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[no dialogue]
>>Stephen Lucas: Okay.
Well, good afternoon.
[chatter]
Thank you for coming out.
This is our fifth workshop on the revised university
learning goals, the fourth one on one of the actual goals.
And today's goal is on responsible citizenship.
And so, that's been led by Dr. Debra Reid and her band of merry
civic responsible citizenship people here.
So, they have really been wrestling with this for the past
year and a half, so we really appreciate them.
Before we get started, just a couple of reminders.
One is that you've got a big, thick set of handouts there.
One of those is the newsletters we've been putting out, and that
has on the back a lot of links to different resources,
not only for this workshop but for all the other workshops,
including the learning goals webpage, which has all the
handouts and videos, and everything from
all the workshops.
So, if you've missed anything or misplaced handouts,
they're all up there in PDF form.
And then, one reminder that, boy, it's hard to believe,
next Tuesday will be our last workshop.
Seems like we just started.
And that will be Tuesday from 10 to noon in this room.
And this will be on the brand new learning goal.
We had one brand new learning goal, and this one is on
quantitative reasoning.
And this is going to apply across the curriculum,
so even if you're not in the College of Sciences,
we want you here to see what kind of expectations and
support we're going to give you to infuse
quantitative reasoning across the curriculum, as well.
So, having said that, Dr. Reid, you're on.
>>Debra Reid: Thank you, Stephen, very much.
And thank you all for coming.
We really appreciate the good level of participation that has,
you know, been visible among the attendees at these
different workshops.
Today, responsible citizenship, which the newsletter
will explain, was stated in almost its entirety in the
general education description previously, but wasn't really
itemized in the way that we've tried to itemize it, which can
help clarify the agenda, both of the curriculum and the
co-curriculum, but also provide foundations, starting points for
faculty in all disciplines and students across the campus
in striving to attain four big picture goals.
And one of those relates to diversity in its broadest terms,
one to ethical reasoning and professional standards, one to
issues of civics and civic engagement, and then the last
being this purposeful awareness of transfer of knowledge in
lifelong learning.
And so, what we've done today is sort of divide us up so you do
not have to just listen to me.
I'll give a broad overview, and then talk a bit about diversity.
And then we'll, Karla and Anita will discuss this ethical piece,
ethical reasoning, and Melinda in the Political Science
Department will talk about physics, physics,
don't we wish, civics.
And then, we're going to break into some groups and do
conversations, which will include Carrie and Rachel,
who will talk about purposeful transfer.
But that will be within our group context.
So, we'll be part formal, but majority informal today.
And then, with reporting back.
So, the, I'm not going to tell you what this says, but I do
want to provide a little overview.
This worksheet, this, sorry, newsletter for our workshop
has in it the overview, bits and pieces about major changes
and the encouragement to, yeah, to not freak out at the breadth
of this goal as we approach it.
The second page has definitions, and these are ones that we've
consolidated in a way to make the topics manageable.
And then, the third page has some explanations about
teaching strategies and a very modest thing on assessment.
And the backside, a few references.
Think of the workbook that is another handout,
the thick handout, as the supplement to that.
And again, I'm not going to go page by page through it;
that would be awful to have to sit through.
But there's more explanation, in terms of rationale
for the learning goal and definitions.
And then, it's broken up into these four learning goals with
more specificity about teaching methods and
assessment suggestions.
[no dialogue]
So, a quick overview.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities has
really led in helping colleges for decades, since the
early 1970s, come to a purposeful understanding
of responsible citizenship.
This has a long history that begins in the World War II era
and the Cold War after World War II, and the ideas of
citizenship education.
So, this is nothing new.
And it's also something that's very broadly attempted,
so EIU is not unique in any way, shape, or form in its effort to
try to help students think purposefully and be aware of
their role as responsible citizens, educated individuals
in a diverse world.
It's, the magnitude of it is overwhelming because,
if you look at this little, simple list of things that are
considered important in liberal education, this learning goal
relates to three of the large, of three of the
four large topics.
And enough said on that.
If you want to learn more about LEAP and liberal education,
you can go to the website and, you know, be overwhelmed
as we all are with the potential for this.
In terms of employer expectations, responsible
citizenship is also approximately half of what
employers have been, have gone on record as saying
that they're looking for.
So, and then, all the other learning goals, the other ones,
writing and reading, speaking and listening, quantitative
reasoning, and critical thinking, are the other half.
So, yeah, there's a lot in this goal.
We'll not cover it today; we're just getting started.
So, here's the four things explicated as they are in the
revised and recently adopted learning goals, as of January.
And these will take effect in the fall.
Catalogue changes reflect this in the incoming freshman class,
and I guess transfer students will be the ones that will
follow this catalogue.
I tried, because I'm a visual learner, I tried to graph out
how this goal relates to all the others, and how we are quite
purposeful in what we're trying to do, which is emphasize
the transfer of knowledge and skills across the curriculum.
So, that's my attempt.
Thinking about ethical reasoning, not as the peak of a
pyramid, but just another skill based on knowledge that
students master, along with reading and writing,
and speaking and listening, quantitative reasoning.
Critical thinking I put at the bottom specifically because
I think we all perceived of it as the foundation for building
everything, all the rest of it.
And then, practice occurs in these diversity/ethical
reasoning professional standards and transfer of knowledge areas.
So, that's how I tried to graph it out, in terms of some maybe
more understandable, or at least visual model.
The handbook outline of, or yeah, the basic outline of the
table of contents is there, too.
So, if you want to flip, not flip through it now,
but as you're working in breakout sessions, if you
find yourself flipping through it, the table of contents is
at the front of it, back of the front page.
And that's basically it.
So, we're dividing up these three in three more components.
One being teaching strategies, the next being assessment
related things, and then there's a comprehensive bibliography
at the end that's annotated.
So, this goal also attempts to engage all disciplines.
It's not a liberal arts and sciences goal.
it's a goal that hopefully will involve every college,
because it's a goal that's not just a general education goal;
it's a university goal, university learning goal.
And the little introductory statement about the goal
emphasizes that.
So, students, graduates, make informed decisions based on
knowledge of the physical and natural world, and human history
and culture.
It's not really a throwaway line; it's meant purposefully to
indicate the critical nature of knowledge as it can be applied
through the various parts of this goal.
There's a lot of research in the ways higher education
inadequately wrestles with this.
There is a fair amount of information about best practices
to blend knowledge and skills at the higher level.
And there's a current emphasis on trying to bridge information
from K-12, and make it through 15 or 16, or 20, thank you, yes.
And EIU is involved in this state, in a purposeful effort
to try to make it, what would it be then, P-20?
No pressure there.
[chuckles]
And I've gone on record as saying that the responsible
citizenship goal will also allow Eastern to take advantage
of its unique situation here in the rural Midwest,
specifically rural Illinois.
But then, trying to be a critical thinker, we're
not just, we don't just have a footprint in rural
Central Illinois, the largest soybean producing county
in the nation, or I mean not the nation, but the state.
But we also have a footprint on, in different towns around
Central Illinois and in Chicago through continuing education.
So, and the online programs that we have.
We are a campus that exists in many places.
We have a lot of unique attributes that this goal
can help emphasize.
Abilities in rural places to engage with diverse student
bodies, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary.
The sky's the limit.
Our biggest problem is trying to be reasonable in what we can do
and what, yeah, I think that sums that up.
So, here's the cultural diversity section.
And briefly, EIU has had a diversity definition that helped
explain its diversity graduation requirement since '99,
and then that was modified in '04-'05.
This definition is that approved definition that helps guide the
general education requirement, because every student at Eastern
has to satisfy one cultural diversity class.
The bits of pieces in italics are things that have arisen
since that approved definition received approval
at the CAA level.
Things that relate to health, status, age.
So, you know, it's a good example of how we're trying to
build on what has been successful in the past,
but also be mindful of the need to sometimes revise and
continue to improve.
And this is, so this is what will be guiding the diversity
component of the responsible citizenship goal.
And then, I think, we won't open it up for questions now,
but when we break into our breakout sessions,
this will be, the group that wants to talk about diversity
will talk about it with me, and we'll talk about
teaching strategies and assessment potentials.
We have some questions that will guide us.
But that's the definition that we'll be mindful of as we talk.
And then, I think I'd like to turn it over to, oh I have,
oh well yeah, but we can look at those when we break out
into our groups.
Those that aren't, thank you Karla, those that aren't,
aren't interested, who would rather sit in with a different
group than diversity, the workbook has the teaching
strategies and assessment, some assessment strategies, too.
So, you're not going away empty-handed if you choose to
sit in a different group.
And so, now I'll turn it over to Karla Sanders and Anita Sego,
who will talk about the ethics learning goal.
And I think Anita, want to... yep.
Anita Sego is in health studies.
[no dialogue]
>>Anita Sego: I think what we're really
looking at is kind of bridging your field with the gen ed,
and looking at ethical reasoning altogether.
So, we're looking at them not only being able to identify
"what's right or wrong," but how to make decisions and how to
transfer that skill.
I tend to teach freshmen or seniors, and what I find is
they can parrot things very, very well.
And even in my senior graduate course, I'm like,
so what do you think?
And they'll go, what do you want us to think?
And I'll say, I know what I think; what do you think?
So, for this one we spent a lot of time looking at the personal,
professional, disciplinary, and civic contexts.
So, we tried to put everything together from all the other
learning goals.
So, we're looking at what's right and wrong,
and how they start.
In health, we talk a lot about their lens, and we're constantly
looking at different target audiences.
And everything that we do as a health educator is based on
our own personal experiences and our own personal beliefs,
and we have to learn to look outside of that and figure out
how that affects our judgment and our ability to tell
right and wrong.
So, we're looking at how they take their personal,
how that works as whatever field that you're in.
And in health, we have CHES, it's our certification,
and we have a health code of ethics.
So, we spent a lot of time looking at the different majors
and their different codes of ethics, so that it is applicable
to each of us.
I could use my CHES, and I can state all my health field,
and for most of you, you go, eh, what does that mean to us?
But it appeared when we did our research that almost every major
we have here has its own professional organization,
and it has its own professional code of ethics, so that the
assessments and assignments can be tailored to what you do.
We are looking mostly on the gen eds as a starting point,
but no matter what class that you teach, there's something
that you can do ethically.
I'm constantly updating my rubrics;
I'm one of those rubric people.
And I'm looking at a new rubric for my critical thinking,
we do a position paper, it's one of the last papers
they write as seniors.
And the new rubrics that I've been looking at even have ethics
right in the writing rubrics; that's one of the sections.
So, particularly Melinda and I had a lot of conversations about
ethical writing, and we talk about that.
And I think our students get that part of it,
that we shouldn't cheat, that we make them go through
the IRB process.
But they don't always get how those same skills transfer to
the decisions that they make for case studies or
for job decisions, or for the human resources.
And so, we kind of went more global with this one.
Do you want to go to the... and I'm going to do the same thing.
We do have a really nice resource center,
but we can talk about that later.
And then, your packet has some wonderful sample rubrics,
and it does talk about the syllabus.
And again, we did, everything that we looked at was
syllable assignments and assessments to try to give you
a head start for anything that you're doing.
Karla, do you want to add anything to that?
>>Karla Sanders: Well, the website that
you see up there has case studies, sorry,
the website that you have up there has case studies
and things for almost every single discipline.
Some of you may have used it already.
And it, you know, we were overwhelmed by the amount of
information that is available.
They even have campus ethics as a separate topic that we're
going to use for university foundations this year.
So, to talk about sort of things like plagiarism in general,
drinking, getting along with your roommate,
how we all interact with each other as humans.
And there's bio-ethics, environmental sciences,
business cases.
So, there's all sorts of examples up there.
In your packet, you will have a rubric that one of our
colleagues in the School of Business uses for a
4000 level class.
You have a rubric that we use for 1000 level
University Foundations, and then there's also some information
and a rubric from the MBA program.
So, we've tried to give you different levels so that you can
see what they're doing and adapt that.
Deb's got it up here.
Over on the side where it says focus areas is where you're
going to find the case studies.
They've set it up so you can print it and give it to your
students, and have them read the case studies related to
the various topics.
And then, there's also information for you,
and there's a whole section on ethical decision making.
So, how we make our decisions, how we take our values,
and whether it's professional ethics or personal values,
and how we apply that to our decision making.
And then, you know, you can incorporate that with, as Anita
said, any topic that you're working with in your courses.
[no dialogue]
>>Melinda Mueller: Alright, I'm going to
talk about the civics component.
And I think we can make the argument that physics is indeed
civics; we all contribute to it.
This is something that's really challenging, in terms of
coming up with a definition.
And I know in the Political Science Department,
when global citizenship was first introduced our reaction
was, well how do we measure it?
Because, most of the time we do see our students become
good citizens, but it might be a decade after they've left.
And so, it's latent.
And there's a challenge there in that.
But the definition that we have developed comes primarily
from the AAC&U, and from a workbook on teaching civic
engagement with McCartney.
I like the focus in this, and we like the focus in this
on the community; the community could be anything from the
global community, down to the campus community.
So, civics can be really broadly integrated into
all of the disciplines.
And that there is a great focus on gaining skills.
We do this pretty well.
Our students take history, political science, sociology,
economics, psychology courses, social sciences.
But also, in the humanities, the fine arts, the sciences,
business education.
Anywhere where we're gaining content knowledge,
we're learning how the world works.
And that contributes to our knowledge of civics.
And I suspect that even though we can't assess that
really well, we are probably doing that fairly well.
Where we are hoping to expand are in two areas.
One is encouraging the students to learn about where their
values come from, learn about where other people's
values come from.
That opportunity for reflection, for development,
for having dialogues, deliberate dialogues with classmates,
with other people in the community.
All of those things will help our students have a
better sense of where they come from.
And we can do that in a wide variety of courses, not just in
your traditional social science courses.
The other thing we hope to build on are opportunities for
civic engagement.
Some of us have programs that require some form of
civic engagement, but sometimes that can seem overwhelming,
like how do I develop a service learning program in my class?
Well, you need to talk to Rachel.
But sometimes it can seem like this huge barrier.
Yet, there are ways that we can both horizontally and vertically
integrate civic learning into our classrooms.
Whether it is in one class experience, whether it's
throughout all four years, the more we build this, the more
the students I suspect will go out and remain active
in their civic life when they graduate.
That's really an ultimate goal.
So, we've collected a lot of examples of how we can do that.
Everything from going to observing some sort of civic
action occurring, that would be, you know, rather passive
form of civic engagement but still important, but also
formal service learning, volunteerism.
I'm just hearing about students that got back from
alternative spring break.
All of that feeds into actual, real experiences
that students are having.
If we can then move towards letting them integrate that
back into the classroom and reflect on it, we become,
we'll end up with a much more dynamic experience for them.
There are also programs that we haven't done a whole lot
that I think we can build on.
This last summer I taught the American government class
in the summer institute program.
And one of the things that I did with Michael Gillespie,
who was teaching the soc class, and Cameron Craig,
who taught cultural geography, was require students to do
presentations that all three classes attended.
So, we did poster presentations, we picked a theme of
higher education.
My class did the politics of higher ed, Michael's did the
sociology, Cameron's did higher ed around the world.
It was a really cool experience for a group of freshmen to
come in and see how different disciplines approach these
projects, how we study these problems, how much we overlap,
and then how much of this can make, how we can make a
difference, whether they want to make a different on campus,
or they want to make a difference internationally.
I think we can think about some cross-curricular activities,
co-curricular opportunities like alternative spring break,
even programs like Constitution Day can be really rich
opportunities for students to expand their civic
learning opportunities.
So, that hope is that we can, by more dialogue, by our group
discussion today, begin that process of learning how we can
better teach students to develop their values, and then actually
engage and act in those values.
[no dialogue]
[unclear dialogue]
>>Carrie Johnson: Alright, I'll talk first,
and then I'll turn it over to you.
Okay, I stole it; I'm a hog with the mic all the time.
I just want to point out I work with adult learners,
and adult learners when they come into a classroom,
they want to know what they're going to learn that will
benefit them in their lives.
How is this applicable to their lives?
Most traditional students aren't asking that question.
So, we need to be more intentional and more strategic
on how we can help them realize how these things connect
to their lives.
So, when we talk about things like authentic assessments,
the projects, the debates, the role playing,
those kinds of things, those are the ways that students can
connect things to their lives in order to be
responsible citizens.
And to really learn, they need to be able to take the
information out of the classroom.
They need to not only use it here, but what Melinda
was saying about 10 years down the road.
They need to be able to transfer that into their lives.
And so, there's a lot of projects that we can do
as instructors that will help them do that.
We have one in your packet.
Angelo and Cross have a wonderful book on assessing
across the disciplines, and they give an example of a
psychology professor who taught a unit on human learning.
And at the end of the learning, he said, at the end of the unit
he suggested to his students to write on a card what they had
utilized in their lives that, as a result of that unit.
Well, about two-thirds of the students
were able to give examples.
One-third couldn't, and their response was you didn't
ask us to do this when you taught the unit.
This led to a discussion.
They generated more ideas.
But as a result of this, this professor said I need to
be more strategic.
I need to intentionally say to my students when I'm teaching
a unit, these are the things that I want you to look for.
How can we do this?
How can we use this in our lives?
And human learning's a perfect example of things that
you could use.
When I was doing some research a few years ago on people
who taught adults and taught traditional students,
I interviewed a variety of faculty across the disciplines.
And I interviewed a consumer chemistry professor.
She was a chemistry professor, but she taught
consumer chemistry.
And she talked about how different it was when she
taught her adult students.
And she mentioned that when she was discussing an issue,
some of her students took such an interest in water treatment
that they actually wrote letters to the editor.
And she said I would never see that with my
traditional students.
And she was so excited about this.
And we probably won't see that with our traditional students
unless we suggest that, unless we say alright, we know that
this is a concern in our community; how can we deal
with those kinds of issues?
Finally, something hit me this weekend.
My daughter is a very good student here,
although she hates school.
How she earns the grades she does, I don't know.
But she had a very big event Saturday with her sorority.
And if Ellie could major in Greek life, she would major
in Greek life.
Well, we went out after the event.
The event was Saturday in Effingham.
It was a red dress gala where they raised money for
women's heart health.
And this was an amazing event organized by the women
in the sorority.
The parents were invited, and we were out in Effingham,
we were at a conference center.
They raised over 6,000 dollars Saturday night.
They had a speaker who was an alum, who unfortunately
had a dear friend who was a student here
who suffered cardiac arrest.
They could not revive her quickly enough, so she suffered
brain damage, very severe from what I understand.
Here was a situation where these women were raising money,
they were organizing an event, they were connecting it
to the outside world.
And the next morning, she's like, I hate school.
But really, she doesn't hate school,
because she's studying hospitality.
All the things that she wants to do is related to this.
She just doesn't see it.
And it's important that we make these connections.
I'm embarrassed that she doesn't see it, but it's important that
we make these connections for these kids.
And so, when we talk about service learning,
this is a perfect example and a perfect lead-in for Rachel.
>>Rachel: Well, thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Rachel Fisher, and I'm the director of our
Student Community Service Office here on campus.
And this is really before we go into breakouts almost the
commercial break, to just let you know that our
office is here.
And we talk about service learning, it truly is in its
base level the opportunity to give students a
direct experience with the issues they're learning
in the curriculum.
And I want to tell you that I am ready to partner with you.
We work with many faculty, and we arrange very much based on
the needs that you have in your classroom of what that level of
service learning will look like.
As simple as a five-hour commitment to volunteer
anywhere, just remember some of those direct experiences
to bring back, or as far as creating a lab component
that is a specific weekly event that we work with you to ensure
that whatever goal you're having for that class, we incorporate
into an after school experience, if it's elementary education,
as an example.
So, I encourage you to, as I think the theme of today is
don't be overwhelmed, know there are resources, and certainly for
service learning or volunteerism, a connection
into that classroom and beyond, I would be absolutely delighted
to speak and to share some of those pieces.
So, thank you for your time.
[no dialogue]
>>Debra Reid: Thank you, thank you.
So, if you do have your workbook with you.
And your, I would say flip to the last third.
And there'll be a page called Application Transfer:
Adult and Lifelong Learning Co-Curricular.
Evidence of our inability to use one word to describe
this fourth of our goals.
I point this out because we won't be talking about this
particular section of the workbook in our
breakout sessions.
But this is representative of what you'll find in each of the
other three sections.
We have a brief overview of potential for transfer
through assignments.
An example of transfer, and this is a very modest one from a
gen ed, where I've asked students to create a primary
source by going out and interviewing a family member
in an oral history interview, formal, and then
to present on that to their classmates.
The idea of transfer comes in because they're taking
what they've learned in their speech classes, their
communication studies classes, and then applying that in a
content specific exercise.
So, I'm trying not to cop out by, you know, by saying I'm not
teaching speech, but by emphasizing that the standards
they learn in one class need to then be transferred purposefully
to another context and another public presentation.
So, what you have is a rubric that still needs much refinement
that looks at the history side of that presentation.
Well, and then on the other side of the rubric I create would be
the speech rubric, that's the standard one for EIU.
So, that's one little, modest example of that idea of
transfer, making purposeful for students who are
traditional students the need to think about lifelong learning.
And then, I'm sorry, transfer of knowledge, and then
lifelong learning is on the other side, which summarizes
some of the things that Carrie said.
Rachel created the service learning handouts,
so that in three pages provides a wonderful overview to that
office and its resources, as she's explained,
along with some resources that you can look into.
There are more in the bibliography that's
at the end, too.
And then, because I think we just need to know this,
co-curricular projects, co-curriculum, EIU has a formal,
standardized co-curriculum.
And the Office of Student Development had come up
with some outcomes that they used to guide their
freshman orientation programs.
And it was done by a group of folks back in about '06.
And so, it's in here for you to reference.
And think about the things that you're doing in your classes
that really do have a direct connection to this larger goal,
now one of our identifiable goals, right?
Transfer of knowledge, application in
different contexts.
Yeah, assessment, how do you assess this?
I don't know how many times you may have heard someone say,
well I'm not going to assign my students to go to a talk,
you know, in the evening because it's not relevant
to the coursework.
There are ways that you can structure an activity that,
you know, maybe once a semester that students have to go out
to engage somehow in some way.
And I have a rubric that can show you how to do that.
So, if anybody's interested in that, after our
breakout sessions we can pull that up.
We also have your names, so we will be able to email you
some material from a rubric book that we couldn't really,
in terms of copyright compliance, just copy and
hand you, but we can distribute them, you know,
as the need and interest arises.
But yeah, so lots of resources out there to make this happen.
Carrie and Rachel are going to circulate amongst us
as we work in our breakout sessions.
So, if you're wanting more information on that
very important part of this learning goal,
that's how we'll provide it.
Otherwise, we will divide up into our respective, the three:
diversity, ethics, and civics.
And we have some questions that will hopefully guide us.
Each group can pay attention to these as they meet.
So, how would you incorporate the objectives of
any one of these to your courses?
Some folks may have great ideas, and we can all share and learn.
Or if we come up with a loss, and we want, you know,
to have a discussion about what in the world we can do,
we'll be there for you.
Because that's our job, is to try to help provide
opportunities, examples, and resources to make this
actually happen and be effective.
We can also have 10 to 15 minutes talking about
the transfer, very purposeful transfer from a class in a
discipline to another class in a totally different discipline,
or to the co-curriculum.
And then, we'll report back as a whole.
What I'd like to see us do in the next, say, hour,
let's talk about the first one, incorporating objectives
into our courses, and then we'll have a report back.
And then, we'll go into the discussion about transfer of
skills, and we'll report back.
And then, we'll save the last, oh 40 minutes or so to talk
about assessment, which is the big elephant in the room,
and that we, yeah, want to talk more about with everybody.
Kay?
So, I would say anybody who wants to talk about diversity
will come up here and sit around the tables.
[no dialogue]
Would you like to talk about ethics?
>>Karla Sanders: Well, I'm here, so let's
talk about ethics up here, and then civics will circle up
in the back.
[no dialogue]
>>Debra Reid: So, any of us could
continue to talk, but I think we should open this up now if
anyone has any questions, and that might then take us
down a path that we want to go.
So, I didn't know if anybody did have any questions.
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Hoping for early release, I know.
Frequent strategy.
[unclear dialogue]
>>Anita Sego: I just wanted, I guess,
to advocate.
Most of the discussion we had about ethics that I added
came from a seniors major course that I teach, so we have that
one-hour class.
But I do think we all have to put
critical thinking and ethics.
And one of the things that I've noticed in my courses is that
the increase in transfer students has changed the
amount of preparation that the students have for my
advanced level courses.
And so, we've had to kind of go back and think of the core
things that we want our health educators to have
when they leave, and add in what we feel are some freshman
and sophomore level things into our junior/senior classes
just to make sure that they do leave here with what we think
a well educated citizen should have.
So, I do think that our challenge is even greater
as we get more and more transfer students, because they don't
have the sequencing, and I don't know about your departments,
but our department collaborates pretty well.
And we do have a sequencing of skills, and we talk about
who teaches what in what section, and where we layer it,
and where we enhance it.
And so, when they transfer in, they don't have the same skills.
And so, I just wanted to remind or comment that as we see an
increase in transfer students, which I think will maybe
continue to be the trend, we have to look or re-evaluate...
It isn't?
It looks, it is for our major.
>>Karla Sanders: It may be for your major,
but we've had a bit of a dip.
>>Anita Sego: Well, because we
have a lot more.
And because we are so sequenced, then we have to go and
make up skills that they aren't quite ready for yet.
So, and then, when you look at citizenship that
makes the difference, as well.
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>>Debra Reid: Yeah, if I could address
transfers just for a little bit.
We all, you know, in the pie in the sky classroom,
all of our students come in at the 2000 level, sophomore level
if it's a 2000 course, and so on and so forth.
But transfers are a major part of the challenges,
in terms of how do you structure assessment that is assessing
what you're trying to assess at a certain level when you've got
students with different, yeah.
We all...
Transfers are essential and highly sought, but they come in
many different packages.
And how do we create assessment, curriculum and assessment
that relates to that.
And that means, I mean, often thinking about that,
we think community colleges are stagnant and dedicated
to general ed.
But they're not.
They're going through their own real energized period of
trying to develop what they call pre-major coursework.
So, it's even deemphasizing gen ed at the
community college level.
They may come better prepared to be, you know, in whatever your
discipline is, but maybe with less of a gen ed background.
So, it's a real moving scenario out there.
And one of the things that strikes me, in one of your
handouts is an effort on the part of social sciences to
try to identify where students are in different
social science skills.
Common Core grade 8, Common Core grade 12.
It would be probably useful if we think about where would a
transfer student in a community college career,
you know, are they entering at a benchmark level that's
our year 14, for example?
So there's, as you can see, there's a lot more questions
than there are answers.
And getting a team of people together to think about
and prioritize these is incredibly important.
Yeah, good.
Any other questions?
There are other handouts that we didn't go over.
Some of them, the executive summary of our global
citizenship survey, that's one instrument that indicates
what we do at the university level for assessment.
And it was revised, and this was the first time that the revised
version was summarized.
Much more information appears at the CASL website.
You can find all sorts of interesting
reading material there.
That's in your, how to get there is in your packet.
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We have, we'll have to, yeah, we'll have to revise it again,
now that we've revised our learning goal.
Anybody interested in forging on with that could join
or ask to join CASL.
Recruitment plugs, merciless recruitment plugs.
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It's very much a work in progress.
So, in order to help you think about what you do at the
classroom level, in terms of exercises and assessment
projects, the American Association of Colleges
and Universities has these value rubrics;
that's in your workbook.
You can take these and modify them to suit your needs.
These are not all of them.
There are others for creative thinking, as well as
critical thinking, and yeah, writing, speaking.
But those are the ones that most relate to what we do.
And one side states rationale, glossary, critical terms;
the other side is an example of a rubric, totally able to be
modified by whoever wants to use it.
And then, if you do not know, I brought a couple books that have
proven to be indispensable as I keep thinking about this.
And one of them is this Classroom Assessment Techniques
book, CATS we call, I guess they call it that, too.
it's not, yeah, 50 plus, well 50 ways of devising everything from
five-minute write activities at the end of a lesson,
to full blown semester-long projects that allow you to
determine what are your learning objectives, theoretically
tie them to our university learning goals, and then
once you've got your objectives clearly defined for your
course, then how do you develop activities and assessment
to measure, yeah, success.
It's a fairly incredible book.
Those of you who are teachers probably know about it.
Many of us who don't have any formal education training
can find these things indispensable.
And then, there's a book, Introduction to Rubrics:
An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective
Feedback, and Promote Student Learning.
This is a real simple, brand new edition, it's a new edition,
second edition, 2013.
But it's a very straightforward, and I don't mean simple as
simple, I mean easy to use, even I can do this,
guide to making rubrics.
And I have copied about five examples, everything from
assessing those, you know, go out and listen to a lecture and
relate it to your learning goals, to the full blown project
in a philosophy sequence of courses that deals with
ethical reasoning.
So, I mean, we could go on, but we won't.
Because, our goal is to leave you wanting more.
And we hope that that's how we've ended today.
We will be here for questions if anyone is so inclined.
And thank you from the bottom of our heart for
participating in this.
And hopefully it's the start of many more conversations.
Thank you.
[applause]
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