Transcript Evolving Departmental Culture: From Isolated Individuals

From My Course to My
Department’s Course:
Aligning Curriculum and Assessment
from General Education Through the
Capstone Experience
AAC&U Integrative Learning & the Department, July 2014
J. Elizabeth Clark, Ph.D.
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Framing Thoughts
Framing Thoughts
Navigating Brooklyn!
New York to San Francisco!
Vinland Map
Vintage Disneyland
Treasure Map
How did you
get where you
are today?
Draw your own map.
What did you
learn?
What are the
integral
connections?
Google’s Rerouting Feature
From you as student to you
as faculty:
What is your discipline?
Name a course you teach.
Disciplines & Offices
Represented in the Room:
 Education
 Student Affairs
 Business
 Center for Teaching 
Excellence

 Political Science

 Government

 Religion

 Game Design

 The President’s Office

 Administration
 Dance
 Psychology
 History
 Theater
 Kinesiology
 English
 Biology
 Chemistry
 Interdisciplinary
 Languages
 Assessment
Public Health
Institutional Research
Nursing
Music
Faculty Development
Music Education
Sociology
Image from
Ashburn, VA web
Image from
Tylden
Equipment
Image from Boer Met
Image from Scaf Co
WHAT 1 Word
DESCRIBES:
Your courses?
Your department?
Your department’s
philosophy/mission?
Your department’s relationship to
general education?
Your department’s larger
relationship to the institution?
Where is student learning in this
formulation of faculty life?
And, in this formulation: how is
the student at the center of
the educational journey?
The Changing Nature of
Faculty Work
How do your courses
contribute to larger general
education goals of your
department? Of your
institution?
Communities of Practice
 Design for evolution;
 Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives;
 Invite different levels of participation;
 Develop both public and private community spaces;
 Focus on value;
 Combine familiarity and excitement;
 Create a rhythm for the community.
Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, William
M. Snyder
What Do We Already Do?
(Group Brainstorming
Results)
 Group meetings for multiple sections of the same course: mentoring, resource
sharing, curriculum overview
 Mentoring
 Inclusion of adjuncts
 Respect, communication & ownership of the department & department courses
 Department meetings with food and wine: hospitality
 Calm spaces to find answers
 Retreats
 Resources for students
 Engaging and involving alumni
Integrative Learning
 The good news, as documented in the Association of American Colleges
and Universities’ report Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning
as a Nation Goes to College (2002), is that many campuses today are
creating opportunities for more integrative, connected learning.
 The bad news is that they often involve small numbers of students or exist
in isolation, disconnected from other parts of the curriculum and from
other reform efforts. Indeed, the very structures of academic life
encourage students to see their courses as isolated requirements to
complete.
 How, then, can campuses help students pursue learning in more
intentionally connected ways? What does such learning look like? How
might it be shaped by emerging cultural realities and by new thinking
about learning and teaching?
~Mary Taylor Huber and Pat Hutchings
What might an integrative &
engaged department look like?
What does an integrative &
engaged institution look like?
Mission as a Verb
 Do your students know what a “department” is?
 How do you communicate what you “do” as a department to
one another, to all of your faculty, and to your students?
 What is your department’s vision/mission?
 How does that guide your work together as faculty? With
students? In your courses? In your work with other
departments? In your work with the larger college or
university? In your work with the professional, national
organizations related to your discipline?
Administrative
Staff
Administration
Department
Students
Professional
Staff
Faculty
A department includes
ALL of these people, not
just faculty.
National
Higher
Education
K-12
Classroo
m
Department
Community
Employer/
Transfer
College/U
niversity
Culture
National
Disciplinary
Push/Pull Relationships
on a Department
Your Department as a
Community of Practice
 Setting the vision: mission statement, web presence, printed
materials, meetings, professional development, intra- and
internet materials, surveys;
 Setting the curriculum: shared learning outcomes,
pedagogies, priorities, shared assessment;
 Creating the cultural conversation AND a culture of dialogue:
mentoring, round tables, discussions, social events,
presentations;
 Connecting the work of the department to the work of the
institution;
 Creating space for all kinds of leadership (even self-created!);
 Creating sustained professional development around inquiry;
Your Department as a
Community of Practice
 Sharing governance: students, faculty, staff;
 Showcasing faculty & student learning: presentations,
publications, celebrations, forums;
 Creating a rhythm for the work, play, and creativity of the
department;
 Connecting learning to other courses, to other
departments, to the college, to your community, to the
national conversation in your discipline, to the national
conversation about higher education;
 Finding ways to REWARD this work structurally &
systematically.
Faculty Development as
sustained inquiry
 Sustained;
 Collaborative;
 Focused on Evidence of Student Learning.
“We believe that the one-hour,
lunch-time faculty development workshop
has little impact on the transformation of
faculty attitudes and behavior.”
~Pat Hutchings
Working Towards an
Integrative Department, an
Integrative College: Moving
Beyond the Department
Departmental
College-Wide
External
Peer Led Team Teaching
“In the UT Dallas application of the PLTL model, students enrolled
in PLTL-supported courses have the option to register for a weekly
zero-credit, ninety-minute small-group session of eight to ten
students, which is facilitated by another student who has already
successfully passed the course.”
The PLTL leaders work with faculty liaisons who serve offer
curriculum support and provide problem sets and resources.
 More? “Transforming Science Education Through Peer-Led Team Learning” by Thom D.
Chesney
http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-su11/Chesney.cfm
Guided reflection in the
integrative portfolio (from
MPortfolio)
• Who am I becoming?
• What am I learning?
• What knowledge, strengths and skills
am I developing?
• What can I do?
• How will I make a difference?
More? See Mportfolio: http://www.mportfolio.umich.edu
Jessica Joi Eiland
University of Michigan
MPortfolio
Portland State University’s
Capstone Course
Portland State University has forged strong ties with the surrounding community
and tailors its courses to prepare students for the multitude of exciting
challenges that await them in college and beyond. Each 6-credit, communitybased learning course is designed by a Portland State faculty member to
provide students with the opportunity to apply, in a team
context, what they have learned in their major and in their
other University Studies courses to a real challenge
emanating from the metropolitan community. Interdisciplinary
teams of students address these real challenges and produce a summation
product under the instruction of a PSU faculty member.
Each Capstone's purpose is to further enhance student learning while
cultivating crucial life abilities that are important both academically and
professionally: establishing connections within the larger community,
developing strategies for analyzing and addressing problems, and working with
others trained in fields different from one's own.
More? See Portland State University:
http://www.pdx.edu/unst/senior-capstone-courses
How Can You Move from a
Culture of “My Course” To “Our
Course?
 Put students at the center of learning
 Departmental Mission/Vision
 Departmental Culture
 Communities of Practice
 Professional Development
 Integrative Learning
 High Impact Practices
 Assessing Student Work as
Intellectual Work of Faculty
 Engaging Beyond the Department
 Contributing to the larger general education goals
Works Cited
 Huber, Mary Taylor and Pat Hutchings. Integrative Learning:
Mapping the Terrain. Washington, D.C.: AAC&U, 2004.
 Hutchings, Pat. “From Special Occasion to Regular Work: A
Different Way to Think about Professional Development.”
Carnegie Perspectives. The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching. October 2008. Web. 5 July 2009.
 Wenger, Etienne, Richard McDermott and William M. Snyder.
“Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing
Knowledge--Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of
Practice.” Working Knowledge for Business Leaders. Harvard
Business School. 25 March 2002. Web. 5 July 2009.
Additional Resources
 See resources from Jann H. Adams’ ILD presentation “From
Theory to Practice: Case Studies of Implementation” for
additional examples of PLTL.
 See ILD participant Elizabeth Lawley’s “Just Press Play” project
for helping students to map their progress through RIT.
lawley.rit.edu (presentations and papers)
Institutions Cited
 LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, ePortfolio Program
 Portland State University, Capstone Program
 University of Michigan, Mfolio
 University of Texas—Dallas, PTLT Model
Contact
 J. Elizabeth Clark, Ph.D., Professor of English
 [email protected]