As usual, my reading is what got me thinking about this topic. In this case it’s a new book by Paul Hanstedt on general education. He recommends that assignments for general education courses should achieve at least three things: 1) contain evidence that students are learning what we want them to be learning, 2) engage students in deep, long lasting learning, and 3) generate student work that doesn’t make us cry when we grade them. (p. 78)

It’s the example of his general education writing course focused on the social functions of art that made me see how clear the connection between assignments and course goals needs to be. He has four goals for his course. Students should be able to: 1) write an effective essay using appropriate rhetorical methods given the audience and purpose, 2) interpret individual responses to art, 3) apply abstract concepts about art to particular works, and 4) analyze the role art plays in contemporary life (p. 83). To accomplish those goals he used to have students write three papers; one that analyzed a representational piece of art, pre-1850, a second that analyzed an abstract piece of art, post-1850; and a third that explored the role art should play in society. Okay assignments, but they didn’t produce work that showed students achieving the course goals all that well.

After making some changes, students are still writing three papers, but the assignments are very different. Now in the first paper, students analyze a piece of art that they like using the formal elements to explain their emotional response to it. They write this paper to a classmate as a way of introducing themselves. In the second paper, they use a quotation from the readings to justify the necessity of abstract art in contemporary society. They write this paper to a skeptical parent. For the third paper, students construct an argument justifying the use of university funds for the purchase of art, explaining the role they think art should play in academia. This final paper is addressed to the university president.

Here’s why these assignments better accomplish the course goals. Designating an audience for each paper forces students to assume authority for their knowledge and take on the task of explaining relevant concept and ideas to others. They aren’t writing so directly to and for the professor as when the audience wasn’t designated. The fact that the audience changes with every paper mirrors what happens in professional life. Professionals must deal with multiple audiences, customizing their message accordingly. Students also need to do research to write these kinds of papers, particularly the third one. And these papers do a much better job of showing the degree to which students understand and can apply course concepts. Finally, they give students the opportunity to make choices that are more personally relevant.

Does that mean students enjoy writing these papers? That’s probably a stretch, but there is a greater chance students might get engaged in the topics. And Hanstedt says these papers are definitely more interesting to read.

Right now you probably need to finish up that stack of whatever you’re grading, but as you do you might think a bit about your course goals. Is this particular assignment helping students accomplish them? Are there ways you could change the design that might align it more tightly to course goals? There’s great opportunity for creativity and innovation in the design of assignments and more faculty are taking advantage of that. I’d love to see a collection of interesting assignments and the goals they’re being used to accomplish in the comment section. Please share a brief description or a link where we can read about what you’re having students do.

Reference: Hanstedt, P. General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012.

Most of us hold deeply rooted presuppositions about grading that have rarely been confronted, and this makes sense. We became specialists in our fields without having learned a variety of grading strategies, purposes, and theories. We never had to interrogate our presuppositions about grading nor have our institutions supported us doing so. At our college, for example, we have a grading percentage chart, suggesting a range of grades might be used for a class, and a line that appears on all official course outlines stating, “Evaluation and assignment of grades will be based upon the quality of work produced relative to the objectives of the course.” This, of course, is vague enough to confound students and to allow the use of just about any grading strategy.

I began confronting my own grading presuppositions with a somewhat radical idea that I’ve now tested over three semesters, with the full approval of our Dean. During the first class of an upper-level course, I go over the course outline and grading rubric with the students. Afterward, I ask them if they will do all the work. They usually give me perplexed looks while agreeing. In response, I inform them that they will each receive an A for their final course grade. Some students loudly proclaim, for the sake of peer witnesses, they are writing it down.

In undertaking this pilot-project, basically a form of contract grading, I was required to deeply reconsider the way I understand student attainment of outcomes and my role in their meeting such outcomes. In each class that I have tried this approach, I have observed that students’ attendance, energy, intrinsic motivation, and level of work are equal to or higher than that of classes where I have used typical grading strategies. (I have had less luck with contract grading variants at lower levels.) Students are quick to provide feedback. They state, in ongoing feedback forms and in their end-of-year course evaluations, that the lack of stress regarding grades and not having to figure out ways to please the teacher really allowed them to engage, express themselves, immerse themselves in complex material without always worrying about the correct answer, and, most importantly, to learn.

This pilot-project makes some of my colleagues uncomfortable. They suggest that an average grade, a C, is good and they speak of grade inflation. Or they say I have the luxury of this project because I teach in the humanities field and this grading strategy can never work for the hard sciences. There is lots of room for discussion. The main point of objection is to bring up the hypothetical student who won’t do the work. So far, there has been no such student in these classes. If there were, I would intervene early and often, and if that failed, the contract is based upon the student’s agreeing to do the work.

Generally the arguments against giving all students an A seems to stem from a main presupposition: that all students cannot succeed at a high level, that the purpose of grading is a process of selection. The idea, when pressed, seems to be both vague and deeply held and is usually exposed by phrases like, “That’s just the way it is,” or, “All students do not have equal abilities.” The philosopher R.G. Collingwood would call this an absolute presupposition of which he wrote, “people are apt to be ticklish in their absolute presuppositions” meaning they don’t enjoy being confronted about them. Imagine if teachers were called into the Dean’s office and the conversation went something like this: The fact that many of your students are only reaching an average level of work and comprehension is a reflection of your ability to facilitate learning — what can we do to improve it? (I told you at the beginning of the article that I would be provocative.)

I am suggesting that, regardless of whether one agrees with my position or not, we all hold presuppositions about grading that affect the way we use grading to support learning. If our job is to deliver content, facilitate learning, to scaffold difficult material, and to assist all students in achieving the outcomes of our courses, then from my point of view something is wrong with what we are doing if most of our students are not achieving the top levels of comprehension. I think it’s worth thinking about, deeply.

Reference: Collingwood, R.J., (1939). Essay on metaphysics. Chicago: Henry Regnery, (p. 31).

Christopher Willard teaches at the Alberta College of Art + Design. He is currently working on his PhD in Educational Research at the University of Calgary.

• At the beginning of the course have students write down their learning goals. If you need to, make it an assignment and offer a few points for doing so.
• Discuss their goals in class. Students can share them in small groups or with the whole class. In class have students pass their goals to someone else and keep passing the goals until no knows whose goal they have. Then ask some students to read that goal. If you’re up for a bit of fun and modest mayhem, have students ball up the paper with their goal and toss it to someone else. Encourage students to toss these papers around the room for a bit. Then they can uncrumple the paper and read the goal out loud. The idea is to give students a sense of each other’s goals.
• After hearing the students’ goals, collect them, prepare a summary, and discuss how their goals will or will not be addressed in the course. If you haven’t already, this can be a very effective time to distribute and discuss the syllabus.
• Then you might want to have students revise their goals, preserving them in a prominent place in their course notebooks. Some faculty (with small classes) use discussion of these individual goals as the basis of a short getting-to-know-you conversation with students. This option is viable only if class sizes are small, although maybe individual goals could be commented on in an email.
• If the goals are preserved in students’ notebooks, they can be revisited during the course. Have any of the goals been achieved? Are we making progress with others? Or, when presenting content you might mention its relevance to certain goals.
• A review of these goals makes a great end-of-course activity. Were the goals achieved? How? Were the goals important? Do they make it more likely that content will be remembered? Is having a learning goal a good idea? Why? What did the teacher and fellow classmates contribute to the accomplishment of the learning goals?

Reference: Walvoord, B. E. and Anderson, V. J. (2010). Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment. 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass, 2010.

In the recent online seminar What to Teach When There Isn’t Time to Teach Everything, Ruth Rodgers, teaching and learning specialist at Durham College/UOIT, recommends that professors re-examine their course content and the learning experiences they create by asking themselves three key questions:

• What aspects of my subject MUST my students learn in THIS course?
• What attitudes/approaches/processes are CRITICAL for success in this field?
• What lifelong learning habits must students develop to be successful in this field?

It’s not an easy exercise. It requires considerable reflection, and some hard choices, but in the end it will help teachers make better use of the face-to-face time they have with students, and will help students gain the skills they need to thrive in the Information Age, Rodgers says.

In today’s workplace, just knowing the information that you learned in school about your subject matter is clearly insufficient. The skill set needs to be much more sophisticated than that. Given the ubiquity of information, it is more important than ever that students have the ability to evaluate, adapt and apply information.

“The employers we work with tell us all the time this really is the 21st century skill,” Rodgers says. “Yes it’s important that they come to them with skills and knowledge, but the ability to continue to learn, to find information, and then be able to analyze and adapt it to the current situation is what they’re looking for regardless of the field.”

Rodgers provided the following recommendations for recalibrating your teaching goals within the context of the three questions:

• Schedule ample practice time for the components of your course that must be mastered. Provide plenty of feedback along the way.
• Choose learning activities that build not only knowledge and skills, but the ability to self-critique, troubleshoot and refine. Learning activities could include team projects, case studies, and poster presentations.
• Require students to develop and use the skills and resources they’ll need in order to keep learning.

“We all come into teaching with a tremendous amount of knowledge, skill and experience, and we’d love to convey all of that to our students immediately,” Rodgers says. “But the reality is we only have a limited amount of time, so my recommendation is you start by thinking about a particular course you teach and ask yourself, ‘What are the non-negotiables?’ — the things that must be practiced until perfect, must be at their fingertips, must be memorized.”

The goals reviewed in this particular study were a version of goals offered in Angelo and Cross’ well-known Classroom Assessment Techniques handbook: critical thinking, basic academic skills, career preparation, scientific reasoning, personal development, mastery of discipline content, citizenship and values, and art and cultural appreciation. Both students and faculty were asked about the importance and priority placed on each of these eight goals.

How would you prioritize that list of goals? If your list includes critical thinking, basic academic skills, and mastery of discipline content, then your priorities are the same as those most common to faculty surveyed in this research. Would you do as well identifying what students consider the most important goals for a course? Those surveyed for this study also gave high priority to basic skills acquisition, but just as high on those student lists were personal development and career development.

“These results suggest that faculty and students differ both statistically and practically on the values they place on six of the eight learning goals under study.” (p. 56) More statistical analysis revealed an uncharacteristically large difference between the value that faculty and students placed on the development of critical thinking, with faculty giving it a much higher priority than students did. Bottom line, according to this research: “[F]aculty and students not only have a different set of learning goals that each prioritizes but … they also disagree more than they agree on the value of eight common learning goals.” (p. 56)

Is such an extent of disagreement a problem? Yes! It means that faculty and students aren’t always on the same page. Faculty craft assignments to develop critical thinking skills, and students devote little time and energy to their completion, because what faculty have asked them to do doesn’t seem relevant to preparing for anticipated careers.

These goals are not discrete, independently operating premises. An assignment that seeks to develop the ability to think critically can be very relevant to career preparation. But those connections may not be clear to students. A discussion of how learning to think critically relates to career preparation may be what’s needed to motivate students.

The more interesting and less easily answered question concerns the extent to which students’ goals and priorities ought to be considered in development of curricula. That question can be asked about the collection of courses that make a major as well as about an individual instructor’s objectives for a particular assignment. Should faculty be giving more weight to the personal development of interest to students? Obviously, the answer depends to some degree on the course content, but that consideration aside, do learners have a role setting the educational agenda?

The quick response of most faculty is “no.” After all, we are the ones with the knowledge and expertise. But the author of the study pushes the issue by identifying several educational ideas that “strongly suggest” (p. 53) incorporation of student perceptions, goals, and expectations if the goal is to create educational experiences that foster growth and learning. Might it be possible to give students a role while at the same time allowing faculty to retain the responsibilities that come with content knowledge?

Reference: Myers, C.B. (2008). Divergence in learning goal priorities between college students and their faculty: Implications for teaching and learning. College Teaching, 56 (1), 53-58.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, June-July 2008.

In the recent online seminar, Balancing Challenge and Support in Undergraduate Teaching, Dr. Ike Shibley, associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, guided participants through a variety of exercises for finding the sweet spot for an optimal learning experience. The goal? To provide students with enough support to help them succeed but also enough challenges to help them grow.

Drawing from Maryellen Weimer’s Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice, Shibley encouraged participants to think about different policies and teaching strategies that need to be kept in balance when addressing Weimer’s five keys:

• Balance of power – Although teachers have the final say, what are some things you can do to empower students?
• Course content – How do you balance the need for your students to know certain facts with the desire for higher level thinking as well?
• Role of the teacher – Are you the “sage on the stage” or the “guide on the side?” Or can you play both roles depending on the situation?
• The responsibility for learning – Students have to be willing to learn, but it’s up to the instructors to create the type of climate where this happens more readily. Are you willing to cede some control by offering your students more choices?
• Purpose and processes of evaluation – Do you offer self-check quizzes or allow student input on low-stakes assignments?

Shibley also used case studies to demonstrate different ways to balance challenge and support when creating learning goals, rubrics, and attendance policies, as well as the importance of making your students aware of campus support services.

Q: What are some examples of techniques that give students more control of their learning?

Shibley:
Learning goals (or competencies): By laying out the required expectations for a course the teacher no longer must “cover” everything; instead the students are responsible for ensuring that they can meet the expected goals.

Rubrics: Clear expectations regarding the grading criteria for any type of project (term paper, presentation, group work) allows students to decide how best to meet the expectations.

Attendance: Should we require students to attend? How does this fit with support and challenge?

Q: How do you determine if these techniques will work with certain students?

Shibley: Learning goals and rubrics are well-established, validated techniques, so I know they work with most students. The key to determining if a technique will work rests with the notion of providing adequate support.

An important criterion in providing support is to make the expectations as clear as possible. Unambiguous expectations will inform students of what is required of them, but they can plan their course of action to meet those expectations in their own way, according to their own preferred learning style.

Q: It seems that providing students with varying levels of support would require an instructor to know each student fairly well. How feasible is this in large classes? Do you have any suggestions on how to do this?

Shibley: Although individual attention usually provides the most support, the reality of higher education is that we can rarely achieve one-on-one instruction. By focusing on clear guidelines for students (learning goals, rubrics, assignment instructions) the teacher places the locus of control squarely on the students’ shoulders.

Teachers too often take responsibility for any learning by focusing most of their attention on what happens during class. I think the way to help all teachers, but especially those with large classes, is to encourage them to think carefully about what they expect of the students outside of class. The widespread use of classroom management systems such as Blackboard make it easier than ever for teachers to help guide student learning through well-crafted Web activities. The support is therefore available 24/7, and while the teacher is important in the design, the teacher can be home sleeping while students are learning. I think that’s cool … and efficient!

This particular learning agreement is used in the classroom, and preferably with first-year students in order to establish a pattern of regular learning behaviors, which can be applied and reflected upon throughout college.

Learning agreements can be created on the first day of class or early in the first week. The agreement should help students recognize ideas and themes within their subject matter; approach these ideas and themes in several ways; and allow them to perform their understanding of the subject matter in a range of ways (i.e. one minute summaries) (Gardener 2006).

To start setting the tone of the learning agreement, include it as a required (non-graded) component of the course. On the first day of class create a grid on the board with columns such as learning goals/objectives, tasks performed to meet the learning goals/objectives, timeframe expected to complete goals/objectives, and, finally, a column where the students can reflect upon how they know they achieved their goals.

Next, engage the students in a short discussion about some of their insecurities about college, what they hope to achieve in this particular course or at the college, and what challenges they would like to overcome (i.e. improve time management, focus on study skills, etc.). Start filling in the columns with the feedback they provide during the discussion. Use this as a way to prepare the students to start thinking in terms of their own learning agreement.

This discussion alone is a type of assessment that helps to distinguish what characteristics are most important to students’ understanding of their own learning process. Afterwards, start passing out the learning agreement sample template that students can manipulate for their own use. Please note that you can structure your agreement as you like. There are many ways to address topics you would like your students to think about. This is only a sample. I encourage you to research other forms of agreements and see which works for your needs best.

The final page of the learning agreement is the Commitment Page. This is where the student commits to their proposed plan. The instructor keeps a copy of the agreement and the original goes to the student. (Remind the students that this is a non-graded, ongoing reflective tool, and they can add or remove goals/objectives, the timeframe, and even their plans for achieving their goals.)

At the end of the course have the students review their learning agreement and complete a short memo for the instructor explaining if and how they followed their agreement. They can also comment if this was a helpful tool for them in achieving their academic goals, and if they plan on adding to their plan throughout their college years.

By incorporating this practice into classroom management, students will have the opportunity to start monitoring and reflecting on their commitment to their learning. Learning agreements also provide perspective and direction to students’ academic goals. The agreement should not be used as a way to frighten or discourage students from performing in the classroom; it should motivate them to become proprietors of their own learning.

Access a sample learning agreement template here.

Loren Kleinman is the assistant director of academic support centers at Berkeley College.

References:
Gabelnick, F., Leigh-Smith, B., MacGregor, J., & Matthews, R (2004). Learning communities:
Reforming undergraduate education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gardner, Howard, (2006). Five Minds for the Future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School
Press.
Gross Davis, B. (2009). Tools for teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Haines, C. (2004). Assessing students’ written work: Marking essays and reports. New
York: Routledge Falmer.
Instructions for Creating a Learning Agreement (2009). University of California, Berkeley
School of Social Welfare. Retrieved June 24, 2009 from
LaSere Erickson, B., Peters, C., & Weltner Strommer, D. (2006). Teaching first-year college
students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lacoss, J. (2009). The dog ate my homework: How to deal with unprepared students. Teaching
Concerns. Retrieved May 19, 2009.
Tips for Generating a Learning Agreement (2009). St. Norbert Career Services. Retrieved June
24, 2009.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) survey of chief academic officers at 433 colleges and universities of all sorts (public and private, two-year and four-year, large and small) found that only 15 percent of colleges and universities are now using a cafeteria-style general education program alone. More than two-thirds of colleges and universities use a model that combines course choice with other integrative features like learning communities or thematic required courses.

For example:

• 41 percent of institutions report incorporating common intellectual experiences;
• 36 percent use thematic required courses;
• 33 percent now have upper-level general education requirements; and
• 24 percent use learning communities in which a group of students take the same set of courses linked to a common theme.

Many institutions surveyed are placing more emphasis on practices that educational research has shown are particularly effective. Seventy-eight percent are placing more emphasis on undergraduate research; 73 percent are placing more emphasis on first-year experiences; and 52 percent report placing more emphasis on learning communities.

Experiential Learning, Real-World Applications
While many of the trends documented in the survey suggest campuses are moving in the direction recommended by educational research, there are still areas where colleges could do much more to ensure that students have the skills and knowledge they need, particularly for success in a volatile global economy. For example, while earlier AAC&U surveys of employers indicate that they want colleges to place more emphasis on learning in real-world settings, only 36 percent of academic administrators currently give their own general education programs a high rating (4 or 5 on a 5-point scale) for including experiential learning opportunities.

A slight majority of those surveyed do indicate having some “experiential” goals for all students, however. About 53 percent, for instance, include “civic engagement” as one of a list of stated learning goals for all students. About half of the responding institutions also include either “research skills” or “application of learning” as common goals for all students.

Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed also indicate that they are placing more emphasis on incorporating service learning into courses either in general education or elsewhere in the curriculum. Nearly two-thirds are placing more emphasis on providing students with internship opportunities. Only forty-seven percent are placing more emphasis on practicums and supervised fieldwork.

For a full report on the findings of this survey, click here.

Approaching teaching as a scholarly activity with continual evaluations and adjustments allows me to maintain a focus on student learning and continually improve my instruction. By utilizing flexible teaching strategies, rather than strict adherence to a particular teaching style, I am able to adjust my instruction to match the abilities and preexisting knowledge that each student brings to the classroom. Thus, my primary role as an instructor is to create interactions which foster interest and understanding for individual students.

This approach to learning emphasizes a cognitive developmental perspective. As highlighted by developmental theorists, students learn best by actively exploring their environments. This type of “trial-and-error” learning can then be fostered by having a support structure in place to facilitate understanding. The self-paced nature of exploratory learning relies on the notion that effective learning environments actively engage students with the material and promote meaningful associations between new material and information already known. As an instructor, it is my responsibility to help students generate their own context for meaning through the application of new material to their everyday lives.

1. to foster critical thinking so that students may become effective consumers of psychological information,
2. to promote mastery of course content, and
3. to encourage application of course materials to real-world contexts.

B. Jean Mandernach is an associate professor of psychology and research associate for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Park University.

Professor Cranton offered a brief introduction to transformative learning in an email interview conducted in advance of an online seminar she presented titled Transformative Learning in the College Classroom.

What is involved in promoting transformative learning in a course?

Cranton: Transformative learning can occur when students encounter alternative points of view and perspectives. Exposure to alternatives encourages students to critically question their assumptions, beliefs, and values, and when this leads to a shift in the way they see themselves or things in the world, they have engaged in transformative learning.

Transformative learning can be promoted by using any strategy, activity, or resource that presents students with an alternative point of view. Readings from different perspectives, field experiences, videos, role plays, simulations, and asking challenging questions all have the potential to lead to transformative learning. The educator needs to create an environment in which critical reflection and questioning norms is supported and encouraged.

Can transformative learning occur in a single course, or does there need to be some transformative learning goals coordinated across the curriculum?

Cranton: Transformative learning can occur in a single course or even a single class. It can occur outside of a course or classroom. Coordinating transformative learning goals across the curriculum would help to create an environment in which critical reflection is the norm, and this would enhance the process.

However, transformative learning is more a way of thinking about teaching and learning than something we do. Jack Mezirow describes transformative learning as a primary goal of education. It is about helping learners to critically reflect on, validate, and effectively act on their interpretations and ways of thinking. It involves critical and autonomous thinking, something that all educators hope to inspire in their students.

How do you incorporate transformative learning into a course when there is so much discipline-specific content to cover?

Cranton: Transformative learning is not independent of content, context, or a discipline. It’s not an “add on” to a course. It is a way of making meaning of knowledge in a discipline in a way that students don’t passively accept and believe what they are told or what they read, but rather engage in debate, discussion, and critical questioning of the content. Promoting transformative learning is a part of “covering” content.

Although she can’t motivate you to hop on the treadmill in the morning, Linda Suskie, vice president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, provided specific guidelines for organizing and launching a student learning assessment program in the Nov. 25th online seminar Getting Started with Student Learning Assessment.

The first step to any higher education assessment initiative is identifying an assessment coordinator and faculty-led assessment committee. While the coordinator acts as part cheerleader and part enforcer to help shepherd projects through the process, it’s the committee that sets the policies and monitors assessment efforts.

“Because educational assessment is part of the teaching-learning process, and because faculty are responsible for designing curricula and pedagogies, faculty should have lead responsibility for designing appropriate assessment processes,” Suskie says.

One of the most important decisions of the educational assessment committee is determining the benchmarks to use in order to provide the most accurate picture of student learning. There are numerous standards to choose from, including local standards, external standards, class average, national average, value-added benchmark, historical trends benchmark, and even a cost per student calculation. Each standard has advantages and disadvantages and, when taken by itself, gives an incomplete picture. Suskie says that using multiple perspectives gives the most balanced picture of student learning, and will allow you to make smart decisions about your curricular alignment and pedagogies.

“Assessment should not be looked at as a mandate from some bureaucratic agency,” says Suskie. “It should simply be viewed as part of the teaching and learning process and as a powerful tool to help you become an even better teacher. It’s when learning goals aren’t well defined or when there aren’t clear learning opportunities that assessment can be a problem.”