Learning from Our Faculty

Learning From Our Faculty

Workshop Findings

General Education Requirement Assessment

September 13, 2013

Intentionality

·  Our GER Learning Outcomes are present in our courses, even in the cases when the courses weren’t designed with them explicitly in mind.

·  We are already using GER outcomes, though not always explicitly. but we’re not always conscious of it.

Integration

·  Not all nine GER Learning Outcomes need to be measured in every course, but each should be covered program-wide.

·  Collaboration within the program as well as across programs and colleges is important.

·  Our GERs are currently in silos. Faculty would like to see a shift in this culture

·  Advising can promote appropriate course-sequencing, keeping in mind that our courses are designed to build off of each other.

·  Should there be a stronger relationship between student learning outcomes across syllabi, CCGs and GERs?

·  It’s important to assess students when they enter and when they leave a program.

Interdisciplinary Approach

·  Faculty collaboration across disciplines and colleges would be helpful.

·  GER Learning Outcomes affect all our courses and are reinforced in non-GER courses.

Awareness

·  We need to raise awareness around GER outcomes,, for faculty, staff, and students.

·  We need to share GER Learning Outcomes with our students and help them understand their importance.

Tools

·  Examples of ways we know student learning has taken place:

o  Comprehensive exams

o  Final research papers

o  Critical reflections

o  Conversations with students

o  Portfolios

·  Written reflections an excellent way to discover the learning across all the GER Learning Outcomes.

·  Impressive assignments are being implemented across campus. It would be great if there was a way to share these.

·  Authentic, holistic, experiential assessments are critical in that they give students the ability to connect personal and professional experiences.

·  A longitudinal approach to assessment is important but difficult because of our transient student population.

·  A significant number of writing assignments are being used to assess GERs. Is it effective to assess our GERs based mostly on writing assignments?

·  A significant amount of learning happens informally (one-on-one) between faculty and students.

·  Rubrics should be flexible enough to adapt to different students and different classes.

Outcomes

·  The first outcome, focused on communication, is critical.

o  Should technology be explicitly stated in the GER outcomes?

o  Is technology covered in outcome one? It’s still necessary to know how to adopt it.

·  Core knowledge is necessary to employ critical thinking that integrates content knowledge and application of knowledge into decision-making.

·  Outcomes 7-9 seem to be more advanced outcomes but are foundational at the entry-level as well.

·  Lifelong learning is important. The university has a leading role in this community and is teaching students to be responsive to their communities both locally and globally.

·  At community campuses, if our focus is on transferability to UAA/UAF, how similar should the GER Learning Outcomes across MAUs be?

Further Questions

·  How can we assess lifelong learning with such a transient student population?

·  How do we evaluate value-added in learning?