Friday, December 3, 2010

Start Leading and Stop Profiling

Guest Blogger: Bob Millette

The challenges for Historically Black Colleges and Universities are varied and complex, and they require the energies, management and leadership skills of the entire university. Administrators should seek to harness the creative energies, academic skills, community and political support of friends and foes alike (Millette 2002, p. 107). Michael Fullan (2001) said that the more complex society becomes, the more sophisticated leadership must become. "Failing to act when the environment around you is radically changing leads to extinction... schools are beginning to discover that new ideas, knowledge creation and sharing are essential to solving learning problems in rapidly changing societies… Thus, leaders in business and education face similar challenges- how to cultivate and sustain learning under conditions of complex, rapid change... Leadership required in a culture of change, however, is not straightforward ...Leaders must be able to operate under complex, uncertain circumstances..." (Fullan 2001, pp. IX-XIII).

In times of economic, political, student, or social unrest, we need leaders who are capable of challenging and mobilizing the university community to "face the problems, and develop practical and visionary approaches to solve them..." (Interview with a Dean of Business at Clark Atlanta University, 2002).

Effective leaders, according to Fullan (2001), "make people feel that even the most difficult problems can be tackled productively. They are always hopeful--conveying a sense of optimism and an attitude of never giving up in the pursuit of highly valued goals. Their enthusiasm and confidence (not certainty) are, in a word, infections, and they are infectiously effective... in their day-to-day behavior... Leaders will increase their effectiveness...if they pursue moral purpose, understand the change process, develop relationships, foster knowledge building, and strive for coherence-with energy, enthusiasm and hopefulness…” (pp. 7-11). Our research found several college and university presidents, vice presidents, and deans who were "leaders without followers" (Interview 2003). As a result, there is a lack of administrative and programmatic continuity at several Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A former vice president for academic affairs and a history professor for nearly 40 years said that the failure of some administrators to seek to reach "common ground" with the faculty and students has resulted in the death of excellent administrative initiatives, academic programs and centers of excellence.

The Need for Visionary Leadership at LU

Some college and university presidents lead by attempting to manage and control the faculty by manipulation, force, direct and indirect threats, the withholding of certain academic incentives, and administrative and bureaucratic means. The "Gamesman Administrator" (Millette 2002) is interested in winning at any cost. He/she governs by "fiat" and "favors" and not by established principles of the academy. The Gamesman Administrator is usually not committed to deeply held beliefs, principles, patterns of behavior, management and administrative guidelines. This type of administrator is always on the lookout for individuals (faculty, students, staff or other administrators) who would assist him/her in managing and manipulating the actions, thoughts and behavior of social actors (pp. 103-104). In addition, the Gamesman becomes so carried away with the game that he/she acts like a jungle fighter. "In some cases, the game becomes reality for the Gamesman. In such cases, the mission, vision and goals of the institution take a back seat to the administrator's personal desire to win" (Millette 2002, p. 104).

Responding to Middle States: Some Recommendations

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education report (November 18, 2010) could be seen as a “wake up call” for Lincoln University. In my view, the report “forces” the institution to pay more attention to assessment of student learning, data analysis and sustainable development. In this regard, the university might want to consider the following:

How to harness the creative energies, leadership and expertise of the faculty. We need to consider having a faculty retreat to discuss how best to position Lincoln to meet the challenges of a changing world.

How to involve the campus community in the decision making process. Shared governance could be used as a mechanism to harness the energies and expertise of the campus community. Imagined or real, some of us feel that our expertise in areas such as fundraising admission, planning and development are not being fully utilized.

How to create a vibrant and academically stimulating campus community. We have to change the widely held image that “Lincoln University is a party school”

Deep and sustained reforms require commitment and involvement from everyone. Leadership knows no racial or religious bounds, no ethnic or cultural borders. We find exemplary leadership everywhere we look. Successful leaders seek to accomplish the following:
  • Model the way
  • Inspire a shared vision
  • Challenge the process
  • Enable others to act
  • Encourage the heart

In modeling the way, leaders must be guided by a moral, philosophical and ethical compass. We agree with Kouzes and Posner (2003) that it is your behavior and not your title that will win you respect. "Exemplary leaders know that if you want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must be models of the behavior they expect of others... Leaders must be clear about their guiding principles...Leaders are supposed to stand up for their beliefs... have some beliefs to stand up for...Exemplary leaders go first. They go first by setting the example through daily actions that demonstrate that they are deeply committed to their beliefs..." (pp. 4-5).

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Teaching with Technology

Guest blogger: Maribel Charle Poza

Teaching with Technology

When one looks around Lincoln University these days, there is little doubt that, as far as technology is concerned, we are in a new era. As new buildings rise and others are renovated, we find our classrooms equipped with the best and the newest that instructional technology has to offer. Our old blackboards were replaced by smart boards. We went from maybe having a television monitor in the classroom to having unlimited access to a computer connected to the Internet. At the language laboratory, we moved from cassette tapes to digital files and from CDs to streaming audio from the Internet. Next semester, the university will migrate our online content from obsolete WebCT to new and exciting Desire 2 Learn.

This technological transformation offers a world of possibilities, but also comes with great challenges. Many find themselves wondering if the benefits compensate for the expensive and time consuming nature of teaching with technology. The learning curve can be steep for some, while for others it is hard to find useful ways to incorporate the new tools into their current teaching. Finally, appropriate use of the technology by students can become an issue, especially in those classrooms that double up as computer labs.

It is my hope that the answers to the two questions that I pose in this posting and the comments from the faculty will help those who find themselves at a loss when it comes to integrating technology. The premise of this posting is that while I acknowledge the challenges that come with technology, I believe that it is after all only a tool and that it is the user who determines if it enhances or hinders the teaching and learning process.

Why should I use technology in my teaching?

There are many possible answers to this question. Some would say that if technology is available and a great investment has been made, then it must be used. Others may say that technology is present in the student culture and that we should capitalize on that fact to motivate our learners. A few may point to the fact that there is a great deal of pressure in academia to use technology, as shown in the majority of position announcements in our profession.

These are all valid answers, but they miss the real value of technology integration: We must use technology to provide better learning opportunities to our students. In other words, technology must always be at the service of good teaching, either enhancing our current practices, or allowing us to teach our students in new ways. Therefore, before we decide whether to use a specific tool we must always ask ourselves this question, will this technology improve the teaching and learning process or is it just innovative but non-essential?

How are you using technology?

These are a few examples of how I have used technology at the service of my teaching. I use the communicative approach to language teaching, so my main goal is to provide additional opportunities for my students to communicate in Spanish:
Course Management Software (WebCT): I have integrated this technology to create computer-mediated communication opportunities to my students through the use of tools such as chat rooms and bulletin boards. I have also used WebCT to expose students to authentic input in Spanish through the integration of audio and video files in the language with myself and teaching assistants as actors.

Language Laboratory Technology: Elementary and intermediate Spanish courses include weekly laboratory sessions where students are exposed to different varieties of the language in different formats. Students listen to different varieties of the language, they view educational and authentic videos, and they record themselves speaking in Spanish.

Smart Boards: The addition of this tool to our classrooms has helped me to provide high-quality visual aids to improve student comprehension of the Spanish language. It has also served to increase student motivation and knowledge by becoming a window to the culture of Spanish-speaking countries.

These are by no means the only ways that I could have used the tools available and I am constantly seeking new methodologically-sound means to enhance my teaching through the use of technology. However, I know that most of us on campus are making excellent use of the technologies that we have available. It would be very helpful for all of us to share our ideas in this blog for others to read and maybe adapt to their classes. Please write your comments to this posting and add your ideas on how to make the best use of technology and how to overcome some of the challenges.

Monday, November 22, 2010

LU Faculty’s Interests and Concerns Parallel Those across the Nation

Guest Blogger: Jim DeBoy

In perusing the last few months of Academe, I was rather surprised by the “hot topics” in higher education, in that those selected for publication were virtually identical to the issues and concerns that have flummoxed us these past three or four months. While the articles themselves may not lead us to the promised land where all students maximize their abilities and talents, the authors do confirm that our difficulties/challenges are shared by most of our counterparts on other campuses. Maybe commiseration is beneficial.

This report will be an attempt to identify some of those issues that faculty (Lincoln and others) deem important and, perhaps more to the point, expend a great deal of time and effort. There is no attempt here to supply answers to the questions raised; I will opt for the Socratic instructional technique and construct additional questions to ones raised by Academe contributors. There are 23 questions in all and, like most important issues in life, there will undoubtedly be more than one reasonable response. Happy problem solving!

1. College Rankings
a. Is a college’s “quality” almost fully determined by its selectivity in admissions?

b. Is not selectivity closely related to first-year students’ SAT scores?

c. Are not college ranking formulae heavily weighted by SAT scores?

d. Are not “high-scoring” SAT students likely from “high-earning” parents?

e. Should not colleges be evaluated for what they actually do for students once they arrive on campus?

f. Should not value-added impact supersede admissions criterion as a factor in rankings?

g.Why do US News & World Report rankings criteria differ for HBCUs (polling of HBCU presidents and provosts)?

h. Want LU to jump in those rankings? Hire 20 more fulltime faculty members, thereby decreasing both faculty-student ratio and number of classes that exceed 50 enrollees


2. Teaching
a. Are colleges truly committed to effective teaching?

b. Do publications and obtaining external funding warrant more consideration for tenure/promotion than teaching?

c. Does knowledge of one’s field make one knowledgeable how to teach it well?

d. Is not teaching effectiveness comprised of the ability to master and articulate the content and control classroom dynamics?

e. Should not new faculty be mentored in educational assessment, classroom management, curriculum development, and student advising?

f. When do students learn best? (Hint: personal investment, active engagement,prompt, helpful feedback, and cooperative learning with peers and faculty)

g. Does assessment of teaching effectiveness (for promotion/tenure purposes) consist only of student end-of-semester course evaluations and chair’s observations?

3. Assessment of Student Learning

a. Is the ultimate assessment goal of “corporate-model” higher education to identify and administer one high-stakes test for all students? And then use those results to reward or punish faculty?

b. Will decisions about promotion and tenure be judged solely by learning outcomes (at least the teaching effectiveness component)?

c. Should not faculty/administrators be more concerned what students did not know/could not do when they first entered college ? (the so-called “value-added” effect )

d. If assessment of student learning is here to stay, how can we increase faculty interest and expertise in the assessment process?

e. Are all faculty presently capable and willing of making informed judgments about curriculum and academic standards? (These duties do fall under the auspices of faculty)

f. Has the government begun replacing both institutional and faculty judgment in academic matters?

g. What happens if/when government succeeds in controlling regional accreditors, e.g., Middle States?

h. Are learning goals in the liberal arts diametrically opposed to the culture of assessment (as some have proposed)?

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Using Technology to Address Student Differences

Guest Blogger: Frank Worts

The university, faculty and students have invested much time and resources into technology as tools for better learning. After review of the Facility Planning Website, I have identified four areas that might lead to further faculty discussion and better differentiated learning for students.

Tomlinson (1995) describes differentiated instruction (DI) as “a flexible approach to teaching in which the teacher plans and carries out varied approaches to the content, the process, and/or the product in anticipation of and in response to student differences in readiness, interests, and learning need” (p. 10).

As I reviewed the material on the , four important issues caught my attention which might provide a framework for using technology to address student differences.

One is the importance of identifying the educational philosophy and methods of learning and teaching of a given department and instructors, before undertaking the discussion of technology. A technology plan can’t be planned in a vacuum;it needs the context for a proper vision to be defined (Brown & Lippincott, 2003).

Second, more and more learning is taking place outside of the physical classroom, especially in higher education. Thus, the meaning of “Classroom” must be defined not so much as a physical space but more of a learning continuum of physical to virtual space. It has to be something that is movable within the bounds of a traditional classroom space, but that seamlessly evolves to other spaces and virtual spaces where individuals continue the learning process. Thus information that is developed should be easily transported from any segment on this continuum.

Third, learning is more and more perceived of as an active, social, collaborative constructive process that requires learning tools that are portable and that encourage debate and discussion, incorporating real life data as well as theory into the learning process in synchronous and non-synchronous media.

Four, the level and number of actors with a say in the process make the planning process more important, and necessitate a broad grassroots continuous process with feedback based on data collected from real educational activities within the educational process. This last point fits nicely into the University’s focus on evaluation. As the NLII White Paper (2004) indicates, administration, faculty, students, facilities management, planning department, information technology, library, teaching and learning support, community, business leaders, and politicians should all be a part of the technology planning process.

______________

Brown, M. B., & Lippincott, J. K. (2003). Learning spaces; More than meets the eye. Educause Quarterly, 1, 14-16.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1995). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Monday, November 8, 2010

A Luddite Defense of the Book

Guest Blogger: Steve McCullough

In the history department, we believe one of our missions is to prepare our majors for either law school or graduate school. While I cannot speak of what it takes to succeed in law school, as someone who earned his doctorate in 2007, I feel I am qualified to speak how we can help our students thrive in graduate school. And for me, the answer is more reading.

One of the shocks many first year graduate school students face is the amount of reading they are expected to do on a weekly basis. In history, learning historiography, the essential literature, is just as important as research skills. By the time a grad student reaches his/her comprehensive exam, they are expected to have read or have knowledge on an estimated 300 books.

So can we help out graduates excel in their further studies? I am firmly convinced that one way is to have a reading load of at least three books, excluding textbooks, in almost all history undergraduate classes. While weekly reading of primary source materials is a key ingredient of helping students place historical events into context, we also need to challenge them by assigning monograph length works that examine important topics or people.

When I took my first history class as a freshman at New Mexico State University in 1988, among the books I was assigned was Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972. At the time the names of George McGovern and Richard Nixon only brought vague recollections of political discussions in my house long ago. Thompson made me realize that the 1972 was one of the most exciting in recent history, even though at the end, he admitted McGovern supporters deluded themselves in thinking he was electable. I realized then that I wanted to spend my life exploring the past.

I realize how in today’s world reading books seems passé, perhaps even obsolete. Students are reading less and less in K-12 as teaching to the standardized tests has gripped schools. Students come into college able to take multiple choice tests, but have little or no experience in reading monograph length works. To me, the lack of historical knowledge is something easily fixable by taking classes. The hard part is teaching critical thinking, including the ability to read a book and offer informed analysis.

To that end, in each of my classes, students are expected to read three books and then write a critical thinking paper based on books of topics I want my students to learn greater knowledge of then I could offer in lecture. For my U.S. History to 1865 class, I used Gordon Wood’s The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin to illustrate how the American colonists in the 18th century went from considering themselves loyal British subjects to creating a new national identity as Americans. I next assigned Peter Kolchin’s American Slavery: 1619-1877 to more fully explore not only how slavery changed from colonial to the antebellum period, but to also discover the world the slaves made. Finally, I used James McPherson’s For Cause and Comrade: Why Men Fought in the Civil War to offer a glimpse into the world of Civil War soldiers. For most classes I assign at least one book on war because of how removed we are as a society from war with the end of the draft in the 1970s and the creation of a volunteer armed forces. I often fear that students only understanding of war comes from popular video games such as Medal of Honor or Call of Duty.

As I end this blog post, I realize I use only anecdotal evidence to make my case. I can offer no research or evidence to support my argument other then personal experiences. But I firmly believe that to help out students succeed in the next stage of their education when they leave Lincoln University, we must prepare them for the rigors of graduate and law schools. And even if our graduates chose not to pursue further degrees, it is vital that we help create not only well informed citizens, but well read ones as well.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Integrating Undergraduate Research into the Curriculum at Lincoln University: Advantages and Challenges

Guest Blogger: Derrick Swinton

The discussion regarding integrating research into the curriculum at Lincoln University has intensified. Several factors have contributed to this discussion with the most important being the completion of the new science building, the establishment of the Centers of Excellence, mandates and resolutions by the Board of Trustees (resolution whereby LU graduates should be prepared for acceptance into a top 50 graduate or professional school, the charge for LU to be amongst the top 10 HBCUs), the overall financial stability of the university, and more importantly the retention and persistence to graduation of LU students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The topic is very relevant and should take precedence on the agendas of those discussing LU’s future.

It must be noted that although Lincoln University has primarily been an undergraduate teaching institution, faculty at LU have historically engaged in research activities, as is evidence by faculty publications, research quality equipment owned by the Science Departments, and the fact that LU, in its prime, has produced many of the nation's African American medical doctors, scientists, and mathematicians. The list of LU alumni who have impacted the scientific and medical fields is numerous and includes such alumni as Hildrus A. Poindexter, the first African American to receive both an M.D. (Harvard University, 1929) and a Ph.D. (Bacteriology, Columbia University, 1932); Nathan Francis Mossell (1856-1946), the first African-American to earn a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and Member of the Niagara Movement, and others. The aforementioned achievements were unprecedented during the beginning of the 20th century and remain one of LU’s proud achievements. Provided such achievements, it is difficult to envision that at some point in time LU science faculty weren’t actively engaged in research and research integrated into the curriculum. There are other factors that contributed to the success of these students at that time; nevertheless, it is important to note and recognize the significance of research and its impact on the training of our students. With that being said, the dialogue regarding this matter should continue and take priority, concurrently, with other matters.

The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies, noted the importance of undergraduate research (UR) and have adopted programs to support and stimulate UR activities, especially at primarily undergraduate teaching institutions. In fact LU is the recipient of various grants to support and stimulate UR. Nonetheless, challenges remain at LU in making the transition from primarily an undergraduate teaching institution to an institution with an active and effective undergraduate research program. Additionally challenges remain in integrating research into the curriculum. A few of challenges are listed.

1. Administrative Structure.
a. Despite support and efforts by the administration to address the topic, LU does not have a centralized office or position fully dedicated to advancing undergraduate research.
b. The administration has not been fully committed to undergraduate research or made it a priority.
c. The administration and faculty may not be familiar with the impact of undergraduate research on retention and persistence to graduation of minority STEM students.

2. Faculty Engagement
a. For various reasons some faculty aren’t interested in conducting research.
b. Some professors do not have the training, experience, and aptitude to conduct research.

3. CBA
a. The CBA is limited in scope and does not encourage scholarship, post tenure.
b. An incentive to conduct research is lacking.
c. Faculty receive an across the board salary despite performance reviews and pledge to support the LU community at-large, thus encouraging mediocrity, and placing the workload and burden on a few faculty.

4. Students
a. Students aren’t familiar with the expectations related to their career choices.
b. Students aren’t exposed to and are aware of the impact of undergraduate research on their understanding of classroom concepts.
c. Limited on-campus opportunities exist for students interested in conducting research.

Note, the commentary is not intended to be derogatory or an affront to anyone or any group, but is intended to encourage the LU community to continue its efforts to remain competitive and address the issues (retention, graduation rate, student preparedness, degree prestige) important to all of its constituencies: students, administrators, faculty, alumni, and the community at-large. In order to accomplish any initiatives undertaken by the administration and faculty, the issue of undergraduate research should be discussed because it impacts academic competitiveness, student achievement, and LU financial stability/sustainability. To begin the discussion, a few questions are presented and references provided for review.
1. What are some of the existing impediments to LU making the transition?

2. Can LU remain academically competitive and financially stable without some level of research activities?

3. Should LU consider offering a M.S. degree in the Natural Sciences?

4. Should there be differentiated pay scales for faculty who write and receive grants?

5. Should there be a thesis requirement for graduation?



References:
Jones, M.T., Barlow, A. E. L., Villarejo, M. (2010). Importance of Undergraduate Research for Minority Persistence and Achievement in Biology. The Journal of Higher Education, 81(1), 82-115

Gandara, P., Maxwell-Jolly, J. (1999). Priming the pump: Strategies for increasing the achievement of underrepresented minority undergraduates. New York: College Board.

Grandy, J. (1998). Persistence in science of high-ability minority students: results of a longitudinal study. The Journal of Higher Education, 69, 589–620.

Hunter, A. B., Laursen, S. L., Seymour E. (2007) Becoming a scientist: The role of undergraduate research in students' cognitive, personal, and professional development. Science Education, 91(1), 36-74.

Nagda, B.A., Gregerman, S.R., Jonides,J., Hippel, William von, Lerner, J.S. (1998). Undergraduate Student-Faculty Research Partnerships Affect Student Retention. The Review of Higher Education 22(1), 55-72

Russell, S. H., Hancock, M. P., McCullough, J. (2007). The pipeline - Benefits of undergraduate research experiences. Science, 316(5824), 548-549.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Keeping the Essence of What Makes Us Humane:

The Beauty and Brilliance of the Humanities in All Educational Institutions and Its Importance to the World

Guest Blogger: Nicole Stephens

I walked down the street yesterday morning and I saw a yellow flower and the flower began to dance!
I looked out the window and the tree that greets me every morning started to sing!!
I was sitting in the park and a blue bird started speaking French to me!
Each time I experienced those profound meetings, I smiled, and my heart was filled with glee!!
Oh -where would I be if I did not have that flower, tree, bird- dance, sing, and speak French to me!!

I’m simply tired of the disrespect-the disrespect of what makes us humane! As educators, I often ponder- do we really examine what makes our students (us) get up in the morning and what helps them (us) go to sleep at night? My current blog will help some understand my deep and profound concern about how the humanities and liberal arts education at the university level, K-12 education, and even the world is embraced-I mean truly embraced on a level that helps us understand the importance of what makes us human.

I was reading the New York Times just the other day and I wanted to scream. I had to take a deep breath. The headline under the opinion section read: Do Colleges Need French Departments (October 17, 2010)? It caught my attention, mainly because I majored in International Studies (French) and studied Biology as an undergraduate at North Carolina A & T in Greensboro and I wanted to know what issue they had now about this important major. The article went on to explain that The State University of New York at Albany is cutting most all their foreign language degree majors (French, Italian, Classics, and Russian) and their theatre program. The article focused on cutting the humanities in general from educational institutions not only at this particular university, but universities and colleges all over the United States, because of budget issues.

In my humble opinion, nothing that makes us humane should be cut from the budget from higher education or K-12 educational institutions. Many reading this blog may say that this is not realistic or even sensible when you consider the fact that we are in a technologically driven world that must focus mainly on math, sciences, business, and other majors that are “more important” and bring in more money to the institution. These STEM majors and skills related to them are vitally and profoundly important if we are to survive in this century and beyond. However, I am a firm believer that the humanities are what make us competent, creative, interesting, and even wonderfully profound for all that teach them, take them, or just even embrace them.

At NC A & T, my soul became more beautiful (full of knowledge and deep hunger about many different things) and so did all my other peers that took a similar path. I did not major in education as an undergraduate. However, I took the PRAXIS (formerly NTE) exam and passed with flying colors, simply because of the make-up of the test during that time. The test focused on how much I knew about the Liberal Arts. I passed not because of brilliance or because I belong to MENSA but because of my education in the humanities. My interests grew in many areas including business and biology. Creativity is needed for marketing. The body is a creative gift that moves in lovely ways. I took French, Spanish, History, Art, Music, Philosophy, and any thing that made me smile and then I was able to understand those things that made me marketable for the world today.

This takes me back to my opening blog statement-what makes our students (us) get up in the morning. It is the music that greets us on our alarm clocks and cell phones. It is the dance that we (our students) cannot wait to get to on Friday night, but know that we must be successful on the Chemistry test or finish checking the test so we can enjoy our “night of creative flow.” How many of us cannot wait until we see that special play on Broadway or that basketball player fly poetically to the basket net?

As educators, do we take the time to tell our students to look out the window and admire the natural beauty that the Creator has given us for free?

Educational institutions must find a way to keep humanities in our arenas. It is what keeps us sane and it is what keeps the world humane.

Monday, October 11, 2010

The Mission of the Writer's Studio: Your Help Requested

Guest blogger: William Donahue

My goal in this post is to involve the Lincoln University community in writing the mission statement for the Roscoe Lee Brown Writer’s Studio. Located in University Hall B-3 with hours this semester on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 p.m. and Wednesdays from 4 until 6 p.m., the RLB Writer’s Studio is based on a writing center model—a collaborative place to create better writers. We offer non-evaluative, one-on-one consultations on any writing matters, for any student at any level, as well as specialty workshops for groups. We also house the English Department’s component of the Humanities Tutoring Program in the core.

Let me start with an anecdote from a class in that core:

In yet another English Composition II class, this first day of midterm week, I explained my “revision” midterm assignment. Students need to take their short story analysis essay, write a revision, then write a meta-cognitive reflection of how they attempted to revise each graded entity on the rubric (thesis, support, etc), and finally address grammar and punctuation issues by writing the rule for their particular pattern of error as well as demonstrating application of that rule to their own writing.

No Scantron here. We are quickly climbing Bloom’s taxonomy and addressing numerous SLOGs.

The students are writing, revising, engaging in critical thinking, and learning about their writing process. But a finer point escaped the students—the difference I was trying to elicit between “editing” and “proofreading.” Even after my powerpoint and class discussion, a student response to the midterm assignment was to “fix the errors” as if there was nothing more to revision than fixing a mistake. That a thesis, although “somewhat effective” on the grading rubric, could not be revised further.

As I discussed with my students today and as I talk about the RLB Writer’s Studio as a “writing center” at Lincoln, I am often reminded of Stephen North’s 1984 essay in College English titled “The Idea of a Writing Center,” which was the basis for a “new” model of writing center that differed from the “basement, fix-it” shop approach to writing (VISIT US IN THE BASEMENT OF UNIVERSITY HALL!) Instead, North argued, “it represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula need to be student-centered” (438) as opposed to the “older” model where “instruction tends to take place after or apart from writing, and tends to focus on the correction of textual problems” (439).

Writing centers focus on creating better writers through collaborative, dialogue/question driven, non-directive measures. The goal is often a better writer, not necessarily a better written text. The analogy I often use is teaching people to fish so that they will never go hungry.

The more recent criticism of the process approach to writing, which developed in 60s through the 90s, comes from post process scholars such as Kent (2003) who assert that writing is social—a situated, public, and interpretative act. The product cannot be ignored.

So the Writing Center is stuck in the middle—which is right where we want to be.

WE DON'T FIX STUDENT WRITING (but we can help students fix their own writing).
WE DON'T DO REMEDIATION (but we can help remediate student writing).
WE WANT STUDENTS TO COME TO US (but any encouragement to help students find us will be accepted).
WE WORK WITH ANY WRITING ISSUE (believe it or not there is more to writing than grammar).
WE WANT TO PROMOTE WRITING (we want to promote writing).


After all as North stated, “if writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms, as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers” (446).

So I now enter into a dialogue with you. Help us create our Mission Statement. What do you see as the mission of the Roscoe Lee Browne Writer’s Studio?

References

Kent, T. (2003). “Introduction.” Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing Process Paradigm. Ed. Thomas Kent. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.

North, S. M. (1984). “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, 46(5), 433-446.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

How Can the Learning Resource Center Better Assist You and Your Students?

Guest Blogger: Patricia Fullmer

All of us at the LRC are interested in continuously improving our services and ensuring that we are effectively helping students and assisting professors. We would like to know your ideas about improving our services.

Tutoring, Persistence, and Retention


Several research studies provide evidence that tutoring can significantly assist a student in earning a higher GPA, persist in their education, and increase the retention of students. Rheinheimer, et al (2010) tracked 129 incoming Act 101 students at a public university in Pennsylvania and found that "…students who were tutored were 13.5 times more likely to graduate than students who were not tutored…" (p. 28). The total number of hours tutored significantly predicted cumulative GPA, credits earned towards graduation, and graduation. This recent study demonstrated that tutoring helps improve students’ academic performance, persistence, and retention.

The immediate positive feedback of an online tutoring system has been linked to an increase of metacognitive and cognitive skills (Saadawi, et al, 2009). In addition, Hodges and White (2001) found that tutoring is a contributing factor to the academic success of students, and Boylan, Bliss, and Bonham (1997) found that the training of tutors related significantly (p=<0.05) to higher first term GPA, higher cumulative GPA, and the retention of students. With the above evidence in mind, the LRC tutors, both professional and peer, are trained and certified through the International Tutoring Program Certification process of the College Reading and Learning Association.

Request for Your Response


We, in the LRC, would like to know how we can work more closely with faculty and rectify any problems faculty see. We also welcome your suggestions on how to have more students utilize the LRC so we can be more effective in aiding students to persist in their education and graduate.

References:

Boylan, H., Bliss, L., and Bonham, B. (1997). Program components and their relationship to student performance. Journal of Developmental Education, 20(3).

Hodges, R. and White, W. (2001). Encouraging high-risk student participation in tutoring and supplemental instruction. Journal of Developmental Education, 24(3), 2-11.

Rheinheimer, D.C., Grace-Odeleye, B., Francois, G.E., and Kusorgbor, C. (2010). Tutoring: A support strategy for at-risk students. Learning Assistance Review, 15(1), 23-34.

Saadawi, G., Azevedo, R., Castine, M., Payne, V., Medvedeva, O., Tseytlin, E., Legowski, E., Jukic, D., and Crowley, R. (2010). Factors affecting the felling-of-knowing in a medical intelligent tutoring system: The role of immediate feedback as a metacognitive scaffold. Advances in Health Science Education, 15, 9-30.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Teaching Matters and So Does Assessment: How Not to Assess Student Learning

Guest Blogger: Safro Kwame

If the Middle States' visiting team of 24th September 2010 has taught us anything, it may be that teaching matters and so does assessment of teaching! The team's report suggests the following to me:
(a) a need for an immediate change in our habits and assessment of student learning, (b) a need for faculty to take ownership of the assessment of teaching,
(c) a need for appropriate software to collect and analyze assessment data, and
(d) a need for an internal Middle-States type of assessment committee that will do what the external one (from Middle States) has done, i.e. evaluate our assessment efforts and make appropriate recommendations.

QUESTION: What did you get from the Middle States visit of 24th September 2010?

SUGGESTION: Look at Middle States' standards and guidelines on assessment and indicate whether you agree with the visiting team's report (that we are not in compliance with standard 14) and indicate why (you agree or disagree).

REFERENCES

1. See Faculty Meeting Minutes of 29th April 2008 for my original proposal for assessment

We should (1) stop doing what we have been doing about assessment or significantly improve upon it, and (2) immediately implement the Middle States evaluation team's suggestions and recommendations on assessment. Example for Consideration: Each instructor may, accordingly, design a simple test of student learning outcomes which could be electronically scored or graded and automatically processed and analyzed for program, department, school and university characteristics and recommendations. Thus, in addition to submitting a gradesheet at the end of each semester, each instructor can turn in an assessment sheet or report at the end of each semester (after grades have been submitted). – Safro Kwame, 4/29/08


2. See Faculty Meeting Minutes of 3rd February 2009 for my follow-up proposal for assessment

In a simple and easy way, (a) Middle States wants faculty to regularly assess some or a few of the goals and objectives of courses and programs, apart from the courses and students themselves, (b) share and discuss the results, and (c) implement changes resulting from the assessment and discussion.

An Example: One Type of Assessment:

1. Select 2 or 3 of your most important goals or objectives. Make sure they are (easily) measurable.
2. Set 2 or 3 questions specifically for each goal or objective.
3. Get students to answer the questions.
4. Find an easy, e.g. automatic or electronic, way to score the answers to the questions and analyze the results; e.g. by using assessment software such as Exam View or getting IT to acquire and administer appropriate software.
5. Discuss the results with your colleagues and, preferably electronically, forward the results and recommendations (which may include changes) to your supervisor and/or central coordinating unit which could be IR, Chairperson, Dean, or VP.
6. Make appropriate changes, e.g. to your syllabus, examination or content or delivery of course, as a result of your assessment of learning goals and objectives.

Note: You need (a) software to create, score, analyze, forward and collate assessment, and (b) personnel to support or assist in creating, scoring, analyzing and processing assessment. Consult IT, IR and VP. – Safro Kwame, 2/3/09


3. See News Report on the Need for Assessment Software:

New Software Aids in Assessment, The Chronicle Vol. 53, Issue 30, Page A37 3/30/2007 By Dan Carnevale

Facing greater demands for accountability, colleges turn to technology to analyze mounds of data. Richmond, Va. The last time Virginia Commonwealth University had to prepare for an accreditation review, officials here found themselves overwhelmed with data. The university's accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, was asking for more information than ever before about how much students were learning: grades, test scores, written evaluations, and other measures. Much of that information was scattered throughout the institution - kept in computer files and storage drawers. So Jean M. Yerian, then the director of assessment, led the development of a computer program that would organize and analyze all the assessments of students being done on the campus. The computer program, dubbed Weave, not only helped the university satisfy its accreditors, but also appealed to other colleges, which wanted to use it to prepare for their own accreditation reviews. "We started out as solving our own problem and ended up developing something that can help others as well," says Ms. Yerian. Last year Virginia Commonwealth spun off the project as an independent company called WeaveOnline. Ms. Yerian resigned her post at the university last month to become director of assessment management for the company, which has already attracted more than 40 colleges as clients. Supply is slowly meeting the demand. Companies such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and Datatel have developed software that helps conduct institutional assessments. Other companies, such as Oracle and eCollege, have plans to jump into the game as well.

Caribbean University Selects Blackboard Outcomes System to Assess Student Learning

Dec 11, 2007 University Is First in Latin America to Implement Comprehensive Institutional Assessment to Meet Accreditation Standards PHILADELPHIA During the annual conference of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Blackboard Inc., a leading provider of enterprise education software and services, announced that Caribbean University in Puerto Rico has selected the Blackboard Outcomes System(TM) to assess student learning across its system of four campuses, and plan for and measure continuous improvement in institutional effectiveness, to help continue to meet the rigorous accreditation standards set by the Commission.

WEAVEonline is a web-based assessment system that helps you to manage accreditation, assessment and quality improvement processes for your college or university.

The Blackboard Outcomes System helps institutions efficiently meet the demand for increased accountability and drive academic improvement with evidence-based decisions. The Blackboard Outcomes System makes planning and assessment easier and evidence-based.

The TrueOutcomes Assessment Manager is a complete, web-based solution that facilitates every aspect of Learning Outcomes Management from assigning, assessing, and tracking to analyzing and making evidence-based decisions to improve student learning outcomes and facilitate continuous improvement.

eLumen Achievement is an information system for managing a college's attention to student achievements, learning outcomes and education results. It is specifically designed to facilitate authentic assessment processes that are faculty-driven, student learning-centered, standards-based, and (now, with eLumen) system-supported.

Tk20 provides comprehensive outcomes assessment systems that let you collect all your data systematically, plan your assessments, compare them against specified outcomes/objectives, and generate detailed reports for compliance, analysis, and program improvement. A leader in assessment, Tk20 offers a complete set of tools for managing outcomes-based assessment and measurement of student learning as well as institutional activities such as program improvement, curriculum mapping, institutional effectiveness, and reporting.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Teaching Service, Learning Fun

Michelle Petrovsky, Guest Blogger

Our recent discussions of assessment seemed to give short shrift to an important teaching tactic: service learning. Relating classroom activities to conditions, events, and trends in the larger world enhances students’ interest in those activities. That in turn reinforces competencies and skills gained.

In my Web Programming class (CSC 201) in Spring 2009, service learning was at first absent. Students were lectured on, led through lab work in, and mentored regarding topics including:
HTML (the “native language” of web pages, that uses components like the ‘tag’ BODY and the ‘attribute’ BGCOLOR)

MySQL (a full-function database management system quite comparable to high-end packages like Oracle; widely used on servers that offer Web-based functions that require dynamic data, such as purchases)

PHP (one of two programming languages – the other is Perl – almost universally used to provide interactivity between Web browsers and servers; such interactivity can’t be provided by HTML)

Despite their all being upperclass computer science majors, and therefore having significantly more than a nodding acquaintance with programming concepts and practices, my students slogged. Writing lines like

<BODY TEXT="#435D36" BGCOLOR="#F5F5F5">

to define the background and text colors of a web page, rather than pointing and clicking in a program like DreamWeaver, is both challenge and effort, even for the computer-very-literate.

Noting the slog and seeking some way to ameliorate it, I talked to the class about reworking their semester project, by including in it a service learning experience. At first skeptical, they quickly warmed to the idea. The group's first design decision? That the web site they would create, and the MySQL database and PHP programming that might be needed to support it, should address topics my folks felt would be of interest to the entire LU student body.

Direct, indirect, and even outright subjective assessment tools indicated that connecting classroom activities to a larger context improved student performance. Grades on subsequent quizzes and exams were higher than those on the midterm. Projects began to be completed with fewer requests for assistance. Group work proceeded more smoothly, with less and less instructor monitoring needed. And I saw clearly that my students’ enjoyment of and enthusiasm for CSC 201 had increased. They were not only learning, but having fun doing so. The website they created is still available, at

http://compsci.lincoln.edu/csci/csci.htm

Monday, September 13, 2010

Lincoln's Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement: What Can We Offer?

Guest Blogger: Yvonne Hilton

The Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (CTLE) is this year working to make a remarkable impact in the area of faculty development at Lincoln University. As the director of this program, I see it as a resource providing various workshops, seminars and activities to help strengthen the pedagogical acumen of faculty. CTLE wants to provide opportunities to glean from the wealth of wisdom we have within our walls, as well as from other knowledgeable professionals that reside outside of our campus.

We (the CTLE Advisory Board) believe a good place to start is to hear from you. We want to know what are your interests and challenges as university faculty. To this end, we have developed a survey that we will ask you to complete at this week’s faculty meeting. Feedback from this survey will give us insight on the types of programs faculty want and need to be the best they can be.

CTLE is very small as it is in the beginning stages of existence. Therefore, we ask for your cooperation, your understanding, and your patience as we grow and mature. Meanwhile, please share with us some of the things you would like to see CTLE do this year. Perhaps you have taught at other institutions with similar programs. Share the types of programs and services you experienced there. Tell us your thoughts and opinions so that we can work toward making this year beneficial for everyone.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Whence Cometh Academic Excellence and Student Success at Lincoln University

Guest Blogger: Grant D. Venerable

I want to return to the theme of the first faculty meeting of the academic year on September 8, 2009 when I presented excerpts from Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize Lecture in Literature:

"Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me whether it is living or dead."
"I don’t know," she says. "I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands."

But that is exactly our case today, at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania.

And if you think we have problems, consider number one ranked Harvard University, which is having an identity crisis of the first order. Harvard is struggling with whether or not the scholarly study of theology or faith is a proper mission of a great university in a secular society that prizes reason as the greatest of all human attributes. Not even the Harvard Board of Overseers has stepped in to take sides in the debate. That makes me feel for Harvard, as I sense that the exercise of free will to ignore the scholarly study of faith in human societies will spell ultimate educational peril for Harvard. I would also say that Lincoln University can count itself fortunate as Lincoln’s Trustee Board has viewed our national rankings with alarm and taken a definitive step in the new overarching themes to appeal to the Lincoln University faculty to radically transform how we manage teaching, learning, advising, and all facets of student life outside of the classroom.

Trustee Boards signal their desires through the passage of resolutions and the pronouncement of policy. By law, it may do this without any formal consultation with anyone outside of itself. Many current notions of shared governance consider this to be illegal (It isn’t.) or unconscionable (Possibly.), but be that as it may, the states have charted universities to operate and have vested all of the power and authority in a Board of Trustees.

The Lincoln University faculty now has opportunity to ignore, resist, or embrace the institutional reality of a Trustee Board empowered to set policy. It has opportunity to embrace and participate in shaping policy implementation in a way that accords with its view of higher education practice that helps our youngsters succeed.

Regional accreditors―like the Middle States Commission on Higher Education―are voluntary and associational entities. They are federally chartered to impose rules on how educational entities must operate. But these are voluntary associations; entities that do not measure up face sanctions of varying levels of severity, the most severe being loss of association membership and loss of accreditation and the right to receive Title IV financial aid for students.

The most recent accreditional mandates require that all institutional decisions are to be made on the basis of assessment of measurable student learning outcomes in each class that is taught and in every co-curricular activity. Lincoln just submitted its report to Middle States and we will know by the end of June 2010 if we passed muster on having in place an assessment plan that yields assessment results that are no longer “limited and sporadic,” but comprehensive and systematic. We will know in June how well cooperation of the faculty and student affairs staff played out with the assessment effort to help or hinder us.

The next test we face is the current reality of the Trustee Board’s strategic priorities embodied in the new overarching themes. The faculty will be asked to give formal consent to the following themes and the student outcomes to which they are coupled.

Overarching Themes
  • Embrace an academic culture that improves the university’s reputation measured by teaching, research, and service, and to embrace an ethic that fosters Graduate School-Ready Standards for all Lincoln students.
  • Structure and sustain an environment that provides each student with the best opportunity for their academic, cultural, social, physical, mental, and spiritual success.
  • Provide a mechanism to financially support the university’s strategic initiatives and to ensure the effective delivery of the university’s operational and support services measured by both professional efficiency and customer service.

Specific Objectives
  1. Recruit and enroll 35% freshman with SAT scores of 900 or better for Fall 2010.
  2. Increase freshman to sophomore retention rates to 85% by Fall 2012.
  3. Increase the six year graduation rate to 48% by Fall 2012.
  4. Rank among the top ten HBCU Ranking by Fall 2012.

Student outcomes
How good do we want our students to be?
  1. Academically capable to matriculate at a top-fifty graduate or professional school
  2. Professionally prepared to be identified as a high-potential employee and fast-tracked within the company.

Finally, paraphrasing from Toni Morrison’s story when the old woman says, "I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive," I would say that I am optimistic about the path forward for this historic and venerable institution. I cannot know whether the future of Lincoln University is dark or bright. But what I do know is that it is in your hands.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

How Not to Become Tools of Our Tools

Guest Writer, Nancy Evans

We have been using WebCT since 1999 and it is soon to be defunct when Blackboard, its current owner, will no longer support it. I have invited faculty to review some options and we have narrowed our search to Desire2Learn, a Canadian company which has managed to escape Blackboard's buyout, and Moodle, an open source course management system supported by Moodlerooms.

Let's clarify. An open source course management system is based on software which is not copyright protected. Since the source code for the software is available to anyone, users may change it, add to it and improve it as they see needs arise. And it is free.

So, why use a course management system? It is most advantageous to non-traditional students who may live at a distance from campus or cannot come to campus for classes. But these are not the only students who can benefit.

Perhaps an instructor wants computer-based or internet-based enhancements to their instruction. This is done by giving students access to specific information, access to each other in discussion groups, by calculating and posting grades online, by creating test banks and controlling access to tests, or by providing a learning environment very different from a traditional classroom — all in a password-protected online world.

And what about the online world at large? How can one gain access to people and information on the internet? A course management system can gather in one place controlled access to social networking tools and provide guidelines for students working on the internet.

Let's clarify. Social networking tools are free internet-based applications that allow one to share information and media with others. Examples include the ubiquitous Facebook, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr, as well as the somewhat lesser-knowns, such as Ning, Meebo, dimdim, and SlideShare (see the ATS website for explanations). Note that though you may be able to control your privacy to some extent, you should consider social networking tools as opening your life up to the world.

So why not use a blog instead of a course management system? Simply put, ease and control. Most course management systems are quite linear in design, offering a default set of elements: drop box, discussion list, gradebook, chat room, email. These tools reflect a fairly traditional teaching approach - presentation, discussion, assessment - and most instructors use these elements easily and successfully. And most instructors are effective in classes organized on this model, whether in class or online. Here is a traditional course management system.


However, more modern course management systems offer more customization and new features associated with social networking tools, such as wikis and blogs. The course itself can look different and can be laid out as a portal (or not - there are choices). The portal layout will still give access to the traditional course management tools, but it changes how the instructor designs the course and how students interact with the tools. The portal design looks more like a website or a blog and may encourage delving into the tools to see which ones serve one's needs and which tools will further the learning objectives of the course.

Most instructors want to know what a course management system - or any technology - can do and how hard is it to learn. I think a better question is how can a course management system, or any technology, meet my pedagogical goals and my students' learning objectives?

How might an instructor's choice of course management tools be affected or determined by learning objectives? Consider these broad learning objectives:

  • Students will demonstrate a depth of knowledge and apply appropriate methods of inquiry
  • Students will interpret information, respond and adapt to changing situations, make complex decisions, solve problems, and evaluate actions
  • Students will demonstrate the inclination to be life-long learners, a concern to become and remain well informed, the ability to retrieve and manage information appropriately, open-mindedness regarding divergent worldviews, and a willingness to reconsider and revise their own views when warranted (K-State Undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes. http://www.k-state.edu/assessment/slo/undgradobj.htm Retrieved 3/30/10).
In response, consider these questions:
  • How is a student's understanding of drug rehabilitation programs (for example) enhanced by access to actual programs and counselors online? How can that knowledge be share and compared with other students, even those at other universities?
  • How does a student-run blog help students interpret, respond and adapt to new information?
  • How can an instructor encourage students' innate or latent curiosity in a subject with internet and course management tools?

We will move into a new phase of online learning and teaching when we choose a new course management system. How will we make our courses more effective, more responsive to learning objectives, more responsive to students? How can we enrich our students' learning? What new tools, or old ones, will we choose?

And, finally, how will we avoid this technology trap:

"Men have become the tools of their tools." -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Teaching/Politics

Guest Writer: Chieke Ihejirika

Teaching is a lot of things. It is an exercise in delivery and the midwifery (Plato) of knowledge about certain subject matter. It is for me an opportunity to do, at least, four things, namely: put forward my original ideas seeking publication; comment on other people’s ideas in a systematic manner; ensure that the students participate in the discourse in a way that leads to some expansion of their awareness of the subject matter; and it must involve some extrapolation seeking relevance for their daily life.

When I teach American government and politics, I am confronted by the current quagmire or deadlock in government, especially the inability to solve any of the major problems facing America. Common sense seems to suggest several solutions, but the reality seems impossible to manage. But what is the reality? The reality is artificial complications created by self-seeking persons playing God in their opposition to change.

One theme I want to share with the community is the future of America as we know it. This country was founded on the principle of "No taxation without representation." This principle held sway until the 20th Century. Yes! Prior to the Great Depression America operated on the Jeffersonian dictum that "Government is best that governs the least." Under the political economy of slavery and discrimination, government was able to escape its basic duties to the people under the 'social contract', by simply denying some of its citizens their basic rights.

Things have changed as justice seems to have been enthroned universally in the country. Hence, citizens who were earlier denied basic rights and privileges of citizenship now demand and get those rights, including social security and unemployment benefits, and these have to be paid for. Yet the only way government gets money is through taxes. Since the twentieth century, the people have gotten used to getting benefits from their government to help them with economic difficulties, and the national government itself has also grown very big as a global power which is also carries a big price tag. Can the country continue its aversion to taxation? I think the real fraud is making the people believe that the country can sustain itself and provide them with the necessary benefits they now cherish only by borrowing. American politicians, especially those of the ideological right, have since adopted the strategy of deception by making the people vote for only those who claim they will not raise taxes. Unfortunately, the people have naively, bought this baloney. Yet, when they get in there, they only borrow more, thus mortgaging the future of their posterity. The politicians have chosen to represent the people but without allowing themselves to be taxed. They still take all the financial remunerations of the offices they occupy on borrowed funds, even from the countries future rivals. They cynically know that it the poor masses that will pay this debt they continue to accumulate on the country. Besides, the interest alone is sure to deprive the government of future resources with which it could provide for the most vulnerable member for decades to come.

Questions:
Can the American political economy continue to grow as it did under unfettered laissez faire in the era when welfare capitalism has become the norm in the major industrial economies of the world?

Could it be that the American capitalist is moving abroad because of the loss of slave labor in America?

Saturday, March 13, 2010

What is Praxis and how can every department help our students pass it?

Guest Blogger: Emery Petchauer

Praxis I is the common name for the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) or teacher licensure test(s) that all students in Pennsylvania must take in order to become certificated teachers. Not only must students pass it to become licensed teachers, they must pass it (i.e., a reading, writing, and math test at roughly 8th grade content—approximately 40 questions each) before they can declare education as a major. Thus, education is a major that students must test into. This gatekeeper position of the exam is not because it identifies students who hold promise as effective educators; rather, the position is due to program accreditation demands set by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (as it the 3.0 minimum GPA requirement)

At time of this writing, there are 41 students enrolled on the main campus who have passed Praxis I. Some of these students passed all three parts on their first attempt, and some passed on multiple attempts. There are approximately 25 more students who have passed different combinations of the three required sub-tests and are working toward passing all of Praxis I. This number of passing students has increased since the education department centralized our preparation efforts in 2007 by creating the Praxis Cohort tutorial, and these efforts are modified each year to continually improve our program.

Despite these improvements and efforts, passing Praxis remains a significant challenge for many of our students and is the most common reason students change majors or are counseled to do so. This difficulty in passing Praxis is due to (a) some inadequate high school educations, (b) previous failure experiences with standardized tests, (c) the cultural and social class bias of such tests, and (d) misinformation about the test, which creates cognitive and affective dispositions that decrease the likelihood of passing (i.e., the ideas that “nobody” passes the test).

Since Lincoln University holds accredited teaching programs in many secondary fields (e.g., mathematics, biology, English, Spanish, history and social studies, etc.), each school on campus graduates teachers. In this way, each school can be a part of successfully preparing our students to pass Praxis by content and disposition. Preparation in terms of content is rather straightforward in that some classes in the mathematics, English and mass communications, and education departments (and thus our three schools) connect most directly with the three areas of Praxis I. The second area, dispositions, I believe is equally important and is more relevant to every department on campus.

What people believe about their capabilities on specific tasks significantly shapes the decisions they make, how much effort they exert, how much they persistence through obstacles, how much stress and affective burden they experience, and their perceptions of accomplishment. Beliefs, in fact, are often more important to motivation and affective states than what is objectively true. These points come from the extensive body of research on self-efficacy ala Albert Bandura (1997). Self-efficacy is shaped by four information sources: previous mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal and social persuasion, and physiological states.

What all of this means to every department on campus is that by giving students vicarious successful experiences (e.g., highlighting the successful experiences of students “just like them”), and by giving students positive verbal and social persuasion about Praxis related skills (e.g., “I’ve seen your writing in class, and I think you will pass Praxis writing), professors play an integral roll in helping improve students’ Praxis efficacy. Similarly, being careful not to talk about the test and testing experiences in ways that decrease self-efficacy (e.g., “Lincoln students don’t do well on Praxis”) helps our students pass.

Here are some other factual pieces of information that you can easily tell students when the topic of Praxis comes up:
  • People just like you pass Praxis all the time
  • Some people pass the first time they take it; some have to study to pass
  • There are over 40 students on campus right now who have passed all parts of Praxis
  • One students last year missed only 1 question on the math test
  • Another student’s math score improved 13 points (out of 40) after studying for the math test for 8 weeks
  • You only have to get about 55% correct to pass—not 100%

Here are some things to avoid saying because they will likely decrease self-efficacy and/or they are not true:
  • African American students do not perform well on standardized tests
  • Lincoln students don’t to well on Praxis
  • You can’t really study for Praxis
  • I was never good at tests like that

Related Resources:


Bandura, A. (1997).
Self-efficacy: The exercise of self control. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Bennett, C. I., McWhorter, L. M., & Kuykendall, J. A. (2006). Will I ever teach? Latino and African American students’ perceptions on PRAXIS I. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 531-575.

Goldhaber, D., & Hansen, M. (2010). Race, gender, and teacher testing: How informative a tool is teacher licensure testing? American Educational Research Journal, 47, 218-251.

www.ets.org/praxis

Friday, March 5, 2010

The Six Principles of Effective Teaching

Guest Writer, Safro Kwame

What do you think of the new (February 2010) book, Teaching as Leadership by Teach For America, which claims that highly-effective teachers do the following?

"(1) Set ambitious goals for student achievement; (2) maintain high expectations for their students at all times; (3) begin every endeavor with the key questions “Where are my students now versus where I want them to be?” and “What is the best possible use of time to move them forward?;” (4) make good judgments about when to follow through on their plans and when to adjust them in light of incoming data; (5) are their own toughest critics; and (6) refuse to allow the inevitable challenges that they face to become roadblocks."

One of their slogans is: “In God We Trust. Everyone Else Bring Data.”

Please post your data and answer. I would love to "hear" from you. The question is: do you agree with Teach For America about the six principles of effective teaching (either for college or pre-college teaching, for underprivileged or privileged students, or both)?

See excerpts from the book:

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/61/04704328/0470432861.pdf

See articles about the book:

What Makes a Great Teacher? The Atlantic Monthly January/February 2010

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/

Six Principles to Teach By, The San Francisco Chronicle, February 9, 2010

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/08/EDHU1BUEQB.DTL

See video about the book:

Secrets of America's Greatest Teachers, ABC World News, 2/26/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UmVXxpnB70

or

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/secrets-americas-greatest-teachers-9961455

Friday, February 26, 2010

Learner Centered Education

Guest Blogger: Frank Worts

There is much talk today concerning the movement from teacher centered education, “the sage on the stage” as identified in an earlier posting on this blog, and student centered learning. From my perspective, student centered learning encapsulates many of the issues that we have been discussing on this blog and at our Faculty forums. Let me begin by identifying my view of learner-centered education.

To me, student-centered learning relies on the identification of the experiences, interests, capacities and needs of the students as the starting point of the educational experience. Based on this view of the learners, the learning focus then must include the best theories of learning and practice that are effective in promoting high levels of motivation, confidence and achievement Concretely, again from my perspective, there are four concepts that I believe are needed to support learner centered education.

  1. Each learner’s life experience, environment, culture, interests, goals, and beliefs need be identified and respected to create independent thinkers.
  2. Unique differences such as emotional perspectives, learning styles, rates of learning, talents, confidence and motivation must be addressed to promote the highest achievement.
  3. Real life learning activities must help learners connect new learning with prior knowledge and experiences. This produces better learning.
  4. An environment with positive interpersonal interactions facilitates the learner to feel acknowledged, respected, and validated (Henson, 2003).

So how would one address these five concepts in creating a learning centered environment at Lincoln University? From my perspective, the overarching prospective to accomplish this perspective is that the Masters of Human Services Program (MHSP) has to be extended beyond the Graduate Center Classroom environment to the adult students’ personal life, family life, community life, and their work and environmental realities. WebCT (or other good course management system) provide useful tools to expand the classroom to better engage the adult student in applying the MHSP content to their multiple environments. I will attempt to address how the above four concepts are integrated into the Introduction of Applied Sociology & General Systems Theory of the (MHSP), and perhaps generate some discussion that positively addresses our undergraduate and graduate students educational experiences at Lincoln.

Student Perspectives and Frames of Reference

To identify the perspectives and frames of references for each of the student, WebCT’s student profile module is used. Each student completes a personal introduction template and posts their picture with the profile. This exercise is followed by a personal, in class introduction where classmates can ask questions of the presenter. I model the interaction by asking elucidating comments and supporting areas that are identified and have individual classmates offer support or connect to the life events. To enhance this self understanding, the discussion module is used on a weekly basis where course concepts are applied to either the family, community or work environment with connection to their personal learning. To promote positive interaction, each student must academically critique or support the discussion posts of at least two of their classmates. My experience indicates that students will continue the discussions during class to gain clarity. My role in the discussions is minimal except to redirect if discussions are off target or if concepts are used incorrectly and no other student has intervened to make the needed adjustment. This outside the class interaction provides a context for my face to face interactions during the time available during the Saturday classes.

Learning styles and intelligences, emotional, developmental and learning rate differences

I believe we all learn differently. The WebCT, the Electronic White Boards, and the Notes software can help to address these styles. I find that students who have great concerns about understanding a concept, assignment, or a work situation will use WebCT, e-mail, a messenger service to address their concerns, more readily that using the phone. To address learning rates, Web CT offers the possibility of learners being able to supplement their classroom interaction with non synchronization use of resources that are provided to clarify and intensify the understanding of course content. For instance, I have a “Current Events” discussion section where students discuss how concepts that were raised and discussed in class are viewed in the real world through press and academia. Using the White Board in conjunction with small group discussions/case studies/problem based learning provides an opportunity for individual student to exercise their various learning styles. Visual learning is facilitated by the students posting, finding, and noting critiques and finalizing group positions. These visual presentations can be saved and forwarded for either future discussion or a lesson summary. More time is spent in the higher learning activities --analysis, synthesis and evaluation-- with the materials being posted. Students use the linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal intelligences in organizing, designing and explaining and working with the group findings.

Real Life Learning and its connection to prior learning and experience

All content of the course is applied to the real life activities of the adult students. In Year One of the MHSP, all system concepts that are discussed are applied to the Master of Human Services program. These concepts are personalized when students apply and discuss themselves as systems and how they fit in with their families, work place and the MHSP. Since students enter the program often with the goal of being promoted in their agencies or organizations, real life examples or case studies generate enthusiasm.

A Positive Environment through Interpersonal Relationships

To facilitate a positive interpersonal environment and to develop meaningful personal relationships, the classroom is divided into learning clusters of 5 or 6 students. Tables are organized into squares so students can face each other and interact. Class time is divided between small group, large group and mini lectures that present material and set context for projects. Learning clusters work with each other around understanding and applying concepts on a weekly basis. In addition, the clusters are assigned a group project which requires research, analysis and a 30 minute presentation using appropriate multimedia to engage their classmates. All presentations are evaluated verbally by classmates and the instructor after completion, and each group is provided with a written evaluation and grade developed by the instructor.

Do these personal applications have applicability to education practices across the university? If so let’s dialogue.

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Henson, K. T. (2003). Foundations for learner-centered education: A knowledge base. Education, 124(1), 5+.

McCombs, B. L., & Whisler, J. S. (1997). The learner centered classroom and school. San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers.