Sketching our own ZU Design for Student Learning Insights from: Global Positioning Essential Learning, Student Success and the Currency of U.S. Degrees97th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities

San Francisco, California January 26 – 29, 2011

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Conference Word Cloud

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Interdisciplinary

High Impact Practices

Accountability

Intentionality

Faculty Development

Learning Outcomes

Learning-centeredRubrics

Trading Zones

IntegrationPKAL

LEAP

STEM AssessmentLumina Foundation

Competencies

Degree Qualifications Profile

Student Success

Key Highlights of the Conference•Pre-Meeting Symposium: Integrating the

Arts, Sciences and Humanities•Workshop: This is your campus on

Assessment•Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on

College Campuses•Roadmap for Student Success•Lumina Foundation’s Proposed Degree

Qualifications Profile

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Pre-Meeting Symposium: Integrating the Arts, Sciences and Humanities

•Trade knowledge – trading zones •Different disciplines working together so that

each person has deep knowledge of own discipline, working knowledge of others’.

•Real world problems require interdisciplinary thinking and different perspectives

•Examples from different universities: DNA Dance at James Madison University; some universities use industry as outside experts who assess real-world problems assigned to students.

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Workshop: This is your campus on Assessment•As Zayed University prepares for its 2nd

self-study for Middle-States re-accreditation, assessment is in the minds of many.

•Must address the big questions: ▫What are we doing? ▫Is what we are doing helping students

learn?

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Approaches to Assessment

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Cave dwellers Champions

Cultural Components of Meaningful Assessment

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ThinkingHavingDoing

Objects & Symbols

Values & Customs

Language

Knowledge

•Different institutions create their own brand of assessment.

What is the story we want to tell?

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What are the goals you want

to reach?

How will you know if you have good

enough evidence?

How do you plan to use the

evidence?

Basic Logic Model in Assessment

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Inputs/Resources Activities/Processes

Outputs Outcomes

Resources needed for activities

Actions necessary to produce outputs

Products used to assess outcomes

Expected changes & Benefits

What is needed to start or keep going?

What activities need to occur to produce evidence?

What can be counted as evidence of change?

What are you trying to change?

• Human• Financial•Technology

• Written work• # hours• presentation

• Short-term• Intermediate • Long-term

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

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• Are undergraduates really learning anything once they get to college? According to Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, the answer is no.

• According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college.

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

• Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators this finding will come as no surprise—instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list.

• They found the following measures associated with learning:▫ Faculty expectations ▫ Course requirements (reading and writing)▫ Studying alone▫ College majors: Social Science/Humanities and Science/Math

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Roadmap for Student Success

Student Success

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Essential Learning OutcomesCross Divisional Collaboration

Program IntegrationHigh Impact Practices

Assessment

Lumina Foundation: Proposed Degree Qualifications Profile•There has been a silence on the content of

student learning.•Quality of a student’s education is the key to

future opportunity for students and society alike.

•Four strategies for raising student achievement:▫Essential Learning Outcomes▫High Impact Practices▫Authentic Assessments▫Inclusive Excellence

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Lumina Foundation: Proposed Degree Qualifications Profile•Degree Qualifications Profile defines what

US degrees at various levels (associate, bachelor and master’s ) in terms of what students know and can do with their knowledge.

•Currently, standards are measured by credit-hours.

•Degree profile sets a shared framework for high standards based on essential learning outcomes.

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References

•www.luminafoundation.org•ww.aacu.org•AAC&U Statement on the Lumina

Foundation for Education’s Proposed Degree Qualifications Profile (January 2011)

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