also a bit left over to fund excursions for his students. Professor B1
spent the money he received on hardware and software for providing the
online resources

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The quotes in this text is from the MA Thesis "The Chinese National Top
Level Courses Project: Using Open Educational Resources to Promote
Quality in Undergraduate Teaching" by Stian Håklev, University of
Toronto 2010.

-   [Download the canonical PDF
  version](http://reganmian.net/top-level-courses/Haklev_Stian_201009_MA_thesis.pdf)
-   [Central page collecting all blog posts, many different download
  formats, and supplementary
  material](http://reganmian.net/top-level-courses)

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