READY OR NOT
Global Challenges, College Learning, and America’s Promise
Pre-Meeting Workshops
Wednesday, January 21, 2:00-5:00 pm
General Education: Learning and Assessment, Learning from Assessment
Far too often, concepts of teaching, learning, assessment, and improvement are treated separately during discussions of general education reform and then not reconnected. General education itself often is not integrated into learning in the major so as to enhance learning across programs. This workshop will move from considering the needs for improvement in participants’ general education programs to an examination of essential components of the teaching/learning cycle all the while exploring important connections among elements and programs. A variety of materials from dozens of campuses, stories about student learning, and examples of assessment will provide fodder for participants to adapt or react to in re-creating or reforming elements of their own approaches to general education.
Ross Miller, Senior Director of Assessment for Learning, AAC&U; Carol Rutz, Director of the Writing Program and Senior Lecturer in English, Carleton College
Teaching and Assessing Critical Thinking
Which pedagogical approaches has research shown to be effective in advancing students’ critical thinking? How might these be incorporated into faculty development efforts? What do qualitative and quantitative measures of students’ critical thinking tell us about their learning? How can these data be used in institutional processes such as learning outcomes assessment, program review, accreditation, student advising, and program admissions? This workshop demonstrates and applies proven CT teaching strategies in addressing these questions and in sharing sample CT assessment data derived from tools using different assessment modalities.
Peter Facione and Noreen Facione, both of Insight Assessment
Grades and Grading in an Age of Assessment
The use of letter grades to measure student achievement is nearly immune to critical examination, but there are mounting signs of wear. Grade inflation, competency and performance-based learning, the use of portfolios, even the assessment movement itself, all suggest that while grades may carry more weight, they may also convey less information. Participants will reflect on and re-evaluate the functions of grades, envision alternatives, and explore realistic ways to experiment with change. The workshop will also address the history of grading in American higher education – the assumptions, meanings, and values that underlie the process, as well as the place of grading in the current context of assessment.
Kathleen O’Brien, Provost, Alverno College; Elizabeth Williamson, Assistant Professor, The Evergreen State College; Marie Eaton, Professor of Humanities and Education, Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Western Washington University; Deborah Quick, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences, Johnson C. Smith University; Maribeth Clark, Associate Provost and Associate Professor of Music, New College of Florida
This workshop is sponsored by the Consortium for Innovative Environments in Learning (CIEL)
From Data to Action: Interpreting Complex Student Learning Data and Creating Data-driven Plans to Improve Student Learning
As a result of much excellent assessment work carried out at institutions across the country, faculty and administrators often find themselves awash with data and institutional research that has the potential to significantly improve teaching and learning. This session focuses on the skills and practices necessary to interpret complex data sets and to develop plans for improvement that are supported by assessment data. Institutions are invited to send small teams of representatives who will bring data sets from their home campuses that raise issues of interest at their institutions. We encourage you to bring several different types of data, possibly including Wabash National Study data, NSSE reports, CLA reports, CIRP data, CAAP scores, etc., which variously represent input characteristics, student experiences, and outcome measures associated with student learning. Members of the Teagle Assessment Scholars program at the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College will assist your team in interpreting your data reports and will work with you to begin to develop campus-based action plans based on your data. We will also discuss logistic, rhetorical, and strategic elements of successful campus improvement initiatives that are underpinned by assessment data and institutional research on student learning.
Charles Blaich, Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College; Steven Weisler, Hampshire College and Center of inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College
Teaching With Your Mouth Shut
Teaching With Your Mouth Shut, written by Don Finkel (Heinemann, 2000), challenges faculty to think of teaching as a practice of designing intellectual experience for a community of students, rather than one of “telling.” Drawing from the work of Dewey, Piaget, and Freire, Finkel proposes a variety of teaching practices that put the material at the center of students’ experience in the classroom, such as the Conceptual Workshop – a practice that engages students in community dialogue and inquiry and gives them the opportunity to apply ideas to complex situations. Participants will take part in a conceptual workshop on the topic of scientific management, followed by discussion of workshop design, its use in a variety of disciplinary contexts and educational settings, and other classroom practices that deepen student engagement and encourage collaborative learning. Discussion will be invited on the ways that the notion of “critical thinking” can be better defined and understood as something that happens in a specific time and place, in the company of, and under the influence of others. This workshop is designed for faculty and administrators in all disciplines interested in new pedagogies and best practices.
Stephanie Kozick, Faculty, The Evergreen State University
Strategies for Systematically Improving Teaching and Learning on Your Campus
Colleges and universities are striving to improve student learning, not only to respond to the outcry for more institutional accountability, but also to meet the challenges of rising enrollments and fewer resources, new technologies that allow new pedagogies, and student bodies with different backgrounds and expectations. Responding to these changes, three seasoned faculty developers will ask participants to consider strategies for teaching improvement on their own campuses and will describe how teaching centers and other instructional development initiatives can advance student learning at both the individual and the organizational level. This workshop is designed to help academic leaders who are responsible for faculty development address their institutions’ strategic priorities. The session will include guidelines that leaders can use to make their own teaching centers and instructional development initiatives more effective in meeting the local and global challenges facing higher education.
Constance Ewing Cook, Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, University of Michigan; Peter Felten, Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, Elon University; Virginia S. Lee, Senior Consultant, Virginia S. Lee & Associates, LLC, and President, Professional & Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education
This workshop is sponsored by the Professional & Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education
ACAD Workshop:
Changing Faculty Workload without Additional Resources: Process and Results
Deans and faculty often share the goal of changing the teaching workload; they usually differ on the methods and costs of any changes. Some institutions have changed faculty workload without adding new faculty, while retaining or even improving the excellence of the education offered to students. Their common strategy has been faculty-led curriculum revision. At this workshop, chief academic officers from colleges at different stages in the process of workload change (Illinois College, still in process; Luther College, recently completed; Bates College, several years out) discuss best practices for workload change, evaluate the success of these projects, and provide opportunities for deans to consider how they might lead workload change at their institutions.
Elizabeth H. Tobin, Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Illinois College; William Craft, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College, Luther College; Jill Reich, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, Bates College
Workshop on Saturday, January 24, 1:00-4:00 p.m.
ACAD Workshop:
Sustainability: Educating Students for the 21st Century
“A sustainable society is one that is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or social systems of support.” (Donella Meadows) Many colleges and universities, recognizing they have key roles to play in building a more sustainable future, have launched sustainability initiatives, largely involving campus operations, purchasing, and student affairs. It is less clear how sustainability is being taken up in the curriculum. This interactive workshop will offer an overview of sustainability, report on promising faculty and curriculum development approaches, and provide participants with opportunities to consider how sustainability may inform courses and curricula at their own institutions.
Jean MacGregor, Senior Scholar and Director, Curriculum for the Bioregion Initiative, Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, The Evergreen State College; and Geoffrey Chase, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, San Diego State University
Space is limited to 35 seats for this workshop.
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