Transcript Slide 1

Engaging Faculty in the Purposes of General
Education
and the Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes
at Michigan State University
Duncan Sibley
Director for Center for Integrative Studies General Science
[email protected]
Mark Sullivan
Assoc. Professor of
Music
[email protected]
Suzanne Wilson
Professor of Teacher Education
[email protected]
For more information on this project please see our website:
http://www.cfkeep.org/html/snapshot.php?id=787
Integrative Studies –
MSU’s Program in Liberal General
Education
CIAH
Team Work
different expertise ,
different cultures
working together
as equal partners
CISS
CISGS
Project Goals
1. strengthen faculty culture and capacity
to assess student learning outcomes
2. mobilize campus expertise
3. initiate systematic classroom-embedded
assessment of student learning
GOALS OF INTEGRATIVE STUDIES
Courses in Integrative Studies help students to:
1.
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become more familiar with the ways of knowing characteristic of
intellectual activities in the arts and humanities, biological and physical
sciences, and social sciences;
grow in a range of intellectual abilities, including critical thinking,
logical argument, appropriate uses of evidence, and interpretation of
varied kinds of information (quantitative, qualitative, text, and image);
expand their knowledge about other times, places, and cultures, as well
as about key ideas and issues in human experience;
learn about the role of scientific methods in understanding the natural
and social worlds;
appreciate the role of knowledge, values, and ethics in understanding
human behavior and solving social problems; and
recognize some responsibilities and opportunities associated with
citizenship in a democratic society and in an increasingly inter-connected
world.
Pervasive, faculty driven assessment of student
learning outcomes is a cultural change and one
that we have partially affected at our university.
To change the culture costs money:
$75K MSU
$75K Hewlett Foundation
To change the culture requires expertise
Assessment
in
General Education
Michigan State University
January 18, 2001
Presented by
Trudy W. Banta
Vice Chancellor
Planning and Institutional Improvement
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Our own experts create the sense of community
The Design and Development
of Assessments
Innovative Teaching to Achieve
Active Learning
Mark D. Reckase
Diane Ebert-May
Cultural change takes time
24 2-hour meetings over 2 years
Multiple types of
class-embedded instruments
• Pre-post multiple choice
• Extended responses with rubrics
– Case-based studies
• Faculty ranking (modified Bloom’s
taxonomy) of test items
• Concept mapping
Assessment
Mark Sullivan
From Hostility to Productivity
Hostility, Indifference, Dread
• The initial attitude toward issues of
assessment
– Fear of bureaucratic “bean counting”
– Looked at assessment as another form
Of unproductive, administrative harrassment
Hewlett Project
• Provided the necessary experiences over a
sufficient period of time to create a new model
of, and disposition toward, assessment
• Provided examples of assessment I had never
considered, provided models of assessment
used by my actual peers
• Provoked a meaningful debate about which
forms of assessment were productive in relation
to our actual disciplines, teaching styles and
philosophies, and so forth
First tries
• Pre-test, Post-test – confirming the obvious
• Assessing the introduction of students to a body
of material and knowledge
• Conceptual spirals in writing assignments
– Themes related to racism
– National context in the thirties Langston Hughes
– International context in the recent past – Idi Amin,
Mississippi Masala
– Recycling writing under different themes
What next?
• Some ideas I plan to try out in the future
– Use of interviews and ethnographic profiles
Of students
- Use of faculty visitation among peers teaching
in general education
Consequences
• Faculty Meeting with other Music Faculty
teaching general education who did not
participate in the institute
– Initial attitude: from hostility to indifference
– Became interested when presented with
models they deemed to have promise, in
terms of helping them do something they
wanted to do, or in terms of finding out
something they wanted to find out
Professional Development for
University Faculty
Suzanne Wilson
Creating a New Generation of
Subject-Specific, Targeted
Support
Traditional Professional
Development
• For a long time, K-12 teachers have found
professional development, or “inservice”
as it is traditionally called, unhelpful
• So it is with University faculty who often
find talking heads and one-day workshops
devoid of content meaningless
“Best Practices” of Professional
Development
• Professional Development Practices
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focuses on teachers as central to student learning;
focuses on individual, collegial, and organizational improvement;
focuses on student work;
is long term
respects and nurtures the intellectual and leadership capacity of teachers,
principals, and others in the school community;
reflects best available research and practice;
enables teachers to develop further expertise in subject content, teaching
strategies, uses of technologies, and other essential elements in teaching to high
standards;
promotes continuous inquiry and improvement embedded in the daily life of
schools;
is planned collaboratively by those who will participate in and facilitate that
development;
Next Steps
• Sustainability of such professional
development requires:
– substantial time and other resources;
– a coherent long-term plan;
– On-going evaluation of its impact on teacher effectiveness and student
learning
To sustain change requires:
I. Challenges: (at your institution)
A.
B.
C.
II. Strategies for engaging faculty (at your
institution)
A.
B.
C.
I. Challenges: (at MSU)
A. Assessment takes time away from other things
B. Faculty believe essential aspects of quality
teaching are intangible
C. Faculty are unsure of the reward for teaching
general education
II. Strategies for engaging faculty (at MSU)
A. Lilly Fellows
B. Peer reviewed teaching awards
C. Curiosity