Cultivating Collaboration: Practical Measures

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Cultivating Collaboration Practical Measures

• Identifying Practical Activities that Bridge the
  Gap and Identifying Common Learning Outcomes
• IUPUI Multicultural Teaching and Learning
  Institute
• April 23, 2009

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Agenda

• Identify Potential Common Ground
• Potential Areas for Synergy
• Identifying Common Learning Outcomes
• Group Exercise
• Mapping Outcomes
• Modeling a Process
• Assessment Strategies

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Identify Potential Common Ground

• Shared values
• The appreciation of difference
• Shared challenges
• No definitional consensus
• Not central mainstream
• Shared nature of the work
• Inter/multidisciplinary
• Experiential pedagogy
• Shared learning outcomes

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Ingredients of Success

• Visible leadership by president chief academic
  officer
• Committed leadership throughout the institution
• Widespread faculty engagement
• Diversity and Internationalization as top
  institutional priorities
• Policies and practices aligned with the priority
• A commitment to identifying and meeting students
  learning needs
• A culture of assessment

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Potential Synergies

• Student Programming
• Organizational Structures
• Curriculum
• Learning outcomes

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Student Programming

• Conversation series
• Mentoring programs that pair international and
  domestic minority students
• Themed residence halls

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Organizational Structures

• Senior diversity/multicultural officer with
  international oversight
• Senior management team that incorporates
  diversity and international leadership
• Campus committee(s) charged to bridge the gap

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Curriculum

• Faculty incorporating diversity and
  internationalization into pedagogy and syllabi
• Rewarding faculty for bridging the gap
• General education requirements that reflect
  shared nature of work

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Learning Outcomes

• Knowledge content oriented
• Attitudinal sense of being
• Skills

Learning outcomes are the knowledge, skills,
attitudes, and habit of mind that students take
with them from a learning experience.Suskie, L.
(2004). Assessing student learning A common
sense guide. Bolton, MA Anker Publishing
Company.
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Learning Outcomes and Assessment

• Specify learning outcomes
• Review learning opportunities to see if they are
  addressing these outcomes
• Develop and implement a plan to assess student
  achievement of outcomes
• Make improvements in learning opportunities based
  on the findings

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Basic questions addressed by Learning Outcomes
Assessment

• 1. What do we want our students to know and be
  able to do? (knowledge, skills, attitudes)
• 2. Where would students acquire this knowledge
  and these skills and attitudes?
• 3. What is our evidence that students are
  actually achieving these outcomes?

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Identifying Common Learning Outcomes Group
Exercise

• Step One
• Review the list of outcomes, supplementing as you
  wish and then identify three from each category.
• Rank those three
• Step Two
• Share your rankings and try to reach consensus
  about those outcomes most important for your
  graduates
• Step Three
• Reflect about and discuss your group process
• Prepare to share with the full group

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Questions raised by a list of learning outcomes

• For what academic context are these outcomes
  intended? Are they intended for all students
  within this context? Is it realistic to think
  that even a subset might achieve them?
• How can an institution know whether it offers
  appropriate and sufficient learning opportunities
  for students to achieve these outcomes?
• If it does not, does the institution have in its
  faculty the requisite knowledge, skills and
  attitudes to be able to create such learning
  opportunities? What resources are available to
  them to do so?

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Mapping Outcomes

• Review outcomes statements.
• Identify relevant curricular or co-curricular
  programs.
• Note which specific courses or co-curricular
  programs address the outcomes.
• Review the matrix to see to what extent the
  outcomes are addressed.

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Potential Discussion Questions

• Which outcomes are addressed in several places?
  How might integration of student learning between
  these diverse learning opportunities be enhanced?
  
• Which outcomes do not seem to be adequately
  addressed? What courses might lend themselves to
  revision in order to address these outcomes?
• What additional curriculum or co-curricular
  development work may be necessary to ensure that
  students are achieving these outcomes? Who
  needs to be involved? How might they most
  effectively be engaged and supported in their
  work?

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Assessment Strategies Round-Up

• Table discussion
• What assessment methods are currently in use at
  your institution that might be adapted for
  purposes of demonstrating evidence of the
  identified outcomes?
• Reporting Back to Full Group
• What are the most promising assessment methods
  that might be adapted?

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QUESTIONS???
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Brian K. BridgesVice Provost for Diversity,
Access and Equity

• Ohio University bridgesb_at_ohio.edu
  740.593.2431