The IDEA Center

with Douglas Eder
 
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) has almost immediate appeal when faculty members first hear about it. Evidence shows that students who experience a curriculum based on PBL principles learn more quickly and deeply than do students taught by more common methods. Because they are engaged, they are also retained. To be effective, PBL needs first, the existence of “good problems” and second, the presence of scaffolding that aligns student attitudes and practices with PBL requirements and expectations. This interactive seminar/workshop addresses these two aspects of PBL so that faculty members can incorporate PBL into their own courses or, if they wish, construct a framework for building an entire curriculum. Monitoring and assessing student learning is a core component of the framework to be examined.

with Douglas Eder
 
Numerous institutions have discovered that senior capstone projects permit integration of knowledge, if only they could be assessed. These same institutions usually constructed their capstones as a curricular "add-on" and then affixed to it an expensive, bulky assessment method. Clumsiness and dissatisfaction are common results. This seminar/workshop addresses the two issues of capstone construction and its assessment. Primarily, the approach is to embed capstone pedagogy and assessment into the existing curriculum. From such a system one can almost seamlessly reap results and apply feedback rather than contend with unsatisfying expenditures of time, energy, and money. 

with Douglas Eder
 
A founding idea of modern assessment is that assessment improves student learning, even as it satisfies the demands of accreditors. Nevertheless, and especially when resources must be divided, assessment is usually performed reactively: “What is the minimum we must do in order to maintain our accreditation”? Therefore, assessment activities do not close important feedback loops to improve student learning. Instead, assessment is seen as a burden to be done with or, even better, to be done away with. This seminar/workshop invokes research-based assessment methods that actually save time, effort, and money while producing better student learning. Results can be molded for individual use and program reporting.

with John Zubizarreta

Engaging students not only in collecting selected samples of their work for assessment, evaluation, and career development but also in continuous reflection about such work and about the process of developmental learning is a powerful complement to traditional measures of student achievement.  The portfolio approach to gauging student learning is a compelling and diverse method of recording intellectual growth, involving students in a higher-order, critically reflective process that enriches their educational experience and helps transform them into self-directed, reflective learners.

with Susan K. Wolcott

Virtually all college programs state that critical thinking is a desired learning outcome. Yet, educators often struggle to identify ways to reliably assess critical thinking outcomes and to “close the assessment loop” — i.e., use assessment results to improve student critical thinking skills.

with Barbara J. Millis

Games can be an effective way to motivate students to learn course material; to encourage them to come to class prepared; and to assess student learning. However, few books or articles on games emphasize and model their genuine academic value. Too often games are merely “icebreakers” or “team building” activities. All the group activities and games modeled during this interactive workshop are focused squarely on academic content and formative assessment. An emphasis will be on student “ownership” of the games’ answers and on responsible group learning.

with Barbara E. Walvoord

In consulting, my goal is to help move the whole institution forward on assessment in a significant way. Thus I do not accept engagements for less than two days. My usual format is this:

Before my visit:
Intensive preparation in which we talk, I read material you send me, and we try to get me as familiar as possible with your situation and your needs.

with Barbara J. Millis

Barr and Tagg's influential article, "From teaching to learning—A new paradigm for undergraduate education," states: "The place to start the assessment of learning outcomes is in the conventional classroom: from there, let the practice grow to the program and institutional levels." As individuals, departments, and institutions become more accountable, faculty are increasingly involved with assessment activities. This workshop will train participants to conduct interactive focus groups. The model uses three structured activities as well as open-ended questions, capturing a large amount of data in an hour or less. The workshop will emphasize practical issues such as transcribing sessions, interpreting data, and sharing feedback constructively. Enormously popular at the United States Air Force Academy (over 30 a semester), focus groups have been used by individual faculty members for teaching improvement, but as importantly, carried out over time, they have impressed accrediting bodies such as NCA, ABET, AACSB, etc.

with Barbara Millis

Issues of quality and accountability in higher education have fueled a general movement for education reform, particularly in undergraduate teaching. Genuine reform, however, is unlikely to occur unless faculty and administrators are convinced that teaching quality is tied to meaningful assessment and the reward system. The teaching portfolio movement and a general impetus to open classroom doors have spurred renewed interest in classroom visits as an effective way—although not the only way—to document teaching expertise.

with Barbara J. Millis

J. Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo have popularized some critical ideas: checking the pulse of student learners as a course progresses and embedding assessment in the learning process. This experiential workshop will explore some practical methods for finding out what you think students are learning. It will broaden the definition of CATs to provide a deeper view of assessment and to share some specific techniques, such as knowledge surveys, not commonly addressed. In particular, the presenter will link CATs to the emerging research on how students learn.