Category: Blog

Queen’s University (Kingston) has published a report for a four-year project on Learning Outcomes Assessment funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The findings are important not just for Queen’s University but for the higher education sector as a whole. The project demonstrated that there was a measurable increase in students’ abilities in higher order cognitive skills like critical thinking, problem solving and written communication across a four-year degree. The … [Read more...]

By Doug Ward   From the trenches, the work to improve college teaching seems interminably slow. Those of us at research universities devote time to our students at our own peril as colleagues who shrug off teaching and service in favor of research earn praise and promotion. When we point out deep flaws in a lecture-oriented system that promotes passive, shallow learning, we are too often told that such a system is the only way to educate large numbers of students. We seemingly write the … [Read more...]

By George Rehrey, Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) faculty members were recognized at this year’s Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK) for their contributions to the emerging field of learning analytics. Their work in furthering student success at IUB was featured in a paper titled Implementation of a Learning Analytics Fellows Program, which received the Best Practitioner Long Paper award from a review committee representing the Society for … [Read more...]

by Doug Ward, University of Kansas Over recent months, the assessment of student learning outcomes has been taking a beating. Many visitors to this site may have seen, for example, the New York Times op ed piece by Molly Worthen, entitled “The Misguided Drive to Measure ‘Learning Outcomes." Worthen’s view is no doubt shared by some faculty on some campuses but it has also prompted a flurry of counterpoints. One of those follows here, from Doug Ward, a BVA member from the University of Kansas, … [Read more...]

One of the central themes of the Bay View Alliance is the importance of effective leadership in supporting and sustaining the widespread adoption of teaching approaches that lead to better student learning. This piece explores how leaders can tap into and accelerate what John Kotter calls the "Thrive Channel." While the call for change is often met with a "flight or fight" response (the "Survive Channel"), the Thrive Channel evokes positive emotions and helps people focus on perceived … [Read more...]

In the Fall of 2017, Queen’s launched the “Cognitive Assessment Redesign” (CAR), a Learning Outcomes Assessment Consortium 2 initiative, funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. The CAR project features an integrated support network to expand learning opportunities and tailoring assessment to directly target the skills of critical thinking, creative thinking and problem solving. Instructors from 25 first and fourth year courses expressed interest in redesigning assignments to … [Read more...]

by Mary Taylor Huber and Pat Hutchings This essay is one in a series of blogs in which the authors reflect on themes drawn from their in-depth case studies of four departments at four institutions participating in the Bay View Alliance’s TRESTLE initiative. As higher education has grown and diversified over the past thirty to forty years, the professoriate has grown and diversified as well. One well known, and to many disturbing, aspect of this trend is the growing proportion of faculty in … [Read more...]

by Hillary Hart, Distinguished Sr. Lecturer, Director, Faculty Innovation Center, UT Austin Undergraduate education at the University of Texas at Austin includes a wide and growing array of immersive, engaging learning experiences led by faculty. The UT Faculty Innovation Center (FIC) suggests that providing experiential learning opportunities means creating assignments and activities based on real-life situations or primary research that engage students in reflective, data-driven … [Read more...]

Changing the Culture to Recognize and Reward Teaching at Research Universities by Doug Ward Research universities generally say one thing and do another when it comes to supporting effective teaching. That is, they say they value and reward high-quality teaching, but fail to back up public proclamations when it comes to promotion and tenure. They say they value evidence in making decisions about the quality of instruction but then admit that only a small percentage of the material faculty … [Read more...]

by Doug Ward When Mark Mort began remaking a 100-level biology course at the University of Kansas a few years ago, he asked instructors who had taught the class what they thought students needed. “Not surprisingly, the answers were very much content, content, content,” said Mort, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant involving several universities in the Bay View Alliance. Then he went to … [Read more...]