The IDEA Center

with Douglas Eder
 
A surveyor's benchmark is a reference point that is visible, constant, agreed-upon, and tied to a context. In higher education, many reference points have become benchmarks, even though they vary, have acquired agreement by accident, and float free of context. Interestingly, institutional assessment activity often collects around these benchmarks, which adds authority and publicity to them. Amidst all this, student learning in the US continues to lag. Therefore, for those institutions that use benchmarks ---or plan to use them--- it seems worthwhile to explore relationships between benchmarking, assessing, and student learning with the aim of more creatively using the first two to improve the third.

with Douglas Eder
 
A frequently heard comment and question in the assessment community is, "We do assessment to satisfy an accreditor's requirements, but how does assessment help us really to improve our programs?" The impact here is, "We have oodles of data; how do we make sense of it to close the feedback loop for improving our curriculum?" The purpose of this seminar/workshop is to examine the kinds of data generally collected for official purposes and uncover ways to literally shorten the feedback loop. That is, this seminar/workshop helps participants find ways to generate data much closer to where student learning occurs and then construct more formal structures for external reporting, rather than the other way around.

with Daniel W. Wheeler

Faculty needs are different at various career stages. This session will focus on early, mid-career, well established and late career stages. Not only will there be a focus on needs, there will be emphasis on strategies to facilitate meeting these needs. 6 hour workshop

with Daniel W. Wheeler

Teams require a framework and tools to be effective and to continue to grow. Purpose, goals, task-process balance, setting benchmarks for progress and conflict management are all addressed. Stages of team development and strategies for development will be included. 3-6 hour workshop

with Daniel W. Wheeler

One of the best ways to have effective leaders is to grow your own. This session addresses various ways to grow leaders and a process to facilitate their development. The model of assessment, challenge, and support in development is stressed. Successful programs should be tied to a needs assessment and identification of critical organizational needs. 3-6 hour workshop or session

with Craig E. Nelson

This workshop is quite new and has only been given a few times. The emphases consequently are quite fluid. Its first purpose is to help faculty see that engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) often comes in several stages ranging from initial discomfort with student learning (or other outcomes) through classroom assessment and problem refinement to pilot projects and then to more formal projects that are framed so as to take account of prior work.

with Barbara J. Millis

Writer's block got you down? Worried that your journal article will be given short shrift because you don’t have ‘big name’ in your field? In this workshop faculty members will learn basic writing, editing, and targeting strategies to help their work reach a wider audience. This workshop will deal with issues such as getting started, selecting appropriate journals, and soliciting assistance. Participants will be encouraged to share "works in progress" with the idea that this initial meeting may be only the beginning of supportive help from colleagues. The workshop will include targeting journals related to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

with Barbara J. Millis

A professional portfolio typically consists of reflective commentary followed by appendices that contain the “artifacts" of teaching, research, and service. The reflective section of your portfolio will often contain (a) a summary of responsibilities; (b) a statement of teaching philosophy, plus other thoughts on research and service; (c) future goals and plans, plus a paragraph or two discussing each appendices. This workshop will address practical issues such as selecting and organizing the material, maximizing the intended effect, and receiving feedback from others. It will also explore issues such as time constraints, candor, and appropriate evaluation.