Delphinium Pilot Instructions

Even though Delphinium pilots have no charge, you, your faculty, your students, and Delphi M.E. will invest valuable time and energy during a successful pilot. Our aim is to demonstrate Delphinium's impact on improving student performance and making teachers' communication easier. A failed pilot can be disappointing and wasteful when insufficient data is gathered to make an informed decision about formally adopting Delphinium. Our experience has taught us that the following requirements for a free Delphinium pilot significantly increase the probability of success:

Delphinium Pilot Protocol Requirements

  1. Select pilot courses with the potential for demonstrating Delphinium's impact

    1. Delphinium's impact is most obvious in courses with high failure rate and/or large sections

      1. Examples where Delphinium's impact will not be so clear:

        1. Courses with very few assignments, for example a project class where ungraded assignments lead up to a major final project - these classes do not generate as much data and Delphinium will not have as much opportunity to motivate students' progress

        2. Courses where most or all students are already achieving maximum performance – there is a ceiling effect where we won’t see much improvement if everyone is already performing well

        3. Courses with very few students give unreliable data

      2. Note: Though not great for demonstrating Delphinium in a pilot, teachers often report that Delphinium is still very useful in classes like these because it makes communicating and tracking student progress very easy and students often report that they prefer the Delphinium interface over Canvas'

  2. Identify benchmark courses to compare with (either in a previous or concurrent semester) to evaluate changes in grades above B-, below 60%, and below 40%, and withdrawals

  3. Select teachers who are committed to the pilot

    1. Willing to participate in the 5 meetings described below

    2. Willing to make the changes to their course described below (these changes are not required in non-pilot courses)

    3. Teachers who volunteer typically have a more successful pilot than those who are assigned

    4. Teachers who are serial innovators are often good choices for the pilot

  4. Teachers, designers, and trainers agree to attend the following Zoom meetings with Delphi M.E.:

    1. Pretraining before class starts for orientation and help setting up the class - 1 to 1.5 hours

    2. Feedback and follow up training 2 weeks after the start of class - 1 hour

    3. Feedback and follow up training 6 weeks after the start of class - .5 to 1 hour

    4. Feedback and follow up training 12 weeks after the start of class - .5 to 1 hour

    5. Feedback focus group after the course is over - .5 to 1 hour

  5. Make the following changes to pilot courses:

    1. Make delphinium the course home page

      1. (Note: this is required only for the pilot; non-pilot courses can make Delphinium optional for students that want to use it if desired)

    2. Hide non-delphinium links to assignments: Modules, assignments, quizzes, discussions, syllabus, grades, etc.

      1. (Also optional in non-pilot courses)

    3. Preschedule at least 4 messages to introduce the course or remind students about important assignments or due dates

    4. Enable Delphinium progress reports

    5. Use Delphinium’s control panel to identify and communicate with struggling students

      1. At least once a week for the first 3 weeks

      2. Periodically during the semester