Teaching Symposium 2013: Plenary - Staying on Course
1. If you have mobile
technology this morning,
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”Red Light Green HD
Free" from Victor Ren
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apple app store.
Plenary Pre-Panel Challenge
2. How are liberal arts universities
preserving a focus on their key
mission and goals during a time of
disruption in higher education?
3. • Massively Open
Online Courses
(MOOCS)
• Games and
gamification
• 3-D printing
• Tablet computing
• Learning analytics
• Wearable technology
Horizon Report (2013)
6. • Survey of undergraduates regarding their
educational experiences
• Since 2000, 1,544 institutions and 4 million
students have participated
• Provides a detailed perspective on campus
culture
7. 5 Benchmarks of Effective
Educational Practice
• High level of academic challenge
• Active and collaborative learning
• Student/faculty interaction
• Supportive campus environment
• Enriching educational experiences
8. SEU NSSE Feedback
• A strength: Supportive Campus Environment
• Room for growth: Active and Collaborative
Learning at the senior level
– Class presentations, group projects, discussing class
topics outside classroom, participating in community
projects, participate in class…
9. AAC&U and High-Impact
Practices
• First‐Year Seminars and
Experiences
• Common Intellectual
Experiences
• Learning Communities
• Writing‐Intensive Courses
• Collaborative Assignments
and Projects
• Undergraduate Research
• Diversity/Global Learning
• Service Learning
• Community‐Based
Learning
• Internships
• Capstone Courses
10. AAC&U
• 12 LEAP (Liberal Education and
America’s Promise) Essential Learning
Outcomes
• 16 VALUE rubrics (Valid Assessment of
Learning in Undergraduate Education)
11. • Inquiry and analysis
• Critical thinking
• Creative thinking
• Written
communication
• Oral communication
• Reading
• Quantitative literacy
• Information literacy
• Teamwork
• Problem solving
• Civic knowledge and
engagement
• Intercultural
knowledge and
competence
• Ethical reasoning
• Foundations and
skills for lifelong
learning
• Global learning
• Integrative and
applied learning
14. Framing questions for new
technology, pedagogy, or structure:
• Does it facilitate students’ acquisition of mission-
derived learning outcomes?
– What are the SEU mission-derived learning
outcomes?
• Does it facilitate implementation of high-impact
practices?
• Does it move students towards “Capstone-level”
mastery of ELOs? (“deep learning”)
16. Liberal Education in a Networked World
• http://rebeccafrostdavis.wordpress.com
• Slides
• More examples
17. Disruption & Adaptation
• Disruptions
– Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
– Big Data
– Globally Networked World
• Liberal Arts Responses
– Networked course
– Open Learning Initiative
– Situating the Global Environment
19. • Industrial (xMOOC)
– Faculty expert
– Homogeneous
Network
– One perfect lecture(r)
– Knowledge transfer
• Networked (cMOOC)
– Peer learning
– Heterogeneous
Network
– Knowledge is situated
– Knowledge production
Two Visions for MOOCs
20. Networked Courses
• Local classes in a Larger Network
– Sunoikisis intercampus courses (ICCs) in advanced
Greek & Latin
– FemTechNet: Distributed Online Collaborative Course
(DOCC)
– History Harvest
• Aggregate Expertise
• Share local resources
• Share local perspective
Sunoikisis Network, Fall 2006
22. Big Learning Data
• Improve learning resources based on usage
data
• How do small colleges achieve scale?
• How do small colleges adapt resources to their
context?
23. Blended Learning
in a Liberal Arts Setting
• Bryn Mawr College, NGLC grant-funded program
• “Using Blended Learning in a Liberal Arts
Environment to Improve Developmental and
Gatekeeper STEM Course Completion, Persistence,
and College Completion”
• Open Learning Initiative modules
• http://nextgenlearning.blogs.brynmawr.edu/
24. Open Learning Initiative (OLI)
• Carnegie Mellon
• Computer-based, interactive
tutorials and quizzes
• Customized learning
• Instant feedback
25. Outcomes
• Student preparation = better student-faculty
interaction
– Metacognition
• Assessment data for learning analytics
• Mastery vs. grades
26. Challenges
• Uneven availability of resources
– OLI had poor coverage of economics, biology,
geology, chemistry, developmental math
• Start-up costs: time to find, evaluate, apply &
integrate computer-based materials
• Doesn’t apply in every case, e.g., basic math
skills
27. Creating Resources
• Spohrer (Bryn Mawr) reports 50 hours
• Collaborative Projects from ACS
– Analyzing and Creating Maps
– Beyond the (Online) Handbook: Writing Resources
Designed for the Digital Environment
29. World is Flat
• Global access to information & people
• Creating citizens & workers for this context
• Challenges
– Vs. residential liberal arts experience or immersive
study abroad experience
– Developing skills in this context
– Communicating across domains
30. • First-Year Seminars and
Experiences
• Common Intellectual
Experience
• Learning Communities
• Writing-Intensive Courses
• Collaborative
Assignments and Projects
• Undergraduate Research
• Diversity/Global Learning
• Service Learning,
Community-Based
Learning
• Internships
• Capstone Courses and
Projects
High Impact Practices (Kuh)
31. Situating the Global Environment
• Lewis & Clark College
• https://sge.lclark.edu/
• Jim Proctor, “Situated
Social Learning”
• Interdisciplinary
environmental research
• Situated research
– Local focus on global issues
32. Social learning
• Document research process
• Share research resources
• Share references
• Aggregate projects on blog
– Maps
– Tags
– Concept maps
– Mashups
33. Globally Networked
High Impact Practices
• Common intellectual experience
– Reflecting on research
• Learning communities online
• Collaborative projects
• Undergraduate research
• Global learning
• Community-based learning
• Documenting learning experiences
Notes de l'éditeur
New Media Consortium and Educause. Next year, 2-3 years, 4-5 years
The Annual Report 2007, Experiences That Matter: Enhancing Student Learning and Success, explores the relationships between effective educational practice and selected aspects of student success in college. 2007: NSSE issues “Connecting the Dots,” a report analyzing the relationships between student engagement and selected outcomes, and the institutional practices and conditions that foster student success. Criticism: does not necessarily predict student grades or retention rates
Enriching educational experiences: Participating in: Internships, Community service, Global learning (foreign language coursework, study abroad), Independent study, Capstone, Co-curricular activities, Learning communities. ALSO: Diversity: Talking with students of different religious beliefs, racial or ethnic background, political opinions, or values. ALSO: Using electronic technology to discuss or complete assignmentWabash Study:(Clear and organized classroom instruction—importance of faculty development), Deep learning
2011. Blended courses? Flipped classroom?
Draws from NSSE. George Kuh’s High-Impact Educational Practices (2008). Find out how he got this!Promote skills from “what employers want” (teamwork, written and oral communication, …)
To assess its Essential Learning Outcomes
Simon will give you more details on MOOCs in the next session. For now, I’ll point out that there are two competing visions of MOOCs. What I like to think of as the industrial MOOC and the networked or connectivist MOOC.cMOOCs or connectivist MOOCs offer an alternative vision for MOOCs that focus more on the network effect—the benefits you get from many students but also the idea that networks are heterogeneous and you can find the piece of the network that works for you.The goal of these courses is networked learning seen as an important skill in a world articulated by digital networks
Doing something together creates meaningful exchangesFemTechNet—new course on feminism and technology—local courses linked together
Links to goal of improving student learning—liberal arts college academic mission.Bryn Mawr involved many other liberal arts colleges, including Kenyon—see Joe & Simon.
Learning analytics, mastery, metacognition, student learningBryn Mawr uses these resources—to give students more time on task while freeing instructor time for other activities. To give just one example, students in a “half-semester introductory chemistry course designed for students with weak science and math backgrounds” are using OLI chemistry modules to catch up. Those who need more practice on key concepts can do it on their own time to gain mastery of the material.
The OLI learning modules allow students to practice without risking grades. Since feedback is automatic, they don't have to wait, and instructors don’t have to spend time grading. Instructors also benefit from this formative assessment, because they can track students’ progress and adapt their instruction on the individual and group level to meet student needs. Students ask better questions because had a better understanding of what they didn’t knowThese modules also allow the instructor to flip the classroom and “devote class time to focus on problem solving instead of lecturing and target areas where students need the most help.”Discussion at breakfast with Martin Madsen who teaches physics at WabashMastery as goal especially when paired with class discussions, thought problems, or group projects to apply skills and concepts they were expected to master
Commercial solutions in economics and chemistry of similar quality but more expensiveStudents challenged with basic math skills had psychological barriers to learning math (not lack or exposure or need for more practice) needed to break through idea that math was an innate skill that they lacked; such students benefit from interactive, face to face approaches
Cf. SUNY Geneseo open textbook initiative, as well as the Temple example
Motivation for DH at SLAC: educating citizens for a globally networked worldLet’s dig deeper into the context
They also defined high impact practicesSo what do these things look like in a digital context?