Communicating About Liberal Education and Essential Outcomes

1
Communicating About Liberal Education and
Essential Outcomes Network for Academic
Renewal November 2007Savannah, GA
2
Essential Learning Outcomes

• What are the two most important skills you hope
  your students develop as a result of their
  college education?
• What two areas of knowledge would you want to be
  sure every student at your institution studied
  before graduating?
• How do you think your own students would answer
  these same questions?

3
Identifying Communications Challenges

• What are two common misunderstandings or
  challenges you have heard from students or their
  parents about liberal education and/or your focus
  on important outcomes of college?
• If someone came to your colleges Web site for
  the first time, what would be the main message
  they would receive about the most important
  outcomes of college?

4
Liberal Education and Americas Promise

• To engage the public with the nature and
  importance of a contemporary liberal education
• To mobilize support for changes that campuses
  already are making to improve undergraduate
  education and ensure that all students receive an
  engaged and practical liberal education
• To document the outcomes that business leaders
  need in their employees and those that citizens
  need in a diverse democracy
• To assist campuses as they become more
  intentional about ensuring that all students
  receive a liberal education
• To build the capacity of colleges and
  universities to communicate more effectively
  about liberal education and what really matters
  in college
• To document how well students are achieving the
  key goals that characterize a quality liberal
  education

5
Key Learning Outcomes The Emerging Consensus

• Knowledge
• science, social sciences, mathematics,
  humanities, arts, languages, histories
• Intellectual and Practical Skills
• Inquiry and analysis
• critical and creative thinking
• written and oral communication
• quantitative literacy
• information literacy
• teamwork and problem solving

• Personal and Social Responsibility
• civic knowledge and engagement
• intercultural knowledge and competence
• ethical reasoning and action
• lifelong learning
• Integrative Learning
• synthesis and application of knowledge and skills
  to new settings

6
Framing Effective Messages

• Short, concise, memorable
• Relevant to audience
• 7x10
• 3x32
• Know your audience
• Train the messengersGet on the Same Page
• Use them!!! You cant repeat them too much

7
Main LEAP Messages

• There is an emerging consensus about the
  essential learning outcomes college students need
  in todays world.
• A contemporary liberal education is the best way
  to ensure that students achieve these outcomes
• All students need and deserve a liberal
  education.
• We must raise the levels of student achievement
  of these outcomes to meet the demands of a
  volatile economy and globally interdependent
  world.

8
General Communications Tips

• Communicating messages about aims of education
  everyones responsibility
• Students receive messages from multiple locations
  (Web sites, syllabi, faculty, advisors, career
  counselors)
• Messages must be repeated and reinforced in
  multiple settings

9
Know Your Audience LEAP Public Opinion Research

• 4 focus groups each with college-bound high
  school students and advanced college students
  (2004-2005 in Indianapolis, IN, Fairfax, VA,
  Milwaukee, WI, Portland, OR)
• 3 focus groups with employers (2006 Atlanta, GA,
  Fairfax, VA, Milwaukee, WI)
• 2 national pollsbusiness leaders and recent
  graduates (late 2006)

10
What Do Students Think? Selected Focus Group
Findings

• High-school students feel uninformed about the
  college curriculum and uncertain about its
  demands.
• Students focused on choice of major rather than
  important outcomes attainment.
• Student lack understanding of liberal education.
• Once informed of definition of liberal education,
  students embrace concept, but complain that
  reality not living up to ideal.

11
Student Views of Liberal Education

• Broad, well-rounded education
• Freedom to choose courses
• Open-minded
• Political or liberal
• Impractical, less marketable
• Easy
• Waste of time

12
Volunteered Definitions Of Liberal Education

• Its a well-rounded education that exposes you
  to a variety of ideas, disciplines, and fields.
  It encourages appreciation and awareness of a
  variety of fields. It helps create a
  well-rounded individual who is knowledgeable
  about a variety of things. Life is
  interdisciplinary, and so is a liberal education.
  Thus, this type of education is valuable both
  personally and professionally. It also allows a
  person to find and focus on what they truly love
  to study.
  --College student, Portland, OR
• It brings up both liberal arts, which to me
  means a broad education not involving the hard
  sciences. It also means a politically liberal
  education, which is the way a lot of colleges
  are. The professors teaching are often liberal,
  and I think that usually people come out of
  college more liberal than when they came in.
  --College student,
  Alexandria, VA
• The freedom to choose and learn, broad education,
  its not focused on one specific field. Its a
  privilege rather than a right, and offers an open
  door.
  --High school
  student, Alexandria, VA

13
College Students Mixed Reactions To Liberal
Education

• College students embrace the goals and concepts
  of liberal education in theory.
• Benefits of liberal education
• Diversity of curriculum exposure to multiple
  disciplines, complements skills learned in major
• Preparing students for life after graduation
  ability to adapt, tools to meet challenges and
  take advantage of opportunities
• But they also identify a gap between the ideal
  and their own experience with general education
• Dissatisfied with limited options of general
  education
• No sense of connectedness or integration of major

14
What Outcomes of College are Most Important to
Students?Selected Focus Group Findings

• The outcomes of college that prospective and
  current college students think are most
  important maturity, time management, work
  habits, self-discipline, teamwork.
• The outcomes students think are least important
  values, cultural diversity, science, American
  history and culture, computer skills, global
  awareness, civic engagement.
• Students dont connect these outcomes to the
  college curriculum.
• Long-term professional success named
  overwhelmingly as primary reason to go to college

15
What Business Leaders SaySelected Findings from
National Poll

• For success in todays global economy, college
  students need a balance of a well-rounded
  education and knowledge and skills in specific
  fields.
• Employers overwhelmingly endorse key elements of
  a liberal education as essential to success in
  todays global economy.
• 63 agree that too many recent college graduates
  do not have the skills to be successful in
  todays global economy

16
Employers Top Priorities For Increased Emphasis
By Colleges

• saying colleges should put more emphasis on
  each learning outcome

Science and technologydevelopments Teamwork
skills indiverse settings Applied knowledge
inreal-world settings Written/oral
communication Critical/analytical thinking Global
issues Information literacy Creativity/innovation
17
Employers Other Areas In Need Of More Emphasis
By Colleges

• saying colleges should put more emphasis on
  each learning outcome

Complex problem solving U.S. role in the
world Quantitative literacy Ethics and
integrity Cultural values/traditions Civic
engagement Foreign language skill Democracy/govern
ment
18
Real-World Application Of Knowledge And Skills Is
Seen As Critical

• Employers
• They students learn the book knowledge
  its all theory its not actual practice, and I
  do believe we need more practice.
  Atlanta business executive
• I think internships do an amazing job in
  terms of educating people versus your day-to-day
  everyday sitting in a class learning from a
  book. Fairfax business executive
• Recent graduates
• 60 of graduates engaged in an internship.
• 88 rate it as very (56) or fairly (32)
  important in preparing them for their
  professional and career goals.
• 51 of graduates engaged in leadership of an
  on-campus student organization.
• 79 rate it as very (42) or fairly (37)
  important in preparing them for their
  professional and career goals.

19
Educational Approach Assessment
How important is it for todays colleges and
universities to provide the type of education
described below?
This particular approach to a four- year college
education provides both broad knowledge in a
variety of areas of study and more in-depth
knowledge in a specific major or field of
interest. It also helps students develop a sense
of social responsibility, as well as intellectual
and practical skills that span all areas of
study, such as communication, analytical, and
problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated
ability to apply knowledge and skills in
real-world settings.
Employers
Not sure
Less/not important
Very important
Fairly important
76 of employers would recommend this type of
education to a young person they know.
20
What Skills do Human Resource Professional Think
Entry-Level Job Seekers Lack?

• Written Communication 45
• Critical Thinking 27
• Other (interpersonal skills) 27
• Time Management 9
• Computer/Technology 5
• Listening 5
• Verbal Communication 0
• Source Challenger, Gray Christmas, 2007

21
Messages That Work

• Liberal education outcomes are key to success in
  todays global economy.
• Narrow training is not enough.
• Students must gain broad knowledge and have
  multiple opportunities to hone skills over time
  and in real-world settings.

22
Messages That Work

• Liberal Education outcomes are important because
  students are likely to change jobs multiple times
• Liberal education introduces students to multiple
  perspectives and develops their own independent
  critical judgment.
• Students neednt choose either a liberal
  education or preparation for professional
  successboth forms of education can be pursued
  together in mutually reinforcing ways.

23
Liberal Education and Americas Promise

• www.aacu.org/leap
• Debra Humphreys
• humphreys_at_aacu.org