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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?