“We approach it from four conceptual areas, which are all inextricably linked— content, teaching methods, who we are as instructors, and who the students are,” says Stanley, vice president and associate provost for diversity and professor of higher education administration at Texas A&M University. “A lot of faculty members, particularly those who identify as white, don’t see how identity connects with their disciplines and how they teach and what they teach.

“For example, a lot of faculty in the sciences and engineering probably think that their content doesn’t lend itself very well to talking about these issues, but it does. In the real world, engineers rarely solve problems alone. They work with others to solve problems. To me, working with others is a diversity issue.”

Ouellett, associate director of the Center for Teaching & Faculty Development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, adds that using multicultural course design can improve students’ critical thinking skills. “Some of the most recent research on groupthink says that a minority view is often tremendously helpful. Even if the minority view doesn’t prevail, it makes the people who hold the majority perspective think more deeply and harder about the view that they hold.”

Stanley and Ouellett contend that each academic program needs include multicultural learning as an integral learning goal. “One of the first places to start is to ask, What do I want my students to know as a result of taking this course in order to live, grow, and function in an increasingly diverse, global, and complex world?” Stanley says.

“These goals should not be tacked on at the end or be separate, stand-alone goals. They should link directly to the discipline and to your institution’s goals for the undergraduate experience,” Ouellett says.

Stanley adds: “I think we’d be hardpressed to find any institution that would say that it didn’t have as learning outcome goals for their graduates social and global competence, being able to think critically, being able to problem solve, and being able to look at issues from a multitude of perspectives. All these learning outcome goals are linked to diversity.”

Reprinted from Academic Leader, 28.4 (2012): 7.

A survey of 24 Midwestern institutions offering capstone courses for accounting majors also found wide variation in how the courses were structured. Some were configured as individual courses; others as internships, volunteer or outreach experiences; still others as research projects; and some as a combination of these options. Definitions for capstone courses also vary, although almost all can be described as “an academic culmination that draws on other courses.” (p. 267) Capstones are taken at different times as well. Some are yearlong experiences for seniors, some are taken the semester before graduation. Some institutions require capstone courses at various times during the college experience so that students begin thinking integratively about their educational experiences well before their final semester.

Is all this diversity an asset or a liability? That’s difficult to say at this point. The rich range of options is valuable for those designing capstones. Options abound. It may be, though, that more consistency is needed at the program or department level. It might be useful if there were some consensus as to the goals, objectives, structures, and assignments best suited for capstones in a given major.

That’s why this analysis of accounting capstones is a useful model. It highlights the diversity within this collection of capstones, including fairly detailed descriptions of four very different capstone courses, but it also discusses a mechanism for assessing these capstones against an established benchmark.

A professional association within accounting has identified a core competency framework. Its 20 competencies are deemed necessary for entry-level accountants. Researchers looked to see if and how this cohort of capstones was addressing those competencies. They found that the courses were “closely linked” to the development of eight of them: research, problem solving, critical thinking, reflection, synthesis, teamwork, communication, and professional orientation. (p. 271)

For many students college still tends to be experienced course by course. Even though links between and among courses are clearly visible to those of us who know the content, students often fail to see the connections. Understanding how the various courses in a major fit together to build a coherent knowledge base should be a learning outcome of every major. Capstone courses are a way of ensuring that students have the opportunity to do that integration. How it is accomplished, whether some course structures and learning activities are more successful at achieving the goal than others, remains a question still to be explored in many disciplines.

Reference: Johnson, G. F., and Halabi, A. K. (2011). The accounting undergraduate capstone: Promoting synthesis, reflection, transition, and competencies. Journal of Education for Business, 86 (5), 266-273.

Reprinted from Capstone Courses: Many Options, The Teaching Professor, 26.1 (2012): 2.

For more on capstone courses, preview the seminar Designing and Teaching a High-Impact Capstone Course »

Despite our best intentions, fieldwork experiences can fail miserably for many reasons. For example, an unexpected traffic jam can reduce time at a study site, a sudden rainstorm can send everyone running for cover, or a guest naturalist can fail to show up at the appointed time and place. Conditions in the field are often unpredictable and can affect learning outcomes. Even so, there are practices that do improve fieldwork experiences.

First, fieldwork assignments should have clear and integrated goals. I recommend choosing a few key objectives and sticking to them. Expecting a field experience to accomplish too many objectives can dilute the experience and leave students frustrated. We wrongly assume that students will learn simply by engaging in field experiences; these experiences need to be an integrated part of the larger curriculum. I recently heard this loud and clear from students doing an individualized community-service learning assignment in a large introductory environmental studies course. They decried the lack of time taken in the course to analyze and integrate their field experiences.

Second, successful fieldwork requires preparation by students and instructors alike. Successful fieldwork builds on and extends competencies gained in earlier in-class or field experiences. For that reason, students need to understand and appreciate the underlying theory, past studies, and methods related to their upcoming trip. This context enhances learning, deepens insight, strengthens critical thinking, and increases adaptability. Instructors prepare students to make efficient use of their time during the field exercise by providing clear instructions and expectations for assessment. Instructors also need to prepare their equipment, anticipating all manner of safety and logistical contingencies as well as the range of site conditions (such as weather) that will affect fieldwork. Instructors must also balance the need for structure, comfort, and familiarity (e.g., traditional lab experiences) with the need for excitement and novel experiences (e.g., new environments).

Third, instructors should be flexible so they can take advantage of spontaneous opportunities that may arise. For example, if a flock of swans fly, students may be frustrated if they can’t stop to take a look because they are supposed to be staring at the ground, madly trying to measure vegetation characteristics for a biology lab. If an instructor is flexible, unexpected events can contribute directly to, or provide context for, the objectives of the field exercise.

Fourth, students and instructors should reflect on all aspects of their field experiences. Reflection increases learning because it provides an opportunity to examine the meaning and significance of experiences, sightings, data, or encounters. This reflection might take the form of a required journal, a group “debrief,” or a sharing circle at the end of an afternoon trip. Reflection immediately after an experience is most productive and relevant. Both the instructor and the students might want to create a list of “recommendations” that could improve an activity for future students.

Fifth, choosing a location for a field experience is important. On one hand, local choices are relatively inexpensive, are relevant to students, and give them an opportunity to provide a finished product for community use. For example, my biogeography students have conducted regular riparian health assessments of the local stream system, providing a useful indicator of change to the municipality. On the other hand, more distant options can provide a more novel set of experiences. If possible, choose scenic locations for fieldwork. On a three-hour field trip in my geomorphology course, I plan the last stop at a beautiful spot on a high bank overlooking the Battle River of central Alberta. We linger there, eat snacks, and summarize insights from the trip.

Sixth, assessment sends a message about the importance of fieldwork. The frequency and rigor should be appropriate to the time and energy that students are able to apply to the experience. Field assessment can take many forms: journals, group insights, and trip-specific exam questions are among the possibilities to reward students who engage fully in field experiences.

Carefully planned field experiences help students develop skills and insights that are the mark of a well-rounded education. That careful design can be challenging, but as these suggestions show, it is a manageable task, and the work involved is offset by the learning potential inherent in good fieldwork experiences.

Dr. Glen T. Hvenegaard is a professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Alberta, Augustana campus.

Excerpted from The Teaching Professor, 25.2 (2011): 4.

Start with the learning outcomes. “Figure out what those learning outcomes are and go over the wide range of pedagogies that they can use to help students to achieve the outcomes. If, in fact, service-learning is the best pedagogy to achieve those outcomes, that’s when you move ahead and think about what that might actually look like,” Jacoby says.

Service-learning can be an effective pedagogy when a course’s learning goals include having students understand how a discipline plays out in a social context or how the discipline addresses the big questions facing society.

Understand the importance of critical reflection. Contrary to what some people might think, critical reflection is not about reflecting on one’s emotions. Rather it is metacognition—thinking about one’s thinking. “For example, in a service-learning course that I teach, I ask students, ‘Why do you want to change the world?’ Then I ask them, ‘Why does it matter to know why?’ That’s the metacognition part. They have to think about their reasons for wanting to do something,” Jacoby says.

Involve community partners in course design. A major challenge of designing service-learning courses is finding community partners and understanding their needs and all the logistical issues. Community partners deeply understand the issues, and Jacoby recommends sharing a draft of the syllabus with community partners to get their input on learning outcomes.

Explain to students what service-learning is. Make clear to students what the commitment to the service project will be. By participating in service, students take on a responsibility beyond their performance in a class. For example, if a student does not complete a term paper, his or her grade suffers but it does not affect others. If the student does not show up for a service activity, community members can be adversely affected. It’s also important to explain to students what critical reflection means and why it’s an essential part of service-learning.

Find support. If your institution has a staff member whose role is to help with service-learning, start there. If not, check with the center for teaching and learning. The center’s staff may not have specific service-learning expertise, but they may know of faculty members in other departments who do. Also, faculty who are involved in experiential learning or fieldwork may have some relevant expertise. As for finding a community partner, the outreach office has relationships with community organizations and the local government that could be helpful.

In addition, Jacoby recommends checking with student affairs staff. “If there is a service-learning office or person, they are as likely to be located in student affairs as they would be in academic affairs. Student affairs folks have lots of resources. There’s generally a volunteer office in student affairs that will have community partnerships. Also, student affairs people are generally very good at leading student groups, so they may be able to assist faculty members in leading reflection. They may be able to help faculty connect academic content to some of the other kinds of outcomes that student affairs people seek, such as helping students understand leadership and interpersonal relationships and work collaboratively.”

Barbara Jacoby will lead Magna’s Service-Learning Course Design Workshop & Consultation, an online program that consists of a two-part workshop and a week of guided syllabus development. It is slated for June 21 and June 28. Learn more about the workshop »

Reprinted from Service-Learning Course Development Academic Leader, 27.6 (2011): 2, 6.

1. Assess students’ prior knowledge and skills to avoid unfounded assumptions about what they know about the subject matter being studied. Sometimes students know more than we think they do. Sometimes they hold profound misconceptions about the content. The only way to know what students bring to a course is to collect information from them that reveals their current levels of knowledge and understanding. That information can prevent many course and curricula planning errors.

2. Don’t assume that students know how to learn. We can debate at length whether they should come to college knowing how to learn, but it’s a mistake to plan a course assuming they do. Students must be introduced to appropriate learning strategies and made aware of the strategies that they use, especially if they are using approaches that do not expedite acquisition of the content in this course.

3. Acknowledge that learning, motivation, and engagement are affected by attitudes and emotions. What students believe about themselves as learners matters. If they don’t believe that they can learn some kinds of content, it will affect their motivation and performance in class. Teachers must discover and address attitudes that hinder learning. Ignoring the role of attitudes and emotions in course planning will likely compromise learning outcomes.

4. Design academic plans that connect students’ personal and academic goals to enhance motivation and engagement. Students need to see how what they are being asked to learn is relevant to their goals and future plans. Teachers can address students’ goals in course planning only if they have discovered what those goals are. Knowing what students care about and where they are headed makes it possible to design courses that connect with students and more effectively engage them in learning.

5. Recognize that students with different beliefs about knowledge have different expectations of their instructors and different attitudes toward learning activities. Students are diverse. They bring different cultural backgrounds to the learning table. They should be encouraged to take responsibility for their learning by examining their views about education and considering how those views influence their learning experiences. Again, knowing what students believe and expect makes it easier to plan meaningful learning experiences.

6. Treat students as apprentices who need assistance in learning the language, ways of thinking, and inquiry methods of academic fields. Students don’t come to our fields knowing how knowledge there is organized or advanced. That must be taught explicitly, and students must be given the opportunity to make connections between course content and their own experiences and prior understandings.

7. Promote development of complex views of knowledge and recognize that students are at different stages of epistemological development. “Challenge students to apply, integrate, evaluate, and construct knowledge by engaging them in collaborative, complex problem-solving activities.” (p. 181) Students should not just be knowledge consumers. They should also be knowledge producers.

8. Learn about learning and discuss with colleagues how knowledge about student learning can be put to use in courses and programs. The abilities of students should be viewed as malleable. They are not fixed and unchanging. Different abilities can be tapped in different courses and by different curricula.

Reference: Lattuca, L.R. and Stark, J.S. Shaping the College Curriculum: Academic Plans in Context. 2nd Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. [This particular list appears on pp. 140-1.]

Reprinted from “Lessons about Learning.” The Teaching Professor, 24.4 (2010): 3, 6.

Most of the students in the class were traditional college-age students, while others were working adults trying to earn their degree to advance their careers. Approximately 85% of the students attempted the certification and 90% of those passed in the first attempt. This article briefly discusses the planning process, the execution and the lessons learned.

Planning Process: Achieving certification prepares IT students for the types of careers they want to pursue. It also gives them edge over those that don’t have certifications. The scope of this article is limited to Comptia Security+ certifications achieved at the Newport News campus by students from the “Network security Concepts” class.

The most important step is choosing an instructor who is certified and has in depth knowledge of the certification objectives. The next step is choosing a book that covers most of the exam objectives and one that has plenty of practice tests. The coursework should be designed with the goal of getting students certified and minimizing the busy work.

Execution: The instructor should clearly explain to the students that he/she expects them to be certified by the end of the course. Our course was 45 hours and lasted a full semester. The tasks achieved and approximate time spent is listed chronologically as follows.

Conclusion: The practice exams, followed by student-led discussions increased students’ participation and interest. Keeping track of individual student progress and finding students who are ready to take the exam is also very important as it keeps students engaged and motivated.

Once students have demonstrated proficiency of practice tests, they are allowed to take the certification exam. Their success motivates the rest of the students to work harder. We believe this sense of competition leads to a higher success rate.

Vijay Bhuse, PhD, CIS faculty, ECPI College of Technology, Newport News, VA. vbhuse@ecpi.edu.

In his article (referenced below) Graff asserts that we know very little about each other’s courses. He’s not writing so much about the instructional strategies we use (although we don’t know much about those either), but about what we teach, including those policies and practices that govern conduct in the classroom and set learning parameters for students. He’s coined a term for the way we teach in self-isolated classrooms: “courseocentricism,” which he defines as a “state of mind that insulates us as teachers from the consequences of the curricular system in which we work.” (p. 157) Elsewhere he calls it a tunnel vision that makes us oblivious to the fact that teachers conduct courses within a department, sometimes even the same course, very differently.

He points out the irony of this instructional isolation: “At a time when our online technologies make amazing new forms of connectivity possible, and when much of our cutting-edge academic research insists on the inherently social and collaborative nature of intellectual work, we still think of teaching in ways that are narrowly private and individualistic, as a practice naturally enacted behind classroom walls that allows us to tune out the classroom next door or in the next building.” (p. 157)

But is this diversity of approach a problem? Graff sees it as a large issue for students. “With courseocentric logic, we assume that if we all teach our courses conscientiously, each making sure that his or her demands are spelled out as clearly and transparently as possible, then our students will make coherent sense of our diverse perspectives. They will put it all together for themselves even if we do not or cannot.” (p. 158) He finishes the argument by pointing out that just because courses are individually coherent, that does not guarantee coherence among a collection of them.

Almost every teacher is confronted with evidence that this diversity of approaches confounds students. When assigned to write a paper, they ask things such as whether they should write in the first person and whether they should summarize the author’s idea or share their own opinions. Across a variety of courses they have learned that teachers want different things and that part of the education game involves figuring out what the teacher wants.

Graff asserts that the vast majority of students don’t construct anything like a coherent wholeness out of their various course experiences. Rather, “taking courses for these students becomes a process of serially giving teachers whatever they seem to want—assuming the students can figure out what it is—jumping through hoops takes the place of deep socialization into an intellectual community.” (p. 159)

And what does Graff propose as a solution to courseocentricism? “I am a believer in outcomes assessment,” which he sees as the only trend that seriously challenges current course isolation and the only trend “with the potential to make the college intellectual world transparent and accessible to all undergraduates.” (p. 160)

He admits that faculty have not wholeheartedly endorsed outcomes assessment and that some very bad models of assessment exist, but he doesn’t believe those models should give college assessment a bad name. He thinks the best assessment criteria are few, simple, and well-focused. He offers an example of a single question that could be asked: “Are students able to summarize a central assumption or claim in their major discipline and respond to it articulately in writing?” (p. 163)

This is one of those articles that begs to be discussed. Graff isn’t proposing that teachers develop lesson plans that must be submitted for approval to some central authority. He isn’t arguing that courses must share the same requirements for students. But he maintains we cannot remain as ignorant as we are of each other’s teaching and courses.

Reference: Graff, G. (2009). Why assessment? Pedagogy, 10 (1), 153-165.

Excerpted from “Courseocentricism: New Word, New Idea.” The Teaching Professor, 24.9 (2010), 4-5.

Yes. While service-learning is not appropriate for every course, it can and does work well in every discipline. No matter the discipline, research has shown that service-learning helps students identify and examine the “big questions” and the social context in which the disciplines are situated.

Service-learning also asks students to consider a discipline’s knowledge base and how it is used in real practice, and consider the larger questions that lie outside the boundaries of many traditional courses. With service-learning, students see the interdisciplinary nature of problems and solutions. They see the complexity of the social fabric.

Students love seeing the relevance of course content to real-world issues. Can you work service-learning into your curriculum so there’s time for both? Don’t think of it as “working in” service-learning, but as designing or redesigning the course. If you add a service-learning element to an existing course, remove another element. If you’re adding an assignment (service), reduce the volume of assignments accordingly.

Service-learning course design
When looking at course design, the first question to ask is, “What pedagogies will align with desired learning outcomes?”

You know that learning outcomes are hot topics for discussion today. They’re required by all the regional accrediting associations at the course major and college levels. Learning outcomes need to be stated in concrete, measurable terms. And, they also need to make it clear to students what they can expect to gain from the course.

And there are other concerns you should address, too. For example:

• What do you want students to know as a result of taking the service-learning course?
• What desired learning outcomes are best achieved through service-learning? Why?
• What new awarenesses do you want them to gain?

As faculty members, we understand what it means to select and use a text in a course to enhance student learning. With service-learning, a good guideline is to look at it as the equivalent to text. While it is not literally a text, it serves an equivalent function. Service can be equal to written work in terms of learning potential.

When it comes to using a text, we can make it required or optional. The same applies to “service-as-text.” We determine how much of the texts students will be required to read and we can determine how much, or how many hours of service students will do. We know how to provide structures for reading, analyzing, discussing, and evaluating a text.

This means the service experience and the course materials are equivalent to course content. Second, like text, you must decide which service experiences are appropriate for the course, and whether they’ll be optional or required. Third, it means structures need to be provided so students can thoroughly read, analyze, and discuss the “text.”

Finally, it is necessary to evaluate how well students have learned. The service-learning-text analogy suggests that evaluation should be based on what students learned from their experience.

Let’s look more closely at creating a course design. Here’s an example of a course description, the service-learning outcome and how it was achieved.

Introduction to Chemistry course: The students in this course take and analyze water samples from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. At the same time, they’re studying the periodic table. That interaction brings the table alive as they study the chemicals that cause the pollution. The results are reported to an organization that uses the information to improve the ecological health of the Bay.

Desired learning outcome: Identify the causes of pollution in Chesapeake Bay.

How it was achieved: Students worked with a conservation organization and took water samples from the Bay, analyzed them, and added them to the organization’s database. That organization then used that information to help them lobby for additional funding to preserve the Bay.

Excerpted from Service-Learning Course Design: What Faculty Need to Know. Learn more about this white paper »

Curriculum mapping, a process that helps faculty align curriculum to ensure that the program addresses all learning outcomes effectively, can help break down those silos.

“It is through cross-curriculum development that learning and skills development can be enhanced and reinforced,” says Peter Wolf, director of Teaching Support Services at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

In the recent online seminar Connect Learning Across Courses with Curriculum Mapping, Wolf explained how Guelph uses curriculum mapping to ensure that individual learning experiences are connected across courses and relate to the larger context of the student experience.

Although curriculum mapping can be accomplished with a low-tech approach such as Excel, Guelph uses two different software applications to accomplish its goals. Using the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE), an open source project based at Tufts University, Guelph’s curriculum committees can develop course progression maps to help make informed decisions about program structure. For example, by viewing the four-year course progression map of a particular major, the committee discovered that the most difficult required courses were all in semesters four and five. In an earlier survey, students reported feeling burned out during these same two semesters. The department was able to make a few adjustments to even out the workload, without sacrificing program quality, Wolf says.

To accomplish the second dimension of curriculum mapping–breadth program outcomes mapping–Guelph developed its own software called CurricKit, a curriculum mapping toolkit that helps match program outcomes with individual courses by collecting data from faculty, course outlines, and curriculum committees. The software helps map courses across three components: knowledge, skills and values; instructional methods; and assessment methods.

“The processes are faculty driven, that’s the only way to have a sustainable model,” says Wolf. “The goal is not to evaluate courses or evaluate faculty, but to use data to have meaningful discussions that drive curriculum decisions so that our graduates have the knowledge, skills, and values we want to foster in our students.”

“Curricular development … no longer involves rational and integrated course design. New courses are added based on faculty members’ expertise rather than students’ needs… .And typically, no one has a clue as to what is taught in other courses in the curriculum, and certainly no idea at all as to what has been learned in previous courses. The result of this approach is chaos, repetition, and wasted time and effort by both students and faculty members.”

Most of his letter is devoted to the introductory course and how routinely it’s criticized because it “does not adequately meet the needs” of upper-division courses. He points out that the problem is the result of the flawed way curricula develop. “In my experience new courses are added because new faculty members are told that they can, and should, develop a course in their area of expertise, with little thought as to whether the target audience will actually benefit from this material.”

But shouldn’t the latest material be conveyed to students? Isn’t that what makes a curriculum credible? Klionsky thinks other goals are more important. “It is much more important to show students how to learn and think than it is to try (in vain) to fill their heads with the latest esoteric facts.” Adding this new material is what fuels complaints about the introductory courses which should, in Klionsky’s opinion, focus on five or 10 “crucial” topics which are used to build the information synthesizing and problem-solving skills that will be used throughout the rest of the college career and beyond.

“It is important to remember that the purpose of a university education is not to produce a finished product. Rather, it is to produce a lifelong learner who will continue to seek out information as necessary and apply it to solve unforeseen problems.”

Reference: Klionsky, D. J. (2009). Letter to the editor: Putting the upper-division cart before the introductory horse. Cell Biology Education—Life Sciences Education, 8 (Fall), 155-156.

To address this issue, faculty developer Ruth Rodgers, teaching and learning specialist at Durham College, recommends that professors reconsider their roles and re-examine which content to include in order to help students learn essential concepts and skills. They can do so by asking themselves the three big questions:

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

In an email interview, Rodgers shared advice on how to discriminate between material that absolutely must be covered, and modules that can be safely skipped

Q: What do you see as the benefits of asking the three “big questions”?

Rodgers: The main benefit of this approach is that it assists faculty in setting teaching priorities based on real student “need to know” criteria, thus guiding the design of the learning activities in the curriculum. It also provides a touchstone for making difficult decisions about content priorities, balance, weighting, and teaching techniques, and helps the teacher think about using learning strategies that build needed skills, rather than focusing only on delivering information.

Q: Can you give an example of how a course was changed as a result of this process?

Rodgers: My own Introduction to Psychology course was redesigned using this approach when I realized that memorizing all the psychological “data” was not effective for my students, and that I needed to focus instead on how to find, analyze, and use psychological research instead. As a result, I have reduced the amount of information delivered, but designed the course experience to build and support the ability to continue learning about psychology. As a result, the course pacing is much more satisfactory, student achievement is better, and student satisfaction has improved—as has my own.

Q: What do you say to teachers who question whether this process is appropriate for their subject matter?

Rodgers: I suggest that any teacher try asking themselves the big three questions, and see what comes out of the answers. In my experience, this approach works no matter what the content area (which I hope to show via my videotaped interviews with profs from multiple disciplines during the seminar). It is not content-specific, but provides a framework for any teacher to examine his/her teaching priorities. I would also suggest that they survey their students before, during, and after a redesign of a course using this approach, to obtain their feedback.

Q: I would imagine that some instructors might feel compelled to get through all the material in a course. What advice do you have for those instructors?

Rodgers: Working through the big three questions helps professors to determine what material actually needs to be in a course. It’s not a question of arbitrarily jettisoning material, but being consciously selective about what MUST be taught.

Q: What effect might reducing the number of topics covered in class affect the students’ experience?

Rodgers: Reducing the amount of content, if done in accordance with the big three questions, will enhance the student experience in focusing the course on real essentials, giving students time and activities designed to support their mastery of these essentials, and helping them develop the skill and ability to continue their learning beyond the course. This approach will also ensure that the experience becomes more active and student-focused, as opposed to (primarily) lecture based and teacher focused. Typically, students prefer more active engagement in their learning and find it more effective.

For more on this topic, check out the seminar titled What to Teach When There Isn’t Time to Teach Everything, presented by Rodgers. Go here to learn more.

One recently discovered article from a British journal describes an interview project in which tutors (faculty members) and students were interviewed about experiences with reading lists. Courses are not designed and delivered in North America as they are in the British educational system, so some of the findings and issues are not the same, but reading the article raised a number of questions that are relevant to faculty in North America who use reading lists.

How are reading lists constructed? Among those interviewed, most faculty reported that they create reading lists out of their own favorite sources—readings that were especially helpful in their initial explorations of a topic. The article expresses some legitimate concerns over the currency of reading lists and whether faculty regularly update them to reflect emerging ideas, theories, and research results.

What role do they play in the learning process? The faculty interviewed saw reading lists as guides, helpful to students as they began exploration of an unfamiliar subject area. Rather than having to find their own way through a forest of potential sources, the reading list allows students to follow a path through unfamiliar territory. Faculty also hoped their reading lists served motivational purposes—that students would discover the inherent intrigue of the area and be inspired to read further on their own.

How do students use reading lists? There was a good deal of divergence between faculty perceptions of the role of reading lists and the practices students reported in relation to them. Uniformly, students reported looking at the “main” or “most important” texts on the lists. Some instructors indicate those priorities by listing materials in categories. Others do so by mentioning sources in class, either using material from them or making statements about their importance. Students reported reading less as opposed to more from their course reading lists, and many had little interest in discussing what they read with the instructor or in class. That’s something that most faculty will not find surprising.

How might students be motivated to explore readings beyond those “required” for the course? This has become such a conundrum for faculty. If reading is not required, there is virtually no chance that students will read at all. But as soon as reading material is required, students tackle it because they have to, and that definitely affects their attitudes toward the material. The ideal is for students to discover for themselves how much can be learned from reading. Perhaps instructors can help to make that happen by raising questions (interesting, relevant ones) in class that are answered in the reading. It might also help if instructors share with students the role of a particular reading in their own intellectual development.

How should reading lists be incorporated into a course? The question here relates to whether some discussion of readings should occur and how students might participate in such an exchange. Should they be able to answer or ask questions about the readings? Should they be asked to write as a means of preparing for discussion? Should they do follow-up reading and writing after a discussion?

Many faculty fondly remember reading lists from their favorite courses. They were the way in to new, unexplored, and extremely interesting areas. Most faculty can still name individual readings that captured their imagination, changed the way they thought, or opened whole new vistas of understanding. The readings that accomplished these results haven’t changed (maybe students have), but the power of a set of reading materials is still there. The questions, more challenging now than they once were, are how faculty can get students connected with these powerful intellectual stimuli and how reading experiences in a course can be used to develop a lifelong commitment to reading.

Reference: Stokes, P. and Martin, L. (2008). Reading lists: A study of tutor and student perceptions, expectations and realities. Studies in Higher Education, 33 (2), 113-125.

Excerpted from The Use of Reading Lists, February 2009, The Teaching Professor.

These aren’t examples of a few kind-hearted college students volunteering their time, but rather part of formalized service-learning programs designed to achieve specific learning outcomes. Although service-learning isn’t new, it is “burning hot” right now, says Barbara Jacoby PhD, senior scholar and chair of the Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership at the University of Maryland.

And for good reason.

“Faculty members I’ve worked with say that service-learning invigorates both their teaching and their students’ learning. By integrating course content with real world experience, service-learning has tremendous potential to meet faculty goals for student learning while making unique contributions to addressing critical community needs,” Jacoby says. “Service-learning enables students to deepen comprehension of course content, integrate theory with practice, increase understanding of the complexity of social issues, and sharpen their abilities to solve problems creatively and collaboratively – all skills that are highly valued in the workplace.”

Of course all of this is only possible if the service-learning course is properly designed and taught, and that takes careful planning, a strong commitment, and frequent communication.

In the recent online seminar Service-Learning Course Design: What Faculty Need to Know, Jacoby provided a step-by-step guide to help faculty design a service-learning course from scratch, or revise a current course. What follows is a brief outline of these steps, along with just a few of the key questions you need to answer along the way:

Step I: Consider how service-learning will help students achieve your desired learning outcomes.

• What are your desired learning outcomes for the course?
• What pedagogies align with the desired learning outcomes (e.g., research papers, lecture, demonstration, problem based learning, class discussions, service-learning)?
• What desired learning outcomes are best achieved through service-learning? Why?

Step II: Determine how the combination of service and academic content will enable students to achieve the learning outcomes.

• What types of service are appropriate for the course? How frequently? What duration?
• What readings and other materials will complement the service?
• What kinds of reflection activities will students engage in?

Step III: Initiate community partnerships.

• How will you identify community organization partner(s)?
• Who will be responsible for initiating and developing the partnership?
• How many students does the organization need? With what knowledge and skills? To do what tasks?

Step IV: Establish assessment and evaluation standards.

• How will students demonstrate learning from their service experiences and other assignments? What measures will you use?
• At what points during the term will you assess learning?
• What will be the community organization’s role in evaluating students’ performance at the service site?

Step V: Develop the syllabus.

• Prepare a draft syllabus detailing rationale for service-learning, students’ roles and responsibilities, how the service experience will be assessed, readings, course materials, and reflection activities.
• Visit the community partner to discuss the draft syllabus.
• Based on community partner input, revise the syllabus as needed.

Step VI: Prepare to manage the process.

• What logistical issues need to be addressed?
• Have you addressed appropriate dress and behavior, transportation, and safety issues?
• What campus resources are available to assist you along the way?

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.

Unfortunately, many faculty still do not include diversity-related materials in their courses. One study of faculty at Research I institutions (cited in the article referenced below) found that the majority of faculty endorsed diversity, seeing it as helping students achieve the goals of a college education, but the majority of this group also reported making no changes in their classroom practices.

It would be helpful to know why faculty aren’t changing what they teach, which was the purpose of the study referenced below. These researchers studied faculty at one, predominantly white, public university located in the Midwest. The study’s dependent variable was determined by a yes or no response to this question: “In the past year, have you incorporated content designed to promote sensitivity toward diversity issues in your courses?” (p. 155). Sixty-nine percent of the sample said yes; 31 percent responded no.

Some demographic and professional characteristics of those faculty who did and did not make changes in course content were predictable. Faculty of color, both males and females were more likely than white faculty to include diversity-related content. More surprising, faculty in education were less likely to include diversity content than faculty from the arts and sciences, business, and fine arts, and faculty from engineering were more likely to teach diversity than faculty in these other fields. Tenure status and time at the institution did not reliably predict who made curricular changes.

Also interesting was the fact that in this study faculty decisions about diversity content were more significantly influenced by climate for diversity in their department than the broader institutional environment.

As for beliefs that predict which faculty will and will not incorporate diversity, one of the three variables tested was significant. On average, if faculty were more likely to agree that “affirmative action leads to hiring of less qualified faculty and staff” (p. 161), then those faculty were less likely to incorporate diversity-related content in course materials. It turned out that for these faculty, participation in activities (such as workshops) that aimed to increase faculty sensitivity toward diversity, did powerfully predict those who reported making changes. Based on this finding, the researchers recommend that administrators consider inducements like release time and stipends to encourage more faculty to participate in these kinds of events.

These findings should encourage academic leaders to examine the reasons that do and do not motivate faculty to include diversity-related content in the courses they teach. This study raises those persistent questions about what content and how much of it is needed to advance the learning goals of our disciplines and of the larger college experience.

Reference: Mayhew, M. J. and Grunwald, H. E. (2006). Factors contributing to faculty incorporation of diversity-related course content. Journal of Higher Education, 77(1), 148–168.

Excerpted from What Encourages Faculty to Include Diversity Materials in Their Courses? Academic Leader, January 2006.

Do answers like these make those who would give students a role in setting course goals dreamy optimists? Perhaps, but maybe there’s another kind of question that we should ask: how did students arrive at this dismal approach to selecting courses? Surely they were not born wanting so little from their education. What experiences could have so disconnected them from classroom learning? Has the educational enterprise somehow disenfranchised them?

Those are large questions, and Benjamin’s article does not answer them…at least not directly. Benjamin’s interest is in course goals and the disconnect that exists between the goals of faculty and those of students. Moreover, the goals focused in the article are not the bogus ones students frequently voice, but rather 17 possible goals for an introductory psychology course (some are relevant to that discipline, most are broadly applicable, and all are listed in the article). Across the years, Benjamin has given the list to faculty and students, asking each group to identify the three most important ones for an introductory course in psychology. “For college teachers, the most frequently mentioned goal is 11 (content). No other goal achieves anything near the consistency of that selection.” (p.147) Not surprising, this number one goal for faculty rarely showed up in the students’ top three. They rank highest a goal relating to self-knowledge and understanding, followed by one focusing on the development of study and learning skills, and a third highlighting social and interpersonal skills.

Benjamin’s uses the list of goals on the first day of class. At that time a discussion about teacher goals occurs, as well as some discussion about this research documenting that teachers and students frequently do not share the same goals. This is why students are asked to identify their top three goals. The results are shared in the following class session.

Benjamin discusses three ways of responding to student goals: take a totally student-centered approach and adopt those goals for the course. This approach is not recommended. Second possibility: compare student and faculty goals and then show students why/how faculty goals are superior. No recommendation here either—why seek input if you have no intention of responding to it?

Benjamin’s choice is the third option, in which faculty and student goals are integrated. “Do not misunderstand this compromise strategy. It is not meant to undermine the professor’s goals, nor is it meant to give students the impression that their goals will become part of the course when there is no intention on the part of the instructor to do so…. The purpose of involving students in the process is to create a course that is more meaningful to students and professor, to increase the satisfaction of all involved in the class on both sides of the lectern, and to show students how important it is to become involved in their learning.” (p. 148)

Could it be that students take courses for poor reasons because their goals have been ignored or thoroughly sublimated to those more important instructor goals? It’s an interesting question and one that can be pursued pragmatically by using (or revising) the list of course goals contained in this article. It might at least be worth a conversation with students…

Reference: Benjamin, Jr., L. T. (2005). Setting course goals: Privileges and responsibilities in a world of ideas. Teaching of Psychology, 32 (3), 149.

Excerpted from Should Students Have a Role in Setting Course Goals? The Teaching Professor, Dec. 2006.

As more and more accreditation bodies require information literacy as part of a student’s education skill set, faculty and librarians are teaming up to ensure students are able to locate and evaluate information effectively. In the online seminar Faculty and Librarians as Partners: Collaborations That Work, Kari Mofford, co-chair of the New England Library Instruction Group, and Marilyn Steinberg, science librarian at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, provided tips on how to integrate information literacy into assignments, and make it part of your assessment strategy.

Although a library scavenger hunt is a common way for faculty to introduce first-year students to library resources, Mofford and Steinberg recommend against it. Asking students to find the seventh word on page 777 of volume 7 of the Encyclopedia Britannica is viewed by students as busy work, and has no real relevance to the course. Instead, a more effective way to teach good library skills is to invite a librarian to talk with your class and demonstrate how to locate sources that are appropriate to the specific course or assignment at hand.

With the proliferation of information sources, included information that’s unfiltered or biased, it’s more important than ever for students to understand not only the difference between a primary and secondary source and when it’s appropriate to use one or the other, but the questions that you need to ask when evaluating the trustworthiness of a source, Steinberg says.

For students to be information literate they need to be able to locate, evaluate, and use the information properly and ethically. Some of the ways faculty can help students develop their information literacy include:

• Integrating information literacy into the syllabus.
• Insisting that students keep a search journal, including the databases they used, terms they searched, and which terms generated good results and which terms did not.
• Educating students on plagiarism and the ethics surrounding it.
• Implementing strict plagiarism standards.
• Requiring students to use several different types of sources.

Mofford also encourages faculty to think about the sources they use on a regular basis – including professional journals, reference books and websites – and recommend them to students as a way of bringing real-world relevance to different sources.

With state and federal governments putting more and more emphasis on assessment and learning outcomes, these new-style accreditation review processes can be grueling, to say the least. Here are a few valuable tips to help ensure a successful accreditation visit.

1. Focus on the self-study. The heavy lifting is in the preparation of the self-study, and the number one job is to convince the site visit team that you are in compliance with all of the standards it lays out. What I encourage people to do is to make it easy for them. Instead of writing a long narrative and expecting the site team to find where you indicated that you are in compliance with a particular standard, construct a document where you write out each standard and then describe how you’re in compliance with it.

2. Demonstrate a commitment to improvement. Knowing that assessment was a strong point of interest, when we prepared our self-study we created separate text boxes that featured anecdotes or other bits of data about how a particular assessment led to changes that increased the quality of our program. We labeled these boxes ‘Closing the Loop’ and they effectively demonstrated how serious we are about assessment, and how we’re using assessment results to make improvements.

3. Schedule every minute. Don’t leave the accreditation team with time on it hands. Our team was here for two full days, and we made sure that when they arrived on campus each member of the self-study team was given a schedule that kept our visitors busy every single minute.

At some schools, the team gets off the plane and the people from the school ask them ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ Don’t give them an opportunity to set the agenda. You need to be thorough in what you show them and let them ask probing questions, but don’t leave it up to them to determine the schedule.

4. Make them comfortable. We transformed an area of our student union into the team’s home base for meeting and working. We had the room fully outfitted with computers, printers, faxes and phones, and brought in food all day long. They appreciated having a comfortable place to do their jobs.

Chuck Wight, PhD, is an associate vice president at the University of Utah.

Adapted from Eight Ways to Ace Your Accreditation Site Visit, Distance Education Report, July 15, 2007.

Motley, who teaches faculty and staff how to develop online content for hybrid courses, says that one of the biggest challenges of developing a hybrid course is deciding which materials and activities to deliver online and which to deliver face to face. “It’s something that each instructor must decide for him- or herself, working with an instructional designer or someone on campus who can help them think about the consequences of putting something online,” Motley says.

Motley offers the following advice for creating a hybrid course:

1. Consider how much time you have to create the online portion of the course, including how long it will take for you to learn how. 
2. Consider the students’ needs and skills. Will working online be an obstacle for some students?
3. Use a course management system if possible. A course management system has the tools to make the online course content interactive. If your institution does not have a user license for a course management system, consider one of the several free, open-source course management systems that are currently available.
4. Reuse materials. Creating online education materials can be time consuming. In addition to reusing content-related materials, whenever possible, reuse messages or announcements.
5. Manage your time. Teaching a hybrid course means you will be online more than you normally would. Plan accordingly.
6. Provide an in-class orientation to the online portion of the course. This is a luxury that is often not available to instructors teaching totally online courses. Still, you should provide in the syllabus all the information students will need to know about working online. 
7. Use class time for lectures. This can help reduce the time it takes to develop online materials, because posting lectures online is often the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of creating hybrid courses, Motley says.
8. Encourage online interaction. The online portion of the course can be an extension of what occurs in the classroom. Students can work in groups to build on the interaction begun in the classroom. Motley recommends tying interaction to grades.
9. Remember that just because students are working in two environments and are free from some time constraints does not mean that students should be expected to do twice the amount of work as in a comparable face-to-face class.

From Online Classroom, March 2007.

Renee Cicchino, Senior Instructional Designer at Seton Hall University can tell you how it works. She’s developed a template for Seton Hall’s online core course program, and the professors are glad she did. The students are too. Because the template makes creating—and taking–an online course as easy as possible. For the professors, it eliminates a host of technical and administrative concerns. “We can build a base template and [the faculty] can fill in the content,” as Cicchino says. For the students, it removes most of the obstacles between them and actually participating fully in the course.

Join Renee Cicchino in a new online seminar CD, Using a Template to Assist Faculty in Online Course Development. Renee will show you how to develop quality-focused templates for your distance education program. Get the facts about course templates and how they can help you.

A good place to begin—and where Seton Hall did begin—is with the Quality Matters rubric. Two years into the core course project, Seton Hall’s Teaching Learning and Technology Center (TLTC) decided that the faculty needed a base, a foundation on which they could build their courses, without having to create one each time. The Educational Policy Committee did some research and came across the Quality Matters rubric.

Quality Matters is the course assessment instrument designed by Maryland Online that is on its way to becoming the standard evaluative tool for online courses. Heavily research-based, QM identifies 40 elements of an online course, distributed across eight broad standards shown to positively impact student learning. These elements are then incorporated into a rubric and each one weighted from 1 (important) to 3 (essential).

The resulting template allows faculty to think about what they need to put into an online course. “Some faculty have never taught online before,” says Cicchino. “So to give them best practices, or an idea of what they will need, was helpful.” Faculty, Cicchoni says, often have the misconception that they can take what they do in their face-to-face classes, put it up on BlackBoard and call it done. That’s not the case, but the template provides help and structure for the faculty member who’s just realizing that. “Everything needs to be detailed for students—from when do you expect me to post my initial response in the discussion board, to what are your expectations of me? And then there are student’s expectations of faculty. When will I receive feedback on my written assignments? If it’s due on this day, when will I get that feedback? The template contains answers to these questions.”

Help faculty adapt face-to-face content to online use with Using a Template to Assist Faculty in Online Course Development. This 75-minute online seminar was recorded October 1, 2008 so you can learn more about the benefits of using a template, and how to apply one on your campus.

Things faculty don’t have to remember with a template:

• ADA compliance
• Learning objectives
• Technology
• Policy
• Navigation
• Structural consistency
• Best practice suggestions
• Faculty responsibilities
• Et Cetera

“We put in materials that would assist the faculty; we highlighted the areas that are must-haves; and then we work with the faculty member to fill out the course,” Cicchino says. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. [The template] provides a very strong foundation.”

Renee Cicchino may be contacted at: cicchire@shu.edu

The Quality Matters website is at http://www.qualitymatters.org/.