Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)
Summer Faculty Leadership Institute:
Instructional Strategies and Learning Outcomes
August 1 – 5, 2005
Workshop Summary
The second CTL Summer Leadership Institute was held at the Conference Center, Adelphi from Aug. 1 to Aug. 4. A total of 50 faculty members participated; 9 from Asia, 11 from Europe, 9 from the Adelphi Graduate School, and 21 from the Adelphi undergraduate School. The participants worked on two different tracks; a Multimedia Track and a Writing Track, and also on an Understanding Outcomes Assessment. The Multimedia Track focused on learning skills faculty are able to apply to their WebTycho DE and Web Enhanced classrooms. The Writing Track focused on designing class materials to produce more objective driven outcomes. In order to accomplish the institute's purposes, hands-on exercises were practiced for both the multimedia and writing tracks. The Outcomes Assessments focused on how to achieve students outcomes and faculty acknowledgement of those achievements.
Designing and Assessing Writing Assignments Track
Description and Purpose:
This workshop track builds on the UMUC Writing Initiative to focus on the creation and assessment of writing assignments in every discipline.
Strategies and guidelines for creating compelling writing assignments for research papers, examination questions, essays, and other types of assignments were presented. Another presentation was focused on creating or applying existing grading rubrics to the assessment of assignments.
In the morning, faculty were break into small cross-disciplinary groups and work on the revision of a typical UMUC writing assignment. In the afternoon, faculty were meet in small groups based on their academic discipline and worked to establish discipline-specific criteria for creating effective writing assignments. Based on these criteria, they created an exemplary writing assignment as well as an appropriate grading rubric to accompany it.
Objectives for this track:
- To determine the different needs of UMUC students in the area of writing.
- To reflect on the importance of basing a writing assignment on precise course learning objectives.
- To establish criteria and implement a rubric for creating effective writing assignments applicable to one's discipline and school.
- To create an exemplary writing assignment appropriate for one's discipline and school.
- To create and apply a grading rubric to assess and give feedback on student work.
MORNING ACTIVITY
The purpose of the Writing track morning activity is to present and discuss strategies and guidelines for creating compelling, academically-rigorous writing assignments. In order to achieve this goal, participants will break into five cross-disciplinary groups and work on the revision of a typical UMUC writing assignment.
Writing Assignment Revision
Facilitators: Lisa Bernstein, Beth Mulherrin, Kate Woodward, and Richard Schumaker
Procedure:
- Read the syllabus proved to the group carefully and identified problem areas in the writing assignment.
- As criteria for identifying the problem areas, referred to the presentations we have learned.
- As a group, rewrote and improved the assignment. Refer to the "Checklist for Effective Writing Assignments" provided in the binder.
- Wrote the final outcome on the easel.
Group Presentation
- Explained the nature of the syllabus; the course title and a brief description.
- Explained how and why we redesigned the assignment as we did.
- Gave an account of any special challenges that we encountered in assessing and improving the writing assignment.
AFTERNOON ACTIVITIY
The purpose of the Writing track afternoon activity is to familiarize faculty with the use and development of grading rubrics. For this activity, we will break into five discipline oriented groups and complete the following tasks:
- create appropriate discipline-based assessment criteria
- revise an authentic writing assignment
- crate a rubric by which the revised assignment could be graded
Writing Assignments and Rubrics
Facilitators: Kate Woodword, Jim Booth, Stella Porto, Donna Oti, Andrew Cavanaugh, Chris Sax, and Richard Schumaker
Rubrics: The Basics
Impatica Presentation: http://sensei.ad.umuc.edu/detrain/DE/05workshop/rubrics-imp.html
Break into the discipline-oriented group. Each participant was asked to bring a writing assignment that was somewhat challenging in regard to student outcomes or feedback.
Procedure:
- As a group, choose one of those writing assignments to revise.
- Discussed appropriate general criteria that should be apparent in a well constructed writing assignment in your discipline.
- Revised the selected writing assignment so as to better reflect those criteria, and wrote the new assignment out on the easel provided to your group.
- Used the principles and models presented in the afternoon session, developed a rubric which could be used to assess student work on the chosen assignment and wrote it again on the easel.
Group Presentations
Explained
Your criteria for creating effective writing assignments in your discipline
What changes you made to the revised assignment and why
Why you selected the particular format or model you did to develop your grading rubric
Creating and Integrating Multimedia Track
Description and Purpose
This workshop track focuses on creating and integrating multimedia for the online classroom, using the UMUC faculty toolbox of multimedia software (such as Impatica and Audacity) to produce a well-designed multimedia element for a course. While there will be short presentations and demonstrations, the emphasis will be on hands-on sessions designed to show faculty effective ways to use multimedia, formal planning procedures like storyboarding, and the actual step-by-step process for using specific tools. Faculty will work in pairs to enhance an online classroom with multimedia elements and share their work with the entire group.
Objectives
- To identify the difference ways that multimedia can enhance learning, including the just-in-time "teachable moment" approach
- To analyze the components that comprise effective use of multimedia objects in the classroom
- To acquire the basic skills and how-to for manipulating three multimedia tools
- To learn storyboarding and other planning techniques for multimedia creation
- To enhance an online classroom with multimedia elements
- To compare different approaches to using a tool through viewing samples of multimedia created by the group
Facilitators:
- Theodore Stone - Acting, Associate Provost, OISS
- David P. Johnson – Instructional Technologist, CTL
Software used for this workshop
- Impatica for PowerPoint
- Audacity
- Windows Media Encoder
Please refer to the following site for details about the above software:
http://sensei.ad.umuc.edu/detrain/softwaretable.html
Understanding Outcomes Assessment
Description and Purpose
The final day of the Summer Institute will focus on understanding outcomes assessment and what it means to individual faculty. In the morning, a guest speaker addressed the group. There was be a small-group activity as well as an individual activity related to assessment.
Objectives
- To reflect on the significance of outcomes assessment to an individual faculty member
- To apply a rubric to a sample of student work for the purpose of defining student learning
- To define the components appropriate for student learning for a core learning area
- To survey and analyze one’s own use of assessments in a course
Speaker - Mary Huba: Outcomes Assessment
The morning speaker was Dr. Mary Huba from Iowa State University. She explained that outcomes assessment is simply a means of developing objectives and leading students to meet those objectives. She went on to explain that one benefit is creating a sense of community among similar classrooms, placing the focus on what students are learning. In other words, students in different sections of the same class should expect to learn the same things.
Dr. Huba suggested that each course should begin with a consideration of the most important goals faculty have for their students. This should be followed by the consideration of the types of assignments that will lead to these goals. Each faculty member should accomplish this through discussion with colleagues and students, not just individually.
Assignment
One thing participants were asked to do was to use one of their courses to fill in a rubric for an assessment plan. The categories were:
- Learning outcome/objective (What should students be able to do after completing the course?)
- What assignments will ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn this?
- How and what will be used to assess how well students are learning?
- When will assessment data be collected?
- How often will assessment data be collected?
For questions/comments on learning assessments you may email: learningassessments@umuc.edu.
For now you can find some basic information at the Learning Assessment Center website: http://www.umuc.edu/odell/irahe/arc/1why.html
Asia Division Participants and the summary thoughts:
Bobby Bailey
Andy Boone (staff)
Lowell Brubaker
Frances Fister-Stoga
Enrique Frio
Deb Hullet (CTL Trainer)
Kathleen Redman
Michael Tisher
Yeongok Vanderpool (staff)
Some photos from the Workshop
http://sensei.ad.umuc.edu/detrain/DE/05workshop
In order to view the photos in order, click the first photo and use right arrow on top.
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