September, 2015Association of American Colleges & UniversitiesRebecca Dolinsky
Faculty Collaboratives: National Landscape Analysis of
Faculty Engagement in Student Learning Initiatives[1]
Introduction
The current backdrop of U.S. higher education presents a set of dynamics particular to our time. From technological “disruptions” to shifting student and faculty demographics to educational disparities to increased efforts for student success and accountability to the global context of U.S. higher education—these dynamics offer opportunities for, and challenges to, wide-scale reform and innovation for student learning. Through this landscape analysis, we looked at available surveys and studies to gain understanding of current and potential faculty engagement in particular change efforts that focus on student learning—efforts such as national proficiency initiatives, statewide and regional actions for proficiency-based student learning, and related professional development activities intended to help faculty learn and lead. As “the direct, front-line drivers of student success” (FTI Consulting, 2015: pg. 2), faculty members are critical to all educational change efforts. AAC&U’s Faculty Collaboratives project is supporting a national network of faculty and administrative leaders engaged in progressive efforts for student learning, retention, and success, backed by decades of research and practice. AAC&U intends to empower educators and broaden access to tools and frameworks that foster collaboration and alignment for universal and equitable liberal education.
We have structured this landscape analysis to reflect key foci of the Faculty Collaboratives project—with relevant findings from various resources and reports listed in bullet points, followed by brief discussions. In the appendix (pg. 8), we list these resources and reports on faculty engagement in teaching and learning by their original title and our designated shortened titles—which we use throughout this analysis.
Faculty Engagement with Large-Scale Proficiency Initiatives
· Professional development opportunities that are incentivized and faculty-driven provide critical entry points for faculty members to engage in larger initiatives that are, for instance, grounded in “department or program level assessments” (ISKME, 2012: pg. 2). Fifty-five percent of NILOA faculty survey respondents reported faculty stipends as a factor that would “advance assessment” at the program level (Ewell et al., 2011, pg. 11), noting the “undercapitalized” nature of the work (Ewell et al., 2011, pg. 21).
· The majority of provosts (84%) participating in the 2014 NILOA provost survey reported that their institutions have established common learning outcomes for all students (Kuh et al., 2014: pg. 3; 8). Additionally, there has been an increase in different types of campus assessment activities in the past several years. As of 2014, colleges and universities use an average of five assessment tools and approaches, whereas in 2009, institutions used an average of three assessment approaches (Kuh et al., 2014: pg. 3).
Discussion: Although there isn’t a lot of research that specifically focuses on faculty engagement with large-scale proficiency initiatives, professional development opportunities and related teaching, learning, and assessment practices are critical entry points for faculty involvement in national initiatives (Adelman et al., 2014; Montenegro and Jankowski, 2015). In other words, faculty engagement in departmental or program-based workshops may provide a starting point for what will eventually become deeper faculty connections to national proficiency efforts. For instance, campus change agents who facilitate teaching and learning practices through the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) generally take time to gain faculty “buy-in” prior to introducing the DQP, so that the effort doesn’t feel like “another top-down imposition from administration that faculty feels compelled, but not motivated, to implement” (SACSCOC: pg. 5). This approach was introduced numerous times in faculty development workshops through AAC&U’s Quality Collaboratives (QC) project. This approach is also especially important in the current era of accountability, where common learning outcomes and increased assessment have become the norm on campus.
Faculty Engagement with Campus/Statewide Efforts for Proficiency-Based Student Learning
(a) General education reform/revision, focused on learning outcomes
· In the Compass survey (administered in 2010-2011), faculty “wholeheartedly” agreed that “the foundation for addressing broad goals for student learning in public higher education is the general education curriculum.”
o However, in the same survey, “even with the many initiatives focused on learning outcomes, a healthy minority of faculty [held] on to established ways of structuring general education,” for example, through the credit hour. And, many of the faculty (55%) responded neutrally, when asked about structuring general education “based on completion of distribution requirements, rather than learning outcomes” (Paulson, 2012: pg. 26).
o Additionally, “low-income students and students of color are overrepresented in programs that provide less opportunity for broad learning in general education courses, and are overrepresented in developmental education courses that delay entry into those courses” (Witham et al., 2015: pg. 25).
· In the Compass survey, faculty members heavily “agreed that students are best able to develop skills, both intellectual and practical, across the curriculum by working on progressively more challenging problems and projects” (Paulson, 2012: pg. 27).
· The 2014 NILOA provost survey highlights the importance of gaining “faculty and staff initial buy-in for the assessment agenda” through “examples of good assessment work at the program-level, such as examples of discipline-specific and general education outcomes assessment, as well as how to ‘roll-up’ program-level assessment results to the institution-level to represent student learning.” In this survey, provosts reported a “cultural shift” of “growing faculty engagement,”[2] with potential to connect faculty to student learning through engagement in “promising practices” embedded in general education reform (Kuh et al., 2014: pg. 32).
Discussion: Many faculty understand the importance of general education and progressive student learning and could, therefore, step into general education revision via “a template such as the DQP.” The DQP can help guide faculty through “a curricular mapping process for either the general education program or individual major fields… [and] the key to using such an exercise to full advantage” is placing the emphasis on “the essential role of assignments” (Kuh et al., 2014: pg. 34). Put another way, it’s important to emphasize the work that faculty often (although, not always, as is the case at some community colleges) have core responsibility for. In AAC&U’s Quality Collaboratives project, one of the campus teams, which consisted of two-year and four-year transfer partners, used the Dynamic Criteria Mapping process to connect faculty at all levels, including tenured, non-tenured, and associate faculty, with curricular alignment—and the DQP was used as a tool for common benchmarks of student learning across the two campuses. Two QC campus leaders from this team write about the process here, and address some of the barriers to bringing contingent faculty deeply into the work. While using these tools and frameworks, it’s not only important to bring contingent faculty into the center of the work, it’s also critical to emphasize racial, ethnic, and economic disparities in student engagement with general education outcomes. The key is to “inextricably combine” equitable practices and “advanced pedagogies” with cultural competence and inclusivity (Mack et al., 2015: pg. 8), and place those intersections at the center of faculty work—making faculty “agents of change” on campus (Witham et al., 2015: pg. 30).
(b) Program and course-level assignment design
· The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) “Charrette Model” (Hutchings et al.: 2014, pg. 12-13) brings faculty members together from different institutions through faculty development workshops. Faculty apply to participate in these workshops, and are grouped by similar disciplines, working together to “sharpen” their respective assignments and align them to proficiencies in the DQP (Hutchings et al., 2014: pg. 15).
· Through the Charrette Model, NILOA has been gathering peer-reviewed, adaptable course assignments for the DQP Assignment Library. These assignments are keyed to DQP proficiencies, and are searchable by academic disciplines and assignment characteristics.
Discussion: Assignments are often “the sole province of the faculty” (Kuh, 2014: pg. 3) and assignment design “puts assessment directly in the hands of faculty, who are, after all, best positioned and distinctly qualified to make judgments about the quality of student work” (Hutchings et al., 2014: pg. 6). Assignment design workshops, such as NILOA’s Charrette Model, can provide faculty members the opportunity to connect their assignments to curriculum mapping efforts that address general education and transfer (Hutchings et al., 2014: pg. 14-15). Faculty members and assessment directors have duplicated the Charrette Model on their home campuses or have structured similar workshops through campus projects, placing the emphasis on student learning and inviting faculty to participate through an open call.
(c) Assessment of key student learning outcomes
· In the NILOA provost survey, “provosts rated faculty ownership and involvement as top priorities to advance the assessment agenda” (Kuh et al., 2014, pg. 4).
· Communicating assessment results “within the institution… at faculty meetings or retreats and through the work of assessment committees,” rather than posting results on institutional websites or in publications (Kuh et al, 2014, pg. 3, 19), signals support for faculty members who are engaging in student success efforts—particularly in the current accountability environment.
· When prompted on major reasons for engaging with assessment, over 50 percent of the NILOA faculty survey respondents cited “faculty interest.” Even though “institutional accreditation” was more often cited as a major driver for all respondents (over 60%), faculty are clearly engaged in assessment activities to deepen and benefit student learning. In the same survey, 68 percent of faculty reported using assessments such as capstone projects or rubrics (Ewell et al., 2011, pgs. 8-9).
· Sixty-seven percent of NILOA faculty survey respondents used assessment results for “instructional improvement” (Ewell et al., 2011, pg. 10), 58 percent of faculty respondents in the NSSE survey “used assessment findings to inform evaluation and improvement of their courses” (NSSE, 2014, pg. 20), and 49 percent of faculty respondents in the Compass survey “used student success information from previous courses to improve new courses they taught” (Paulson, 2012, pg. 28). Sixty percent of Compass respondents “agreed that access to data and information on student success, high-impact practices, and demographics for new courses that [they are] teaching would be useful” (Paulson, 2012, pg. 28).
Discussion: Kuh et al. (2014) recommend using assessment activities and results to inform faculty and staff development programs (pg. 35). Many faculty clearly see the benefits of assessment—both assessment of student learning outcomes and student success data from their courses. Across Doctoral, Master’s, Baccalaureate, and Associate’s institutions, provosts reported that “faculty or staff interest in improving student learning” was an important factor for prompting learning outcomes assessment at their institutions (Kuh et al., 2014: pg. 12). How assessment is presented to faculty is additionally critical—via workshops or retreats, for instance, and faculty should have a sense of ownership over the work. As the 2011 NILOA faculty survey importantly demonstrates, faculty are more engaged in assessment efforts “than is frequently believed” (20). Further, almost half of the respondents from the same survey “said learning what other programs are doing with regard to assessment would be helpful” (pg. 11), indicating an expressed interest for faculty collaboration in these efforts. Learning communities, where faculty work together across programs, institutions, or regions, “generate greater buy-in among faculty for the work” and provide a pathway to sustainability of project or program efforts (Kezar, 2015: pgs. 19-20).
(d) Learning-centered student success interventions
· Faculty members focus heavily on intellectual and practical skills in their teaching and learning efforts —with particular emphases on inquiry/analysis, critical/creative thinking, written communication, information literacy, and problem solving (FTI Consulting, 2015, pg. 29; Eagan et al., 2014, pg. 5; Paulson, 2012, pg. 27). (See the list of “Intellectual and Practical Skills” referenced in AAC&U’s Essential Learning Outcomes.)
· Faculty and Student Engagement with High-Impact Practices (HIPs): The majority of HERI survey respondents (69.5%) have worked with undergraduates on a research project; over half (52.9%) have advised student groups engaged in service/volunteer work; 37 percent have taught a capstone course; 21.7 percent have taught a first-year seminar; 13.5 percent have taught a course in diversity/area studies; 7.4 percent have engaged in a learning community (Eagan et al, 2014: pg. 26). Most of the HERI respondents were tenured or on the tenure track, highlighting a need for data on contingent faculty engagement with HIPs. In terms of student engagement, Witham et al. discuss the underrepresentation of low-income students and students of color in many of the HIPs that “provide opportunities to hone intellectual, problem-solving, and ethnical decision-making skills, including undergraduate research and capstone experiences, study abroad, and internships” (2015: pg. 25).
· The HERI survey results reported a decline (by more than five percentage points, since 1989, to 50.6%) in the overall number of faculty relying on lecture in “all” or “most” of their courses (Eagan et al., 2014, pg. 6). For the CCFSSE survey respondents, who hail from community colleges, 30.3 percent reported that 50 percent or more of their class time is spent on lecture. At the same time, digital classroom innovations, such as the flipped classroom, are gaining ground. Faculty are also teaching more courses online at both public and private institutions (Eagan et al, 2014: pg. 3).
Discussion: All faculty members need resources and ongoing support to implement teaching and assessment practices that are learner-centered. Almost two thirds of the HERI faculty survey respondents (again, most of these respondents were tenured or on the tenure track) reported some degree of participation in “activities around enhancing pedagogy and student learning” (Eagan et al., 2014: pg. 26). Although the faculty landscape is still evolving, there needs to be a deeper understanding about what institutions are doing to support contingent faculty in this regard, particularly since these faculty members are increasingly teaching non-traditional and undeserved students—“the fastest growing part of the student body” (FTI Consulting, 2015: pg. 14). As Witham et al. point out, higher education needs to “create equitable access to high-impact practices” for underserved students (2015: 28). The same can be said for contingent faculty access to professional development opportunities that support engagement with those practices. According to the FSSE survey results, faculty who spend more time “working to improve their teaching… had significantly higher learning expectations for their students and more often used effective teaching practices” (FSSE: pg. 20). Contingent faculty are just as devoted to teaching and learning efforts as their tenured and tenure-track (T/TT) counterparts—both contingent and T/TT faculty reported spending “a similar number of hours per week” improving[3] their pedagogical approaches (FSSE, pg. 20). More contingent faculty members would likely engage in faculty development opportunities if an increasing number of campuses made those activities accessible and built them into adjunct and contingent faculty reward structures.[4] T/TT faculty must also be rewarded for engaging in pedagogical activities associated with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. These activities – including efforts to embed and assess HIPs in courses across the curriculum – enhance faculty leadership and support institutional learning goals. For campus practitioners leading professional development activities that focus on HIPs, specifically, Paulson (2012) would caution leaders on their use of jargon or unfamiliar language and encourage practitioners to describe each high-impact practice “in detail rather than simply by short name” (2012: pg. 27). This advice is applicable for all project leaders seeking to effectively communicate teaching and learning practices across different campus initiatives.