Transcript Slide 1

Social Expectations, Faculty
Roles and Curricular Change
James L. Ratcliff, Ph.D.
Performance Associates Postsecondary Consulting
Pueblo West, CO 81007-1334
Phone: 719-671-6032
 Email: [email protected]
Access to Higher Education
Has Grown!
Knowledge has exploded
More and more jobs require higher
education
Governments see higher education
as an entitlement to those who are
able
As Access Increases,
Student diversity increases
Knowledge fragments and specializes
Demand for social relevance
increases
Academic departments grow in size
Higher Education has a dual,
competing social role:
to develop the knowledge, skills and
abilities of citizens to provide
– knowledge workers,
– leaders, and
– a means of individual advancement in a
democratic society.
to determent the criteria and standards
for the attainment of positions of
competence and leadership in society.
Academic staff are asked us to move
beyond traditional practices
to address complex social demands
Chronicle of Higher Education
Some Key Stakeholders in
University Degree Programs
University academic leaders
Program administrators
Academic staff
Future and current students
Employers of the program graduates
Accrediting agencies
Postgraduate programs
Key Questions for Stakeholders:
What is the need for a particular program
of study?
What should be the purpose of such a
program?
What should the program include?
– What knowledge?
– What skills and abilities?
– What values and attitudes?
How should the program’s success be
evaluated?
What Employer Want
in College Graduates
Higher-Order Applied Problem-Solving Abilities
"Enthusiasm" for Learning on a Continuous Basis
Interpersonal Skills
– teamwork and collaboration
– oral and written communication
Sense of Responsibility for Action
– personal
– collective
Ability to Bridge Cultural and Linguistic Barriers
Sense of "Professionalism"
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems
Consider the work of faculty:
Since WWII, the
knowledge base of
most fields has
fragmented in
several subdisciplines.
Students enter with
more varied (and
often less)
preparation in
subject.
Employers want
more practical,
experience-based
How can faculty stay
abreast of an everexpanding literature?
How can faculty
decide what should
be included in the
curriculum?
How can faculty
learn to use
computers, the Web,
for teaching?
How construct
research that
Faculty lives are changing rapidly:
The knowledge base of our work is growing,
specializing, fragmenting, and re-forming with
ever increasing speed.
The technology of our work is growing ever-more
complex, requiring greater expertise on our part
and greater reliance on the expertise of others.
The continued pressure on us to do more with
less, the effect of past reductions and
consolidations, and the on-going demands for
accountabilty require us to focus, to decide what
is important, and to act quickly and decisely.
Current status of academic staff and
some implications for faculty development:
Faculty need to commit personally to
continuous learning and improvement;
The success of faculty work is interdependent,
not independent;
Faculty need to recognize that they cannot
develop the expertise or even keep up in all
the areas of our work;
Faculty need to rely more on each others
expertise to be engaged, effective, and
enthusiastic about our work;
Faculty need to build a community supportive
of each others work.
Professional Service
“Professional Service refers to work
that draw’s upon one’s professional
expertise and is an outgrowth of one’s
academic discipline.
It is composed of the same activities
as traditional teaching and research
but directed toward a different
audience and toward society’s
welfare.”
Sandra Elman and Sue Smock, 1985
Engagement
Engagement is an initiative characterized by
shared goals, a shared agenda, agreed upon
definitions of success that are meaningful
both to the university and to community
participants, and the pooling and leveraging
of funds.
It is mutually beneficial and is likely to
promote learning for all parties and build
capacity and competency for all participants.
The Scholarship of Engagement
“The academy must become a more
vigorous partner in the search for
answers to our most pressing social,
civic, economic and moral problems, and
must reaffirm its historic commitment to
what I call the scholarship of
engagement.”
“The scholarship of engagement means
connecting the rich resources of the
university to our pressing social, civic
and ethical problems, to our children, to
our schools,
to our teachers, and to our
Ernest Boyer, 1995
[communities].”
Five Skills of a Learning
Organization
Systematic problem-solving.
Experimentation with new
approaches.
Learning from our experience and
past history.
Learning from the experience and
best practices of others.
Transferring knowledge quickly and
efficiently throughout the University.
So, what needs to be done?
How much and in what ways should
academic staff devote time to
professional development?
What are the implications for academic
work and how academic staff work
together?
What are the implications for how
academic staff interact and engage
others -- in communities, other
institutions of higher education,
businesses and industries?
Pathways to Enhancing the
Student Experience
Where We Are
Headed:
How We Will
Get There:
Clear Expectations for
Student Learning
Common Principles for
the Teaching /
Learning Process
Clear Expectations for
Student Learning
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Higher-Order Applied
Problem-Solving Abilities
"Enthusiasm" for Learning
on a Continuous Basis
Interpersonal Skills
– teamwork and
collaboration
– oral and written
communication
Sense of Responsibility for
Action
– personal
– collective
Ability to Bridge Cultural
and Linguistic Barriers
Sense of "Professionalism"
Guidelines for the Teaching /
Learning Process
Give special attention to early
years of university education.
Provide coherent, progressive
learning.
Create synthesizing
experiences.
Require ongoing practice of
skills.
Provide considerable time on
task.
Assess learning and give
prompt feedback.
Plan collaborative learning
experiences.
Respect diverse talents & ways
of knowing.
Increase informal contact with
students.
Quality and Communication
A quality is an attribute or set of
attributes of a phenomena;
The attributes constituting the quality
are selected by the viewer;
The attributes become part of the
social construction of understanding
of the phenomena through
communication;
The communicative dimension of
quality premise social understanding
of the phenomena.
Quality of Education
Its meaning is derived from social
interaction;
For higher education, it refers to what
institutions warrant to society:
– Degrees
– Faculty
– Students
Universities may warrant regionally,
nationally, and internationally.
The warrant is a key attribute to the
State Building University (SBU).
Social Warrants
What are they?
What do they rely upon?
Social credibility relies on the quality
of the warrant.
– Enron
– Arthur Andersen
– Worldcom
Social and Political Credibility
often become confused
The value of the warrant relies on the
social credibility of the institution;
Financial support, particularly of public
institutions, rely more directly on
political credibility.
As one of the most stable of
institutions, the university tends to
assume its social credibility.
As one of the more vulnerable and
contentious institutions, universities
tend to fear for its political credibility.
Levels of Quality Discourse
Global
International
National
State, Lander, region
Higher education sector
Program or service area
Course or single activity or service
Internal Stakeholder Discourse
Internal discourse
– Faculty
– Students
– Administrators
– Students Services
– Boards of Directors
External Stakeholder Discourse
External discourses – local
– Secondary schools
– Transfer-sending institutions
– Employers
– Transfer-receiving institutions
State and national dialogues on
curricular innovation
Networks of practice
Networks of administration
Networks of system coordination and
governance
Social and Political Credibility
often become confused
The value of the warrant relies on
the social credibility of the
institution;
Financial support, particularly of
public institutions, rely more
directly on political credibility.
As one of the most stable of
institutions, the university tends to
assume its social credibility.
As one of the more vulnerable and
contentious institutions, universities
tend to fear for its political
International and global
discourse
Institutions in countries of relevant
international trade agreements
Institutions in geographicallyproximous countries
Global discourse on universal trends,
issues, standards and practices
Bases for a Dialogic Model
of Program Quality
University curriculum is an organization of
knowledge;
Its basic building blocks are courses
(lectures) and courses (programs of
study) ;
Courses are aligned with how disciplines
organize their knowledge;
Courses are derived of oral and written
communication within disciplinary
cultures.
Dialogic Criteria for Coherent
Curricula
1. Cohesion
 the extent to which the curricular goals are
best represented and achieved through the
learning activities selected, and the extent to
which learning expectations are articulated
and assessed and communicated back to
students so they might know their emerging
strengths and weakness better;
2. Context
 the extent to which the course relates to the
program, and the program to the institutional
aims for general and liberal learning;
Dialogic Criteria for Coherent
Curricula (Continued)
3. Continuity
 the extent to which the curriculum connects
to prior learning and that which is most likely
to following, employing students existing
abilities and challenging them to develop
them further;
4. Concordance
 the extent to which the curriculum works in
concert with other levels and facets of the
collegiate experience to engage, enrich, and
enlighten students.
References
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