Improving and Assessing Integrative Learning Outcomes -- Funded by the Teagle Foundation
Agnes Scott College led a three-year collaborative project with three other southeastern institutions—Converse College, Wofford College and the University of North Carolina-Asheville—to assess the “value added” impact of integrative learning experiences on students' intellectual growth. The project was funded by a $300,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation, which provides leadership and support for liberal education. Agnes Scott College administered the grant and coordinated the collaborative, which began in July 2006. The funding cycle ended in June 2009, but all four institutions are continuing their collaboration.
Teagle Team members at the June 29-30 Planning Conference in Atlanta
Back row, left to right: Ellen Goldey, Dennis Wiseman, Steve Zides, Dan Maultsby, Wofford College; front row, left to right: Jeff Barker, Converse College; James Diedrick, Laura Palucki Blake, Agnes Scott College; Lisa Friedenberg, University of North Carolina Asheville
Summary of key outcomes during the 2006-2009 period:
Our work has engendered wider and deeper engagement with assessment among our colleagues, and it has generated curricular innovation and change in our respective programs. Our collaborative work has also helped us improve our own data collection and analysis skills, ranging from our increased use of data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA to our sharing of local instruments like writing and advising rubrics. In addition, as we have developed common data sets, analyzing and comparing data, we have increasingly shared some of our key findings in a variety of national venues:
By presenting at relevant conferences, we have attempted not only to model our shared commitment to improving teaching and learning within a liberal arts context and best practices that make such improvements possible, but also to demonstrate how institutions that share assessment goals can assist each other in bringing about institutional change.
Achievements in key areas:
- All four institutions cultivated and observed an increasing receptivity to assessment among faculty and staff as a result of this project.
- Team leaders in the consortium learned how to better navigate each institution's internal political structures.
- Collaborative members not only became more aware of the dialogue on and national norms of assessment, but (especially in the last year and a half) began contributing to that dialogue.
- The consortium learned to make better use of national assessment instruments, specifically NSSE and CLA. The collaborative has developed a data warehouse of all unit-level NSSE data from the collaborative-wide administration period, and we plan to continue comparing our NSSE results after all four of our campuses administer the survey again in Spring 2010. We have investigated our comparative data on NSSE “scalelets” by asking higher- level questions. At our June 2008 Collaborative meeting, for instance, we agreed to deepen the discussion of what we learned from NSSE by having each campus team report on a NSSE scalelet that is of particular importance to the campus and on which it scored well. Agnes Scott analyzed its scores on "Higher Order Learning," Converse looked at "Educational Gains," UNC Asheville investigated "Integrative & Reflective Learning," and Wofford evaluated its scores in "Advising."
During our June 2009 meeting, each institution reported on these analyses. Among the findings:
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Agnes Scott’s strong showing in the higher order learning scalelet can be related to the FYS program, required of all students, and the focus on critical thinking and writing in these seminars, which both call on and seek to improve students’ analytic, synthetic and evaluative abilities. For the past three years the FYS workshops have focused both on writing rubrics and on constructing effective writing assignments, and the college will analyze results of the 2010 NSSE survey to see if it shows increases in the higher order learning scalelet.
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Converse’s strong score on the “Educational Gains” both reflected the advantages of their “Converse 101” program and also led to changes in that program. During the period of the grant Converse began development of a hybrid first year course combining key student life developmental issues with direct participation by faculty members. That course, originally named “Converse 101” but now named the “Converse Student Success Seminar,” has produced a distinctive collaboration between Campus Life staff and Academic Affairs staff and faculty. The subject of a national conference presentation, the Student Success Seminar has included both an educational component about the nature of service learning and service learning modules. It has evolved into a course team-taught by faculty members and Campus Life (and other staff) professionals, with almost all students taking the course in their first term at Converse.
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UNC-A’s positive findings in the integrative and reflective learning scalelets stimulated work on developing appropriate, local, course-based assessments on these attributes and focusing faculty development on practices that strengthen these learning objectives. The Office of Academic Affairs sponsored four interactive faculty development workshops designed specifically for those who teach freshman colloquium courses. These faculty agreed to participate in at least one academic year seminar, in which they discussed active-learning projects, creative assignments, or other innovative pedagogies they have developed for their LSIC course.
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Wofford’s positive results in the advising scalelet reflects their commitment to an ongoing assessment of academic advising, especially of first-year students. All first-year students are assigned to an academic adviser prior to arrival on campus. Frequently, but not always, these advisers are also the student’s instructor for their Freshman Seminar in Humanities and Composition. First-year advisers meet as a group throughout the academic year to discuss the successes as well as possible weaknesses in the advising process, and changes are then implemented to improve practices for the following year. Beginning in the summer of 2009, Wofford instituted a Faculty Advising Mentor program that intends to make a team of professors available to students and parents throughout the summer prior to enrollment.